So long, sugar tits!

Disgraced ministers, D-list divorces, Screech's sex tape and celebrity crotch shots all helped make 2006 a year of libidinal surprises.

By Rebecca Traister

Read more: FDA, Sex, Rebecca Traister, Life, Year in 2006

Salon image / AP Photo

Paris Hilton. Insets (from left): Ted Haggard and Dustin Diamond (Screech).

Dec. 31, 2006 | As the year draws to a close, it turns out that -- much to everyone's surprise -- when it came to sex, 2006 didn't totally suck. There were long-awaited climaxes, news about sexual health that didn't make you want to defect, satisfying chapters in the sex lives of the rich and famous, a couple of profitably dirty scandals, and more exposed celebrity poon than you could shake a paparazzo's camera at. Of course, there was also some nasty sex: stuff that made you want to avert your eyes until everyone was finished and hosed down.

So without further ado, let's take it all in, broken into arbitrary but organizationally helpful categories: the good, the bad and the Britney.

Screech for America, or the Year in Celebrity Sex Tapes:

Yes, there are now enough opportunities to watch grainy images of famous people penetrating their fans and each other that we can devote an entire year-end category to them. Thank you, Internets.

When it comes to the most eyeball-searing performance, my money's on Dustin Diamond, who some of you may (or may not) know as Screech from the mid-'90s high-school Saturday morning comedy "Saved by the Bell." Screech's sex tape features the former big-haired nerd talking his way into a purported two-woman bachelorette party and persuading the veiled celebrants to have sex with him with such persuasive one-liners as "You grew up with me, baby!" Ew. The video's lowlight is a toss-up between the moment where Screech reads aloud from a double-headed dildo box in a voice that is just so ... Screech, "This dong is incredibly versa-tile and extremely satisfying," or when he cannot contain his postcoital excitement, braying to the camera: "Poop was involved!" OK, who am I kidding. That was the lowlight, primarily because poop was, in fact, involved.

Still, Screech's nastiness is almost less stomach-churning than the contemptibly foul 1999 Scott Stapp-Kid Rock sex tape that was released in abridged form this year. Don't know who Scott Stapp is? Neither did I until I saw a bunch of groupies with fake tits going down on him! (He was the lead singer of the Christian rock band Creed and exudes yuck as he looks at the camera while being serviced and says, "It's good to be the king.")

The best of the rest includes the model Carolyn Murphy, who successfully prevented her ex from releasing their privatest honeymoon memories to the world but not before we got a glimpse of her doing some embarrassing nekkid prancing. Irish fox Colin Farrell memorably pointed the camera at Playboy Playmate Nicole Narain's cat and purred, "Baby, you have the most beautiful pussy." But when he concluded a cunnilingual session by growling, in comically impassioned brogue: "I could do this for breakfast, lunch and dinner," the vibe curdled. And in the coals-to-Newcastle department, there's supposedly a tape of Britney Spears and her Fed-ex floating around. Talk about something we literally don't need to see more of (see Year in Snatch, below).

Didn't they almost have it all, or the Year in Celebrity Divorce:

Known psycho Heather Mills and her gullible knight, Paul McCartney, take this year's prize for the year's biggest no-duh-divorce, fending off competition from Pam Anderson and Kid Rock by virtue of having been married for more than 35 seconds and from Whitney Houston and Bobby Brown by virtue of not being crack-challenged. So far, the Mills-McCartney split has included such humdingers as Mills' accusations that her husband ordered her to stop nursing adorable little alimony-bait Beatrice because "They are my breasts!" and refused her a bedpan, forcing the one-legged former model to crawl to the bathroom in the middle of the night. After 45 years in the spotlight and a certain subtle deftness with the whole publicity thing, McCartney remained publicly civil toward his bride, while the tabloid market was mysteriously glutted with reports about Mills' call-girl past and a batch of naked photos of her from the '80s, which Salon's Scott Lamb summed up with the headline "Hey, Nude!"

Category douchebag -- OK, maybe "confused douchebag" -- was handily won by Lance Armstrong, who broke up with Sheryl Crow (for whom he left his wife and kids a couple of years ago), took up shirtless rock-climbing with Jake Gyllenhaal and Matthew McConaughey, told some gay jokes about them at the ESPY awards ("I thought you liked it in the rear!"), and then denied to Details that he was gay. LiveWrong.

The year's most divertingly messy split took the form of a Charlie Sheen-Denise Richards-Richie Sambora-Heather Locklear-David Spade pentagram of D-list delight, and included allegations about Sheen's predilection for youthful porn and a stunt in which Locklear pulled up outside the house of her husband-stealing former BFF Richards and blasted "Livin' on a Prayer" from her car speakers. This is just the kind of classy shit we need more of from Hollywood's adults. Heather, we lurve you. This imbroglio receives Year in Sex bonus points for having a soundtrack by 'Jovi.

Remainders: Christie Brinkley's Ken-doll spouse Peter Cook was caught cheating on her with a 19-year-old. Hilary Swank outed her freshly dumped husband Chad Lowe as a recovering drug addict in the single most insipid Vanity Fair profile ever (Um, she so supports him in his recovery from addiction? And also his recovery from having been dumped and being outed as a drug addict by her?) And Ryan Phillippe bailed on his marriage to Oscar-winning wife Reese Witherspoon -- who we suspect is a little more like Tracy Flick than we like to imagine, but still, candy-assed escape tactic, Ryan -- by doing his 23-year-old Reese-clone costar Abbie Cornish.

Sadly, Katie Holmes did not bail on marrying Tom Cruise, father of her Asian baby. Their Italian ceremony included Scientology vows about how girls need combs and cats, and a guest list that would have been sailing the "Love Boat" had this been 1978. Good luck, honey.

HPV, whee! or the Year in Sexual Health:

Here's a sentence I never thought I'd compose during the Bush administration: Thank you, Food and Drug Administration!

After years of molasses-like (if molasses were slow on account of its ideologically motivated corruption) bureaucratic delays, the feds finally coughed up permission for Plan B to be sold over the counter. Unless of course you're a teenager. Sorry, kids. We live in a world that would rather fund a deeply creepy purity ball for you and your pa than arm you with anything that might improve your chances of having a happy and healthy reproductive life. Better luck next life.

Next page: The Year in Sexual Politics: Someone fetch Eve Ensler -- we're having a feminarchy!