Well, we don't suppose it's exactly news that new Voice "sex" columnist Essie Carmichael's column continues to be the least hot thing we've ever read. But we were, frankly, a little surprised to find that Carmichael has apparently not even read a single one of her predecessor's columns. To wit, this excerpt from her latest paean to being old and not getting laid:

I actually heard myself telling him, "I can't do it. I can't take care of the kid, cook, vacuum, change the kitty litter, and be nice to you. It is just too much!" He understood. He stayed on his side of the bed. I felt bad. So I went to a sex-toy store on the Lower East Side called Babeland. Everyone at Babeland was very young. I watched a couple in their early twenties with asymmetrical haircuts shop for toys. They were happy. It seemed too late for a cranky, 40-plus married mother withholding sex from her husband.

Okay, Rachel Kramer Bussel was (well, is) basically like a racecar sponsored by Toys in Babeland (it's TOYS IN BABELAND, Essie!) Fuck, the Village Voice is basically sponsored by Toys In Babeland -- that's where they get, like, half of their ad money!!! Where will this sexless, clueless madness end??

Update: Sigh, an unfuckable psuedonymous Village Voice columnist knows more about sex toy stores than we do. It's been "Babeland" for two years. more »

Well, "my 2007 is going swimmingly" era has ended, but I will bounce
back. I hope. My next Voice column (running in next week's paper
though probably online tomorrow evening) will be my last, according to
a phone call I just got from the editor in chief David Blum (they are
hiring someone else to write those weeks but I don't know who that is
though I guess we'll all find out very soon).

That's soon to be ex Lusty Lady columnist Rachel Kramer Bussel, in a mass email, on her recent unceremonious ouster from the Voice. We wish her the best in her search for a new column-writing gig, but we're mostly curious about who those meritocrats at the famously Ivy-obsessed free paper will be hiring to fill Bussel's fetishy Fleuvogs. What's Columbia Spectator sex columnist Miriam Datskovsky up to lately, anyone know? more »