Bird Hunting with the Essefficist

If you and your boyfriend take an ice cold bath he might be able to display some shriveling, er, shrinkage, in a not so G-rated place, Prunegirl. George Costanza notwithstanding, the shriveling you're talking about is caused because the skin on your hands and feet is thicker than the rest of your skin and contains a lot of dead skin cells, so it absorbs more water, causing it to swell. The tissue underneath this thick skin, however, does not swell, so the outer layers buckle. Hence, prunage.

If that isn't Dr. Science enough info for you, Prunegirl, you can go here to see what a bunch of brainiacal geeks have to say about it.

For those of you still drooling for more info on the good old Craig's List hookups issue, we got a solid response to the questions we sent to horny Casual Encounters people and it's actually quite informative. It's from a woman who posts looking for manlove. Here ya go, you salacious monkeys:

How many times have you posted on Casual Encounters?

Five or six.

How many responses do you get and what are they like?

The first few times I got almost 100 responses; then I started only leaving my posts up for a short time, 'cause that kept things more manageable. (From other people I talked to, this is pretty typical of a woman posting looking for casual sex with men.)

How often do you reply to people?

When I'm feeling like it, I usually reply to about ten people at once. In my active periods, this could be every couple weeks. It's been a while, though; I got kinda sick of it.

How often do you actually meet them?

I would say that an actual meeting results from maybe half of all e-mail exchanges. And an e-mail exchange will come from maybe one-fifth or less of responses. If I get, say, forty responses, I will probably only write back to five or six of them. Then maybe four or five will write back to me. I might have one or two dates.

How often do you actually end up sleeping with them?

I would say about half the time a date actually happens. At first it was less — I wasn't as good at predicting the chemistry, but now I know a lot more about it all and don't meet as many people, so the percentage might be a little higher.

In general, how has the Casual Encounters thing gone for you?

Fantastic! I love it. It's an endless source of new men, and I hate the bar scene but like to get laid, so it works really well for me. I've had some great sex and also met some people I actually really liked.

Anything else you can offer, positive or negative, would be great.

There's a great feeling of power that comes from knowing that the entire sexual universe of Craig's List is at your disposal.

So there you go, real live evidence that people other than gay men use Casual Encounters to mate with strangers. What a country.

Email your questions to the Essefficist or post 'em in the comments.