Thousands of amateur genealogists are probing their history, looking for royal titles in their lineage, hoping, maybe, they'll turn out to be a prince or dutchess -- but there's some people who have trouble with the title in their history. "Marquis de Sade" isn't really a name; it's a title of French aristocracy, but it hasn't been used since one very interesting person held the title in the 1700s. You know, the guy who they named sadism after. The Marquis fathered three children, and those children had children, so it only follows that someone has the right to hold the title of Marquis de Sade today. After hundreds of years denying their infamous ancestor, his descendants are looking to reclaim the title. The change seems to be less about holding on to royal titles in the modern age, but to acknowledge the literary innovation the last Marquis de Sade introduced to the world.

Sex always drives the leading edge of technology, so it should be no surprise that one of the cutting-edge videogames was Softporn, a text-adventure for your penis. It was designed by a computer programmer, but bought and distributed by one of the biggest adventure-style game developers at the time. That sexy, topless woman on the right? One of the greatest minds in puzzle-adventure games. Later, Sierra used more advanced computer technology, added graphics and animation, and rebranded Softporn as Leisure Suit Larry.

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Horny soldiers catching diseases from prostitutes was such a big deal that they had to make posters about it. You'd think that the lady lounging around with the words "VENEREAL DISEASE" on her lapel would be enough of a clue, but when you're talking about young hayseeds from the country, they're not quite that quick. She even looks so casual about it: "man, I'm bored. If only there was some guy I could infect, then I could kill some time until dinner. I wonder what G.I. Joe is doing right now..."

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Anyone who has actually thought about history knows this to be true, but I only recently found this study: premarital sex is normal. Ranging from between 75% to 91% -- 91% of women, that is -- have premarital sex.

So, let's look at this from an outsider perspective: back in the 1950s -- before Roe vs Wade, before the Pill, before online condom ordering -- people were having sex without being married. Look at old newspapers from the 19th century, all the stories of women whose dignity was 'sullied' by a man who didn't go through with the marriage...if people weren't doing it left and right, why would people have even imagined passing laws about cohabitation and sex outside of marriage?

The truth is, society has been doing just fine with everyone fucking all the time, married or not married. The democratic republic we're living in today was established by people who fucked each other when they barely knew what they were doing. Trying to pass laws that contradict the natural order of things has no effect.

Well, they do have an affect: they make people feel like shit for doing what their parents, and their parents' parents, and their great-great-great-etc grandparents did. OK, maybe grandma was one of that 9% that didn't fuck before marriage, but it can't be all of them.

So, before you get all "there's too much premarital sex, let's spread abstinence only!" get some fucking perspective: there has always been premarital sex, and the world has never fallen apart because of it. Focus on making sex safe and supported, and then maybe the world will be a little bit better of a place.

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Amsterdam's legalized prostitution and red-light district intrigue visitors from all over, but what do you really know about it? Now you can learn more about the history of prostitution in Amsterdam at the Red Light Secrets museum of prostitution. Sorry, you can't actually get a hooker there, but a little eye-opening understanding might go a long way in enjoying yourself.

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You know this is B.C., because this art is positively sinful. Tablets depicting Mesopotamian doggystyle have been discovered, and "there's a scholarly debate over what purpose the erotic art served." No, fuckers, there's not much to debate about this. The purpose for these, despite any thin veil of religious or artistic respectability, is that people like looking at depictions of sexual acts.

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More informative than a Cracked article would be if they had one of their expert reporters just write about it, this infographic tells the awesome story of modern rock music through timelines and illustration. I love the "Subject matter line because, let's face it, guys singing about women is, really, what rock is all about, particularly the fixation on boobs of the 80s, and the pleasant diversion into hallucinogenic bizarrity through the 1970s. As somebody who's lived through those decades and remembers the music of the time, it's no wonder irony is such a well-cultivated emotion today: the most economically strong period on the timeline - the 90s - is the one most filled with despondent, cranky music. With the current recession echoing the dark days of the 80s, I'm all for huge boobs taking over our airwaves again. Wait, does music come on airwaves any more? Maybe that's the problem - people are more whiny when sitting in front of their computers. Point taken.

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If you're ever time travelling, fucking your way through the centuries, the New York Times has your back: they've found a guide to New York whorehouses from 1870, complete with addresses and thumbs-up and thumbs-down, plus advice on how not to get fucked over in the process. There's even an interactive guide - purely for historical purposes, of course. Bro Bible has some more analysis, for those inclined to take advice from bros about hos.

Apparently, you don't have to count everyone you've had sex with, according to The Frisky. Leave out incomplete sessions, times you were too drunk to know what happened, or if you just regret it more than all the others you regret. Didn't happen! Women who read the Frisky: if you have so much sex that you're worried about which ones you can exclude, you're a bit on the slutty side. Nothing wrong with that: but if you're like me, you count every damn one of them in order to have even a slightly respectable number. I would totally turn my grandma in to the cops for her pot farm if I could have a handful of sexual experiences that I could conveniently forget when asked about my sexual history.

And you thought sex was some God-given pleasure to make humans happy. Pfsh, that's stupid. Sex is because we'd die from all the parasites, according to a new study. Asexual clones remain tasty and appealing to parasites who've already figured out their defenses. Sexual reproduction, however, continually makes unpalatable, hard-to-crack creatures. Sounds like everyone at the bar last night, amirite? Anyhow, it helps explain the reason the more-expensive sexual reproduction gets preference: after a while, the parasites take over otherwise.

This is totally not what I would have expected: History students have the most sex, followed by politics, philosophy, and economics. The economics dweebs have more sex than the art students, the music students, the athletics students? Ah, there might be the rub: the smart, sexy sports players with scholarships and their names on billboards want to be politicians and economists. Who heard of a running back aspiring to teach high school art? Put them in a classroom of undersexed nerdy history-major chicks, and you've got a perfect storm of sex. And gonorrhea, but, well, college isn't perfect.

Nerve answers the question: how do you disclose your sexual history without looking slutty? I find this amusing, due to the fact, as Gracie's partner, looking at her history as an escort is like putting a quarter in a videogame where the highest score is ten million points more than my best game. "*sigh* oh, well, playing it is still fun..." Anyhow, the general answer: if she wants to know, tell her.

A small carved figure has been discovered, placing the origin of nude female statues at over 5,000 years earlier than the Venus of Willendorf and its ilk. 5,000 years difference is lie comparing ancient Greek works to modern art; most will argue that the Greeks were far better at it. The most appealing feature of this newly-found art are its high, perky breasts, defying all logic and gravity, showing that those ancients did believe in a god.

The FirstPost has an excellent, but short, photogallery of actors on the set of the loopy British comedy Withnail and I; it was on some all-movie cable channel a while back, and it was great, in that 'droll-not-sure-what-they're-kidding-about' way that's so much fun in British cinema. Harry Potter's uncle plays a pushy gay guy - that makes it awesome to begin with.