You're thinking about it anyway. Spring's right around the corner, taunting you with all her halter-tops and hot dogs. Get an early taste of sexy Spring with a bundle of dirty-related events involving politics, strippers, and people being stabbed with needles.

First off, Ducky Doolittle is back! The adorable and hilarious sex educator, comedienne, and writer is coming to teach us a few lessons with two workshops. The first is: Female Sexual Self Esteem, being held at the homiest, friendliest little sex shop in town, It's My Pleasure (Thursday, 7 pm, 3106 NE 64th, 280-8080, $25 pre-register). No one wants to do it with a girl with low or no female sexual self-esteem, anyway.

The second workshop is a little more advanced: Burlesque (Friday, 7 pm, It's My Pleasure, $25 pre-register). Quite a striptease legend herself, Ducky is going to show us how to take it off with raunchy grace, whether you just want to do something hokey on a Saturday night or you aspire to the lights and bills of the Acropolis stages. (Ask if she can show you how to blow dollar bills around with air from your vagina.)

For something a little more intense, check out the first Rock N' Roll Body Modification Ball (Thursday, 9 pm, Ash St Saloon, 225 SW Ash, 226-0430). Not only will there be music provided by hard hitters Lopez and stand-up bass-boasting Blackout Radio, but Zero Theory will be doing a piercing demonstration. If you've never seen such a thing, you'll be amazed how riveting it is to watch people get skewered and then have their skewers tied to other things--especially because Zero Theory does it up with theatrical costumes and lights. Also, you can rip off your shirt/pants and join the tattoo runway show, MC'd by Mad Marcii, proprietor of Lady Luck Tattoo. If you're lucky you can win a raffle prize for free tats or piercings too--bod mod heaven.

If these events offend you or you think they might, speak your mind at A Pornography Panel at Lewis & Clark (Friday, 12:15 pm, 0615 SW Palatine Hill Rd, free). Join representatives from an anti-prostitution agency, the Suicide Girls website, author David Loftus, and feminist Amy Lynn for heated, but intelligent conversation about pornography and its presence in Portland. And who knows? You might score. MARJORIE SKINNER