Do you remember middle school/junior high/high school? If so, do you remember talking about 'the bases' with your friends? "Yeah man, at the dance, X and Y went behind the gym and they got to second base!"

Well that was cool and all, but what the hell was second base? Tongue kissing? Up the shirt? Noone was really sure. Also, the bases tended to get progressively more intense as you got older. What's a person to do?

Here, we mourn the passing of using baseball ananlogies to describe sexual activity. But let's face it, there are more than four stages in todays day and age of sex play. So, in the interests of both bringing baseball sex metaphors in line with the complications of modern romance and with standardizing the bases, we present the Standardized Guide to the Bases.

First, let's examine what the bases could have meant in the old days:

* First Base - This was almost always kissing, although one guy I knew thought it meant holding hands. Sometimes it was tongue kissing and sometimes not.

* Second Base - Variously this meant tongue kissing, breast feeling, or outside the clothes genital contact.

* Third Base - Usually this was a hand down the pants of you or your partner.

* Home Run - This was ALWAYS sex, although it was rarely reached in the times when you had to refer to it in terms of bases.

Well that system is ok, if you are a young teenager with a repressed sex drive. But what happens when you reach maturity and new factors enter the equation, such as oral sex? And what about the exact definitions? Well we have attempted to answer such puzzling questions and present without further ado:

Standardized Guide to the Bases!

* On Deck - Having plans for a date
* Strike-Out - Duh!!
* Walk - Kissing
* Bunt - Masturbation
* Single - Tongue kissing
* Double - Breasts/chest touched, some clothes off, lots of grabbing and feels
* Triple - Most of the clothes off, genital contact, mutual masturbation
* Inside the park home run - Oral Sex
* Home Run - SEX!
* Ground Rule Double - would have sex, but no condom
* Error - Condom breaks during sex
* Banned for life for gambling - sex without condom
* Hall of Fame - Marriage
* Balk - Premature ejaculation
* Pine Tar - KY jelly
* Relief pitcher - Vibrator
* Rain Delay - parents/roommate return home unexpectedly
* Box Seats - Waterbed
* Seventh Inning Stretch - Unusual positions
* Rookie - Virgin
* Switch Hitter - Sex with her one night, and her brother the next.
* Minor Leagues - Under 18
* Loaded Bases - manage a trois
* Grand Slam - Sex three times in twelve hours
* Foul tip - VD
* Three up and three down - impotency

Now that we have the definitions, lets quickly contrast the old confusion with current clarity:

* OLD WAY - We, um got to third base, I guess and then we, um got like past third base, but not to home plate. I really like her...

* NEW WAY - First, there was a triple, then we got and inside the park home run, and started thinking, it's Hall of Fame time!

* NEW WAY - So there I was with the bases loaded and nobody out, when I balked during the seventh inning stretch and i had to call in a relief pitcher.