HBO primetime the Sunday before last was heaven in a two-hour time slot. For those of you who… HBO primetime the Sunday before last was heaven in a two-hour time slot. For those of you who pay the extra-channel fee every month, I hope you’re able to remember the moment in “Hung” that sparked my interest. In a nutshell, the male prostitute and his pregnant former client are sitting in the bathroom chatting. All of a sudden, in one swooping motion, he reaches into the tub where she’s bathing and starts going at it on her lady parts, sleeve rolled up and everything — like he was prepared to get down and dirty with his hand the whole time!

My jaw instantly dropped upon seeing the water fly as the woman screamed her way to euphoria. I can’t remember the last time I saw (or heard about, for that matter) an older woman getting fingered in the tub without any interruptions and without proceeding to the next activity.

Whatever happened to the hand job? You just don’t hear about someone receiving a “handy” anymore. I’m not referring to a few initiation strokes to get the mood going. I’m talking about a full-length, start to finish, no-mouth-involved hand job.

Have we evolved past these actions? Are college students too mature to enjoy things that are supposedly for teenagers and their high school sweethearts? Maybe those of us who are sexually active think we’re past hand jobs or are too impatient and want to move on to bigger and better things.

If evolution and maturity aren’t the issues, maybe most of us have just become too lazy and impatient to spend time doing the things that we don’t consider important enough for our (sex) time.

I suppose this would be the point in the argument when someone older, and possibly wiser, would make a statement regarding our generation and the stereotype that we have of needing to have and do everything right now. We have cell phones that fit in our pocket and don’t have dial-up Internet or snail mail, so everything has to be rushed … blah, blah, blah. I’m going to leave out this supposed correlation between advances in technology and everything else in our lives, including sex. I personally think that proceeding straight to sex happens simply to be a trend of the moment — like, say, Brazilian bikini waxes.

I propose we change this trend. Let’s be a little more amateur, as some would describe it, and from time to time fool around — just fool around, without intercourse, for those of you who include casual sex under the “fooling around” category. It doesn’t have to be one of the two acts referenced above. To be honest, almost all of the guys I’ve asked prefer their own hand to another’s for a prolonged period of time. The skyrocketing increase in casual sex can take a timeout for a change. Hey, we might eliminate a few unwanted pregnancies.

Instead of only experimenting with new things, we could be frisky and experiment with old things as well. In fact, slowing down and involving different acts can seriously increase the pleasure you feel during the finale. The theory of practicing delayed gratification isn’t used only to get through homework, guys.

It’s not about me telling you to slow down when it comes to your sex life. That’s your own choice. I just think we should have a full range of options when it comes to getting busy. That’s the great fun of it all.

So remember, next time you’re running around the bases, don’t hesitate to stop at second. Think about drawing a bath and getting in some hand action.

Email Leah at [email protected].