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 Could the legend of the LUG be nothing more than an exaggerated urban myth? You may not recognize the acronym, but there's a good chance you've known someone who might fit the description.  LUG is short for the tongue-in-cheek phrase "lesbian until graduation," which describes the seemingly common phenomenon whereby college and college-age women "experiment" with their sexuality, namely by engaging in sex with other women. Preferably in a hot tub. Or a common dorm shower. Or during a sleepover pillow fight. Or really any place that could accommodate a Porky's-style misogynistic fantasy. I'm not picky.According to the LUG model, these women's early-20s experiences might range anywhere from an anomalous casual sex encounter to a full-blown relationship. But the one thing they have in common has been an abandonment of this "experimental" phase in favor of a more traditional heterosexual long-term relationship which often ends in marriage and a family. But now there may be evidence that, contrary to popular belief, these women don't completely abandon their feelings of attraction for other women. That's what a University of Utah researcher is asserting. Dr. Lisa M. Diamond reports that, in a survey of women between the ages of 18-25, a quarter of those who identified as lesbians or bisexuals during those years no longer did five years later. But Diamond also found that among these LUGs, only one surveyed said she was no longer attracted to women, and that her experiences had only been a "phase." The rest said they still found women sexually attractive, even in they were in heterosexual relationships. This finding indicates that a change in name does not equal a change in behavior, Diamond told Reuters Health. "A woman might have changed her identity, but might not have changed her attractions at all," Diamond said. Diamond obtained her findings from a series of interviews over five years with 80 non-heterosexual women. Of the women who dropped their lesbian or bisexual identities during that time, half "reclaimed" heterosexual identities, while the rest gave up labels altogether. The Salt Lake City researcher said this may reflect women's struggles to fit "complicated personal experiences" into the "fairly rigid notion of sexual identity" in mainstream culture. While some women who changed their sexual identities said they did so because they had become involved with a man, Diamond added that 70 percent did so because they didn't feel comfortable putting themselves into either of the "boxes" of lesbian or bisexual labels. This change in attitude may be a natural result of the growing understanding of one's sexuality that comes with time, Diamond said. "As time goes on, women understand that sexuality is really complicated," she said. Mmmm… complicated… but sure makes for bathtime fun, eh? Mt. Mam Americans are stupid. First, there's the fact that while we're busy (at press time) pulling our diplomats out of Iraq to replace them with a missile-happy rain of terror and death, Warner Bros. is busy putting up billboards for their new film What A Girl Wants, which depicts a teenage nymph in a stars and stripes tank top, flashing a peace sign.  Wonder how that ad campaign would go over in Baghdad right now. Or 95 percent of the planet, for that matter.Then we have the little issue of dealing with a culture that never seems to grow up and mature. Our attorney general covers up Greek-era statues, and now a popular ski resort in Wyoming is bowing to ridiculously puritanical pressure and renaming a local mountain "Mary's." What did it used to be called, you ask? Um, Mary's Nipple. It turns out that, according to legend, a local waitress streaked through the resort back in the '70s, resulting in the peak's name. Well, even though local skiers loved the name and considered it part of the region's history, pressure from uncomfortable skiers and other tourists has prompted the Grand Targhee Ski and Summer Resort to cover the second half of the name. All references to "Mary's Nipple" now have tape over the word "nipple." Christ, we're all doomed. If only he had just had crabs Historians have been claiming for years that the maniacal nature of Adolf Hitler might have been caused by an advanced case of syphilis. In particular, accounts of his tirades, fits of paranoid rage, and severe miscalculations in Russia and Normandy toward the end of the war (say what you will about the tenants of national socialism, but the guy was a pretty effective tactician and strategist early on), are all pretty good evidence that the man with the funny moustache was a syph-ridden maniac driven mad by the disease.  And while modern antibiotics do a pretty good number on syphilis (good thing too, considering its current outbreak status), the health plan in the bunker evidently wasn't all that.The latest assertion of Hitler's condition occurs in Deborah Hayden's latest book, Pox: Genius, Madness and the Mysteries of Syphilis. Hayden says that Hitler had many of the symptoms which might point to advanced syphilis. Accounts suggest that Hitler certainly had a fixation on syphilis, which he considered a "Jewish disease." A long passage in Hitler's book Mein Kampf is devoted to his thoughts on tackling the spread of the disease. There have even been suggestions that Hitler believed, rightly or wrongly, that he had acquired syphilis congenitally. What is it about dictators and venereal disease, anyway? Didn't Mao have a list of STDs, too? Maybe Saddam has the clap… I guess that'll be the least of his worries soon. Ugh.
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