Dan Renzi, 32
In 1996, Dan was plucked from 40,000 hopefuls and cast in the fifth season of MTV’s still-expanding Real World franchise, The Real World: Miami. He’s now a certified HIV counselor and working on his first book. He blogs at danrenzi.typepad.com.
My new girlfriend is coming over for the first time. What ’90s movie should I rent to ensure I get laid? Striptease? Showgirls?
Ghost, of course. Is there even a question? Showgirls is, by far, the least erotic thing. If you want to get laid, you’re better off renting season one of Golden Girls. Striptease? Showgirls? That’s whack-off material. I’m worried for this date, seeing as how you’re so self-absorbed you think these films will put her in the mood.
I’m having an affair. What advice can you give me for not getting caught?
Don’t enjoy it too much. Most of the times I’ve been caught doing something, I set myself up for that. It’s not that I wanted to get caught, but I wanted to expose myself to the risk, the thrill. When people get caught having affairs, a lot of the time — but not all the time — they leave a trail of breadcrumbs because it’s too good. They’re angry they can’t have it all the way and they want to stick it to the person they know it will hurt.
Have you ever slept with a fellow cast member or someone else on set? What advice would you give me if I decide to start sleeping with someone I work with?
Yeah, if you want to get work — please! For the record, I have never slept with anyone to get a job. However, I have gotten jobs as a result of people I have slept with. The key is not to target your sexual conquest — just be promiscuous enough that eventually you’ll hit something.
What about in an office?
Don’t do it. When you’re in a relationship, you naturally drift to other areas of your life during the day. Then you go back and share it with your partner. That’s what makes a great relationship — discovering new things all the time and entertaining each other. For relationships to work, you need the freedom to explore your own interests and have the thrill of going back and sharing it with someone who appreciates it. You need to have your own life. You need to have girl’s night out. You need to have these experiences away from each other. The human psyche is very complex and you need to explore other things. Those couples that are always together and really cutesy, they’re really boring. The best relationships are the ones where the husband can do something crazy and come home and tell his wife and she’ll laugh.
I just started dating a guy who keeps talking about his last girlfriend. How do I get him to stop?
The only time people talk about their exes is when the sex was really good. It doesn’t mean you can’t be good in bed too.
How do you have a future with this person then?
Get really good in bed. You could just complain, but then you’re that girl who complains about her boyfriend talking about his ex. Actions speak louder than words. Don’t complain and tell someone not to do something. Give them a reason to stop.
My boyfriend wants me to take a shower with him, but I’m self-conscious about my body. I’ve got rolls. How do I overcome this?
Take a bubble bath. It’ll allow you to hide what you want to hide. I’m sure the boyfriend knows the rolls are there. He doesn’t care. He likes them. He probably has no opinion about them at all. Men are very simple. She’s probably all worked up about her rolls and he just looks at them and then looks at her boobs. Get in the water, call to him and have
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the water running already when he comes in. That’s also a sexy power play because you get to make him take off his clothes while you watch.
Where can I find a quick summer fling?
Go to events that have a point. That gives you something to talk about. Go to a fundraiser for that new art museum. People say, "Oh, go to church or take a class at a community center." But you’re going to meet dorky people there. People who go to church to look for hookups are nerds. That’s like going to an AA meeting to hook up.
I dated this guy for a while about a year ago. Then we broke up amicably. Now we’re both single and I want to pursue him strictly as a fuck-buddy. Possible?
Honey, that’s not a fuck buddy. That’s ex sex, and it’s the best sex you ever, ever had. You know how to push each other’s buttons. You know that you are there 100% just for the moment, but at the same time there’s an emotional connection. Especially if you broke up on good terms, there’s a lot about that person that you like.
Furthermore, you know what to do. A lot of sex is the pleasure of getting someone else off. You want to do things that work on the other person. You’re much more selfish with a fuck buddy, but when it’s an ex, you’re like "Ha, ha! See what you’re missing?" You know that this person is there because they want to have sex with you. It’s flattering when someone says, "You know, our relationship didn’t work, but the sex was just so good I want to do it again."
I’m a woman and I suspect that my closest male friend has a crush on me. How do I ward him off without hurting his feelings?
It’s impossible. It’s not going to be a happy ending no matter what, if he really likes you that much. You can’t tell someone to stop liking someone. It’s like telling your kid to stop crying — they’re going to cry harder. Just make yourself scarce for a while, separate and not talk. Don’t say why. Just make yourself busy. He’ll start to get over it, and if he doesn’t you need to stop talking to him entirely.
Dustin Diamond, 29
Dustin played Samuel "Screech" Powers on NBC’s Saved by the Bell from the first episode (1989) to the last (1993). He went on to play Principal Belding’s assistant in the spin-off, Saved by the Bell: The New Class. These days, Dustin has been utilizing his fame to raise enough money to keep his house — doing stand-up comedy, wrestling other celebrities and selling his own line of "D-shirts." Buy one of your own at www.getdshirts.com.
