* And didn't know to ask

Sex in Mazatlán can be a wonderful thing. Hell, sex anywhere can be a wonderful thing, and it doesn’t require expensive shoes or protective head gear. A statistician came up with the figure that every day, 200 million couples around the world have sex, which is a little over 2,000 couples at any given moment. At times during spring break in Mazatlán, we could own a measurable percentage of that stat.

Most of us remember back to the very day and time of the pivotal events of our lives, those things that forever changed our perspective of the world. Pearl Harbor, the Kennedy assassination, the Berlin wall coming down, 9/11, our first full sexual encounter. This latter could either be the joy of mutual exploration over a previously forbidden landscape, or an awkward groping in a dark space with a mysterious and unknown outcome. The first time was probably not the best time, but it’s a life-changing experience that indelibly burns its presence into our conscience till the day we die. From that moment forward, depending upon our gender, we thought ourselves more manly, or we worried about pregnancy and our reputation.

Society has had a fascination with sex ever since something resembling a society has been around. And societies being what they are, many judgments have been made about what was considered either proper or improper sex. Most laws intended to curb or control the sexual activities of men, women and animals are either cruel and unusual or downright ludicrous. Up until 1884, in Victorian England, a woman could be sent to prison for denying her husband sex. (I think I know some men who wish they had a time machine.) On the other hand, a Hong Kong law allows a betrayed wife to kill her husband, but she has to do it with her bare hands. I believe this explains the large numbers of women that take up martial arts in that Asian city.

If you’re a moose in Fairbanks Alaska, you’re not allowed to copulate on the city sidewalks. (I guess streets, parking lots or front yards are just fine for a pair of amorous moose.) I’m still unsure how the cops would enforce this law should they come across a couple of 1,000-pound perpetrators earnestly engaged on a city sidewalk. Florida law forbids anyone from having sex with a porcupine. Try as I may, I can’t wrap my mind around the circumstances that led the state representatives to waste their time on this piece of legislation. There must have been a wave of sex crimes involving porcupines we never heard about, but politics is a sticky business. In Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, it’s against the law to have sex with a truck driver in a toll booth. Does that mean that it’s OK in the rest of Pennsylvania? Here in Mazatlán it’s probably cheaper to pay for sex in a local brothel than pay the toll to Culiacan.

Besides volumes of rules and regulations to confine our sexual activities within socially acceptable parameters, statisticians have spent countless hours and mountains of money studying the sexual habits of all earthly creatures. Whether these studies were done by serious scientists or nerdy perverts looking for obscure grant funds, I’ll never know, but some of these findings are entertaining. A female black widow spider can devour up to 20 mates per day. This is a great opening for a witty remark, but if I wrote it, none of the woman I know would ever speak to me again.

Several studies show that sex can actually relieve headaches: A good orgasm releases the tension that restricts blood vessels in the brain. This goes for both men and women. So…what’s your excuse now?

I have to throw in a word about Mazatlan’s favorite summertime pest, the mosquito. These little blood suckers can only mate in the air, and they complete their sex act in two seconds or less. I know there are women reading this who are thinking back to similar encounters.

The word “sex” was coined in 1382. I’m not sure what it was called before that, but I’ll bet even the Neanderthal male had a descriptive monosyllable grunt easily understood by the lucky female. In fact, I think I once heard that distinctive grunt from an inebriated male at Joe’s Oyster Bar. Interestingly, the word “avocado” comes from the Spanish word “aguacate,” which is derived from the Aztec word “ahuacati,” which means testicle. Average guys everywhere will never look at guacamole the same again.

After extensive research, I’ve come to the conclusion that sex can either be an incredibly beneficial activity between loving adults, or a mechanical act between compliant participants. The choice is personal and deep-reaching, made individually and collectively at the same time. The human mind is a vast and immeasurably complex thing, valued by many over the human heart. However, it’s the heart that should be used to evaluate those whom you choose to become intimate with. But what the hell, this is August, go find someone to get hot and sweaty with in an air-conditioned space and enjoy nature’s free gift to us all.

Bodie Kellogg is a celibate writer that lives full time in Mazatlán and claims to have no intimate knowledge of, or interest in, the preceding subject matter. Comments? This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .