It was quite a year for sex. The orgasm reached godly status while the clitoris hit an all-time low. We lost Bettie Page, and Playgirl and gay marriage got left at the American altar. Here are some of the sex news highlights and lowlights for 2008.

• Playgirl calls it quits — Established 35 years ago as a feminist response to Playboy and Penthouse (Playboy sued Playgirl in 1973 for trademark infringement but settled amicably), the magazine could never seem to quite figure out who its audience was: women or gay men — a dilemma, it seems, that followed Playgirl to its grave. The magazine’s final editor, Nicole Caldwell worked to take the magazine back to its roots, interspersing shots of naked hotties with articles on issues like abortion and equal rights. Publisher Blue Horizon Media wanted fewer articles and more naked hotties, preferably ones that would appeal more to gay men. The schizophrenic focus has resulted in the January-February 2009 issue being its last. The Playgirl website will continue (playgirl.com) but the graphic content is geared more toward gay men. For $19.55 a month you can view all the “100 per cent man juice” you want.

• Online cheating takes it up a notch — In the old days, affairs had to be conducted outside our homes. Now, it seems, our partners can literally carry on a secret life right from their comfort of their home — online. In fact, earlier this year, David Pollard’s marriage ended when his wife Amy Taylor caught his online character having an affair with Linda Brinkley’s online character on Second Life, the online computer game where players create a, well, second life, for their online characters (called avatars). BTW, guess where Pollard met his first wife? Online, of course. They even celebrated their union with a virtual marriage… on Second Life. Get out more, people!

Life imitates art — This summer, David Duchovny, the actor who plays the sex-obsessed main character on television’s Californication, checked himself into real-life rehab for sex addiction after allegedly cheating on his wife, actress Téa Leoni. A little more than a month later, he checks out, apparently “cured.” Leoni, it seems, begged to differ, and the couple announced their split soon after his release. The story raises much debate about whether sex addiction is real, with some experts claiming it is an addiction on par with drug and alcohol addiction. Others believe it to be more of an obsessive-compulsive disorder, that is “sex addicts” simply can’t stop having sex. Others believe it is a great way to justify cheating on your wife while getting lots of publicity.

• Barack one; gays, zero — Despite Barack Obama’s history-changing election as president of the most powerful country in the world, California, Arizona and Florida voted to ban gay marriage.

• Viginity a hot commodity — In September, 22-year-old Natalie Dylan (not her real name), a California grad student partnered with the Moonlight Bunny Ranch in Nevada to auction off her virginity to the highest bidder in order to pay for school to become — get this — a marriage and family therapist. Speaking on The Tyra Banks Show, Dylan claimed the auction idea mainly stemmed from her commitment to feminist studies. Dylan is writing her college thesis on “the dichotomous relationship between virginity and prostitution.” With bids as high as $3.8 million US, I’d say virginity has the upper hand in the relationship. My only question is, considering there is no real way to prove a woman is a virgin (see last week’s column), how is the winning bidder going to know he isn’t buying used goods?

I told you so — I expressed my doubts early on about Gardasil, the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine being pushed on young girls to protect them from cervical cancer. I hate to say I told you so, but, earlier this year, Judicial Watch, a non-profit watchdog group, listed 21 deaths and 9,749 “adverse reactions” linked to Gardasil, including 78 outbreaks of genital warts and 10 miscarriages. In a television interview with CBS News in May, Dr. Diane Harper, the specialist who helped develop the Gardasil vaccine, said making the vaccination mandatory is “a real danger zone” because it has not been on the market long enough to know its long-term risks. “To put in place a process that says you must have this vaccine means that you must be part of a big public experiment, and so we can’t do that until we have more data.” This from a woman who helped develop the drug! Please.

• Church gets way more interesting — The Madonna of Orgasm Church got a nod towards official recognition in Sweden this fall, when a court ruled it had the right to be registered as a faith community. Carlos Bebeacua, the church’s self-appointed cardinal, believes that “The orgasm is God. The orgasm should be worshipped.” Don’t get me wrong, I’m a big fan of the orgasm, and I’ve done my share of praying for one in certain circumstances, but this seems a little whacky. However, Bebeacua argues that his church is not just about worshipping the physical release of orgasm: “The orgasm shouldn’t be limited to ejaculation. You can reach it through art or by looking at a landscape and thinking ‘Wow!’” According to Bebeacua, the church has a few hundred followers, and he hopes that registering the Madonna of Orgasm Church will get more people to consider the orgasm as God. And in case you think this is just a big excuse to turn church into a big orgy, Bebeacua says its purpose is to help people see orgasms as a metaphor for a love of life. Church ceremonies will involve priestesses reading verses while attendees sip juice and eat fruit.

• Clitoris banned on Google — While the Swedes fight to give the orgasm godlike status, Google has determined that the word “clitoris” is not safe to be seen by the general public. Earlier this year, sex writer, educator and activist Susie Bright discovered that if you set your Google SafeSearch filter on “strict filtering” and search for clitoris, you get zero returns. However, if you try a Google SafeSearch “strict filtering” search for penis, you get 33 million returns.

• Bettie Page dies — From being the subject of a 1950s federal obscenity investigation intent on saving juveniles from the depravity of smut to being the subject of no less than a dozen books, a half-dozen movies, a bunch of tribute songs and countless websites, Bettie Page is one of the most iconic pin-up images of this century. At the height of her fame in the late ’50s, she disappeared for three decades during which she suffered poverty and mental illness until she became a born-again Christian and spent her final years in seclusion in Southern California reading the Bible and listening to Christian music. The actress-model died December 11 at age 85 in Los Angeles after a heart attack.

Rest in peace Bettie, and peace to all.