Did President Clinton’s affair with Monica Lewinsky make oral sex more publicly acceptable?
Oral sex has always been acceptable. The bottom line is, regardless of your position, whether you’re a plumber or a president, it doesn’t matter. I think Clinton played it off well. From [in Clinton voice], "I did not have sexual relations with that woman," then all of sudden he’s like, "Well, hey baby, you know!" He handled it well. I don’t know why she kept the dress though.
My new girlfriend is coming over for the first time. What ’90s movie should I rent to ensure that I get laid?
The girls I tend to go for like The Crow.
The Crow?
Yeah, The Crow. The romantic story, the tragic love story. They were going to get married. They were brutally assaulted. She ended up dying. He ended up dying, but his ghost couldn’t rest. He went back and set the wrong things right. Fighting for justice and love and in the end he’s still dead, so it’s that sad, sad love story.
[To his girlfriend, Jennifer] What do you think is a romantic movie to bone by? There weren’t a lot of good humping movies in the ’90s. What about Sliver? Sliver is good. [To Jennifer] We’re going to watch Sliver and bone tonight. We’re going to tear it up. You’re going to hear bones crack.
Would you ever watch a sex video of yourself?
Doesn’t matter if you’re an actor or not, guys can’t videotape themselves having sex. And shouldn’t. Inevitably, as a guy, you look at yourself and you’re like, "Hey, yeah, all right! Check me out!" If you watch porn, the guys never do that. They never look at the camera.
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Have you ever slept with a cast member or someone else on set?
I had my share of escapades on the set. I went for guest stars or the extras. Every week, we had thirty different extras. It was like a smorgasbord. If we didn’t get along or things didn’t work out, next week it was a new day. A new go.
What advice would you give me if I decide to start sleeping with someone I work with?
Unless you’re going to marry and have kids with him, things are eventually and inevitably going to hit a standstill. Let’s say someone new comes along and you want to hook up with him. Now this person is going to be jealous and it’s going to cause discomfort. I say hook up with temps.
The girl I’m dating constantly brings up her ex in conversation. How can I get her to focus on the present?
You got to tap it so good that she falls asleep. If she doesn’t fall asleep afterwards, you have no chance. Rock it to sleep, baby. My test is that I’ll pop in a movie, but first get her down. If she can watch the movie afterward, I didn’t do it right.
My boyfriend wants me to shower with him, but I’m self-conscious about my body. How is a girl to overcome this?
It’s not her job to overcome it, it’s the guy’s job to help her overcome it. Make an effort to explore with your hands and head in those areas and make it okay. Also, he should talk about his beer gut. You’re drawing the attention off of her. Laughter can make you comfortable.
To be slick, I always take a dip in a spa. The girl feels cool because she can sit down under the water and only her head is exposed. When the guy gets out, he should do the gentleman thing and hold the towel up for her. Hold it in front where you can’t really see so she feels like it’s a safety shield. Then you can bring the towel around the back. Don’t wrap her around the front like a mummy, because then it’s like you don’t want to see her. Swing it around the back so that now she’s totally exposed. Then take a shower to clean off the chlorine. Start out in the bathing suit and then those can come off in the shower.
You’ve done this before? The spa trick?
Oh yeah.
You have a lot of moves.
Yeah, I can write a book of moves. They’re all tried and tested.
Where can I meet a guy for a summer fling?
Find a festival where bands are playing and people are drinking and dancing. Every place in the country has its own festival. Go to a place where people are going there specifically to hang out and watch a band. They want to be comfortable and still be available for options, should options appear. People are usually coming from out of town for festivals, staying in hotels that are usually within walking distance. Then they’re gone when the festival is over.
Who was your dirtiest crush from the ’90s?
I had a crush on Jennifer Connelly for a long time. She was in Career Opportunities. Her boobs were just huge. She looked like she was smuggling two hams. They looked like a midget mooning you. It was incredible. Then she did The Hot Spot. She was topless in that. I’d bone her even if my lady was in the room.
Do you have Screech stalkers?
I have Dustin Diamond stalkers. I have people who are fans of the show that show up — girls who have heard the legend of the D.
The eight-inch monster?
Eight?
Nine?
You didn’t listen to that [Howard Stern] transcript did you?
Ten?
Yeah.
Ten inches. Okay, good.
I have girls showing up and saying, "Ruin me." One of them, I don’t know if she had all of her teeth. I mean, most of them were there.
She sounds special.
She had a chinstrap, but no helmet. It was very bizarre.
Have you ever slept with someone to climb the ranks in your industry? Would you recommend it?
