Finally … spring is here! Temperatures are soaring, hemlines are rising and everywhere you look couples are making out … ah yes, it’s mating season.

Animals, humans, birds, reptiles, you name it — everyone’s feeling a whole lot friskier now that the sun is shinin’.

So why is my libido so damn low? Grrr … Could it be that finals are nearly upon us and I find it pretty hard to balance tests, papers, presentations, eating, sleeping and even breathing — let alone the time and energy to actually think about sex — without jumping in my car and driving to Mexico?! Yikes!

Such cruel irony that the sex columnist can’t even get horny during such a celebrated time of copulation and cohabitation.

I mean, the closest I’ve come to even thinking about sex in the past few days was while studying for a Primate Psychology exam and looking at crude drawings of baboons mounting each other. Pathetic. But really, how is one supposed to get aroused while reading about monkeys that eat their own placenta after giving birth? Or studying economics, for that matter?

Though various creatures of the animal kingdom may be caught up in the seasonal sweep of sex and sleeping around, I know that most students on campus are much more concerned with the pressures of passing exams and finishing out the semester on a good note. Not exactly sexy.

So, in a spurt of inspiration resulting from those kinky monkeys in my primate class, I have decided to launch my own “shock and awe” campaign on the student body with the vast array of sex facts I’ve uncovered during the past year as a sex columnist.

April is a time of stress and angst for any college student, even when we’re not in times of warfare, and so I ask you, my fellow students, to take a time out from all those elite human demands and learn from the simple pleasures of lesser species. The birds and bees don’t know it’s finals time; they just know it’s time to get busy.

First of all, I just have to mention that when I initially started researching this column (yes, I do research the column every week), one article in particular caught my eye. I was googling “animal sex” and amid the various “Women F-cking Horse” and “Debbie Deepthroats Giant Stallion Cock,” I noticed a blip about the “biggest slut in the animal kingdom.”

Well, of course I had to check it out (I’ve already seen all the horse porns I’ll ever need to see, thanks to my roommate), and to my delight, I discovered that at the Philadelphia Zoo, patrons can experience the wonders of the “Adults Only” zoo tour.

That’s right, folks, this little field trip is X-rated. The tour is variously called “Lovin’ on the Wild Side” or simply “The Sex Tour,” and it offers adult visitors the opportunity to blow $75 on a bottle of bad champagne and a day with creepy tour guide Ron Fricke, a man who is proud to admit that he videotapes spiders having sex on his back porch.

And as if that wasn’t weird enough, Ron also has been quoted as saying, “The female kangaroo has three vaginas, two for reproduction and a third just for having fun. She is often called ‘the slut of the animal kingdom.'”

Yup. Female kangaroos are huge skanks. Just remember, you heard it here first. Other fun facts the tour reveals are the fact that snakes have not one, but two penises and male rhinos have sex for a minimum of one hour. Makes your man look pretty shoddy, doesn’t it, ladies?

Fueled by the crazy stuff the Philadelphia Zoo taught me, I resumed my Internet search with zest. Amongst the sea of “wacky” pet photos and “super-silly” animal cartoons, I stumbled across the amazing World Sex Records website (www.world-sex-records.com). This hilarious-yet-informative website offers little-known statistics on a variety of sexual topics, but in the interest of time, I only got to check out the animals and plants section.

In this virtual Mecca of intercourse info, I discovered which animal has the longest clitoris, which has the biggest penis (of course) and even which animal has the oddest masturbation ritual.

Not surprisingly, whales were the big winners (literally) in both the largest clitoris and penis categories, with female clits measuring about eight inches and penises up to 10 feet long and a full foot in diameter! I guess there really is such a thing as too big …

Anyway, another neato fact I learned was that deer masturbate without even touching their genitals. A couple of months out of the year, freshly hardened deer antlers can act as highly sensitive erogenous zones. In fact, all the deer have to do is run their antlers through the grass and presto! Ten seconds later, they ejaculate.

Pretty sweet, huh? I wish all I had to do was run my hair through some shrubs and I could orgasm that quickly.

And so mating season is meant to be a time of fun and frivolity, not finals and freak-outs. But alas, we are college students, not deer, so things are not quite so easy for us.

Just try to keep your libido alive and well over the next month and a half, no matter what grades your teachers may rain down upon you, because sex can not only keep you happy and healthy (it’s been shown to burn calories and stimulate the immune system), it can also be pretty damn interesting too.

But sex won’t be good for you unless you practice it safely, so always use protection.

SEX CONTEST!! Send me your funniest stories of sexual encounters gone wrong, (c’mon, everyone’s had bad sex) and you may win a prize! I only want true stories please; send ’em to [email protected] for review.