The first time I watched anonymous, naked bodies entangled in sweaty sex was during my junior year of college. My flushed-face was riveted to the screen. The psychology course called "Human Sexuality" was so popular at Virginia Commonwealth University I'd taken the class during summer break. Fall and spring semesters...

When Kung Fu star David Carradine died last Thursday, I wasn't surprised. He was 72. When I read how he'd died -- hanging naked in a closet with a rope tied around his genitals, wrist and throat -- I was surprised only at the suspected cause of death: auto-erotic asphyxiation....

Can you imagine President Bush delivering a speech to Muslims and quoting seamlessly from the Bible, the Quran and the Talmud? Any reconciliatory words from a born-again Christian who declared after 9/11, "Either you are with us or you are with the terrorists," would carry no echo from Cairo.

"As-Salamu...