I never had the opportunity. Our executive producer was a guy in his sixties. Maybe if I were Zach . . .
I’m a woman and I suspect that my male friend has a crush on me. How do I deal with this?
Every guy who’s a friend with a girl wants to bone her. Unless it’s the gay guy friend. If a guy is friends with a girl and the girl ever wants to test it and say, "Let’s sleep together," 100% of the time the guy will go for it.
So you don’t think guys and girls can be platonic friends.
Put it this way. You know how many girls have said that’s not true? And you know how many girls I’ve boned that started out as just friends? Next time Jennifer and I fight, you and me go to the movies.
Jake Fogelnest, 27 
Jake rose to fame at the tender age of fourteen in 1994 when his TV show, SQUiRT TV, premiered on Manhattan public access and was quickly scooped up by MTV. Today, you can see Jake regularly on VH1’s I Love The . . . series and hear him on Sirius Satellite Radio.
My new girlfriend is coming over for the first time. What ’90s movie should I rent to ensure that I get laid?
Say Anything. Yes, it was released in 1989, but if you really want to make it happen, the ’90s is the wrong decade. John Cusack equals getting laid. Billy Baldwin equals something else entirely.
What advice would you give me if I decide to start sleeping with someone I work with?
People I know who work together and also go out always end up driving each other crazy. You can’t spend that much time together without going batshit insane. If you’re boyfriend/girlfriend and you’re in a band/sketch comedy group/investment banking firm together and you live together and one of you ends up buying a dog, you’re screwed. For a relationship to work, you have to make sure there’s time set aside to act weird alone in your apartment at four in the morning.
Did President Clinton’s affair with Monica Lewinsky made oral sex the more acceptable in the ’90s? What did we learn from it?
People reading hooksexup.com may be totally comfortable with blowjobs, but the rest of the country is really freaked out by them. In the ’50s, it was an activity that simply was not talked about. My personal attitude with Clinton: The guy got a hummer, big deal. If a President can’t be a scumbag and cheat on his wife, we might as well be in a nation of commies.
Who was your dirtiest crush from the ’90s? Would you still sleep with him or her now?
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I’ve never had a crush that was dirty. A crush is pure, innocent and John Hughes-approved. However, one time I fucked this junkie chick that was in the movie Bad Lieutenant and that was awesome. I wouldn’t do it again because it would be like watching The Deer Hunter on basic cable — a pitiful imitation of the original, edited for content, squeezed for time and pan and scanned with no respect for the original theatrical aspect ratio.
Have you ever slept with anyone to climb the ranks in your industry? Would you recommend it?
I would love if this were true, but the reality is that anyone who is really capable of helping your career is probably smart and would smell your shallowness a mile away. So you better be really hot. If you’re really hot, you’ll get fucked for sure, and perhaps that’ll lead to a speaking role on According To Jim.
I’m having an affair. What advice can you give me for not getting caught?
Be careful what you get from Netflix. If your significant other sees films like The Graduate and The Secret Of My Success in your mailbox, they might start to wonder. Why are you cheating in the first place? If you’re that bored with the person you’re with, get out of the relationship. Unless you enjoy spending time making each other miserable with passive-aggressive bullcrap. If you insist on continuing your illicit sinful activities, keep track of every little lie and when confronted deny everything loudly.
I’m a woman and my male friend has a crush on me. How do I ward him off nicely?
Just go out with him, okay? Please just fucking go out with him. Kiss him. He’s probably a great guy. What are you looking for anyway? Someone who gets you more?
Susan Powter, 48 
Susan’s "Stop the Insanity!" campaign impelled millions to exercise during the 1990s. "It was a decade of seven books, nine best-selling videos and four fucking infomercials," she explains. She maintains her size-two figure but has grown out her signature blonde crew-cut into dredlocks. See the latest on her health crusade on the Today show on August 8 and 9, visit her website and add her as a MySpace friend.
The most important thing I want to get out to people is that the only reason I’m working again is because you and I are talking directly. You didn’t go through six managers, did you?
No, there was no bullshit with you.
Today, my book is selling in Italy, Australia and Greece. And people buy it directly though me. We don’t have to go through corporations. Talent now has more control over their brand and how it’s distributed thanks to — praise Jesus — the internet. I can talk to you. I don’t have to meet you in New York in some hoity-toity bloody reporters thing. Although we’ll play that game too. I prefer this. It’s a real conversation between two people.
I want to have a summer fling. Where’s the best place to find one?
The Rosie gay cruise is a pretty good spot to meet a beautiful girlfriend. Kathleen and Rosie did what Julie from The Love Boat was far too coked up to do. I like to go places that are full of — my preference — beautiful women.
I’m a woman and I suspect my best guy friend has a crush on me. How can I ward him off?
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Tell the truth, whether it hurts or not. That’s what every women should do, always. Especially when they’re talking to boys.
How would she approach him? Ask him straight up if he has a crush on her?
She should literally look at him and say, "I have an instinct. I would never betray you by feeling something and not telling you about it, because you’re a friend of mine. My instinct is that you’re approaching this differently than me." If women can’t speak that, then we have no chance of anything. Treat him like a friend and tell him the goddamn truth.
What if an old flame recently gained weight? Someone you haven’t seen in years comes back to your life forty pounds heavier. You had high hopes of sleeping with said person, but once you see them, you’re turned off.
I’d tell the story of Stop the Insanity! One of the most painful experiences of my 260 pounds was when I was in an ice cream store. I swear to God. I bumped into someone who hadn’t seen me in two and a half years, and who had never seen me morbidly obese. The look on their face when they were pretending not to notice! It hurt so badly. You can say [to your old flame], "Oh my God, you look really different!" They know they’ve gained weight. Don’t be unkind by being polite. You know what polite is? Polite is an excuse for not telling the truth. It’s a load of shit. You can also approach it comically: "I’m not going to look at you and pretend you don’t look different! You know you look different." There are ways to do it, people. Everyone needs to grow up.
My boyfriend wants me to take a shower with him, but I’m self-conscious about my body. What can I do?
Say to him, "I will get butt-naked, high noon, when I’m good and goddamn well ready to. In the meantime, take your own shower." Then get working on getting lean, strong and healthy — not so you can get naked for him, but so you can naked for you. In the middle of the day, in a beautiful outdoor shower.
Wiley Wiggins, 29 
Wiley played Mitch Kramer, the nose-scratching, hair-fiddling freshman in Dazed and Confused in 1993. He’s still involved in independent film, video and interactive media. Peek at his Flickr photos on his blog, News of the Dead.
My girlfriend is coming over for the first time. What ’90s movie should I rent to ensure I get laid? Showgirls? Threesome?
If you actually like those movies and your girlfriend likes you, I have no advice for you. You’re both alien to me. ’90s sex movies . . . Sex, Lies and Videotape? Frivolous Lola? Bound? If your girlfriend gets hot after watching Showgirls, she’s probably a drag queen. Have fun.
Have you ever slept with a fellow cast member? What advice would you give me if I decide to start sleeping with someone I work with?
I’ve never slept with anyone on a movie set, but I have at normal jobs. I don’t think it’s generally a good idea. Sure, there are a few perks — somebody to give you a ride to work, lunch breaks are potentially more exciting — but in the long run it smacks of shitting where you eat as far as I’m concerned.
As far as advice goes, I’m not going to give anybody any seduction tips, because I don’t believe in it. If someone doesn’t feel compelled to fuck you for who you really are, then the whole thing is a charade. Sure, you can maneuver a little, but it’s either going to happen or it won’t. In my experience, these things are ninety percent chemical reaction anyway.
My new girlfriend constantly brings up her ex. How do I pull her into the present?
That’s a pretty big faux pas when meeting a new person. You might consider telling her that it makes you feel a little uncomfortable, or ask her if she feels like she still has stuff
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she needs to work out regarding her ex. I just got out of a long-term relationship and I’m probably guilty of talking about my ex around people I date now, but it’s difficult not to bring it up when the last four years of your life were inexorably intertwined with someone else’s. In short, let her know it bugs you, but let her get through it and work on making new memories with her as best you can.
Where can I find a quick summer fling?
The internet was invented for the purpose of initiating no-strings-attached sex. That, and for meeting deranged sexual predators who will tie you up in a cellar for a week, then fillet you with an electric knife while singing showtunes. I don’t know. Casual sex isn’t something you can really engineer, unless you’re willing to submit to some fairly creepy and dangerous behavior. It’s something that just happens when you meet someone who is in a place in their life where all they want is a snack, not a four-course meal.
Did President Clinton’s affair with Monica Lewinsky make oral sex more acceptable?
You’re asking me if oral sex was less acceptable in the ’80s than it was in the ’90s? I have no idea. I could never get anybody to go down on me when I was ten. All the girls in my elementary school were prudes.
Who was your dirtiest crush in the ’90s?
Sherilyn Fenn in Twin Peaks just about drove me into frothy-mouthed, rabid voodoo possession when I was a kid.
My boyfriend wants me to take a shower with him, but I’m self-conscious about my body. How can I cope with this?
Being scared to let a boyfriend see you naked is a red flag. In my experience, people who are horrified by their own bodies are usually more in need of therapy than exercise. Maybe letting someone else see you naked, and seeing that they’re not going to run away when they realize that you don’t look like a girl in a beer commercial, is the best therapy you could ask for. n°
Interviews by Alexis Tirado. Sex Advice From… appears on Thursdays. Have questions for the general public? Send them to .