Arguments may rage over the authenticity of certain dishes but there is no doubt about the impression our spicy cuisine has made on the US

It all started with a shipment of sweaty sex toys.

It was a hot and humid day in August 2003 and Jennifer Pritchett and her then business partner were days away from opening Minneapolis’s first feminist sex shop, Smitten Kitten. They had sunk all their money into their first shipment of products, but as they excitedly opened the boxes of toys, packing peanuts flying everywhere, they knew immediately that something was wrong. The toys were leaching an oily substance. It was coming off the products, out of the clamshell packaging, through Styrofoam packing peanuts, leaving big greasy spots on the cardboard box. What, they wondered, was wrong?

When 26-year-old Amber, a Las Vegas transplant, realized her dog ate her favorite vibrator, she headed to Las Vegas’s Adult Superstore. Amber grew up in a small Midwestern farming town of 6,000 people, a place where sex “was shunned” and sex toys were never discussed. If she wanted to find a sex-toy store back home, it would mean driving 40 miles to St. Louis. Now, at the Adult Superstore, a large sex-toy emporium — think clothing retailer H&M but for sex toys — she knows that she’ll not only have many options to choose from, but once there, she’ll be treated with respect by a knowledgeable staff. But it wasn't always this way.

You never forget your first vibrator. According to a 2009 study by Indiana University, almost 50 per cent of American women have played with the pulsating devices. That number has undoubtedly climbed thanks to pop-culture phenomena such as Fifty Shades of Grey and marked changes in the “adult industry”. Gone are the days when all sex shops were dives hawking crotchless polyester knickers and sticky men’s magazines, with a dodgy peep show in the back. The sex-toy business has boomed into a purportedly $15 billion (£11.5 billion) a year trade that is increasingly high-end, sophisticated in design and aggressively courting female consumers.

We've collected a list of our favorite 'everyday' dinner spots in the city—places where we feel at-home upon walking through the door.

The role of food in bridging cultural gaps was explored last week in Tempe during the "More Than a Meal" event. Mark Padoongpatt, Ph.D, spoke about how food history enables us to understand American culture and society in the past and present.

Porn is everywhere. It's on people's mobile phones, laptops, hard disks and it's all over the internet. There are now thousands of free clips just a click away, but despite the ubiquity, porn is an industry in upheaval.

"The question is what appeal will these Spectacles have, if any, to this industry. Will they see these as a different kind of POV niche that it might be able to financially profit from or build a more general porn viewership," said Lynn Comella, associate professor of gender and sexuality studies at University of Nevada, Las Vegas. "Will it be different from Google Glass?"

Political attack ads typically stick to the same ol’ stuff, like voting records and candidate positions. That can’t be said for the jabs in Henderson, Nev., where voters in one state Assembly district are getting smacked with attacks on a pornographic level.

Literary theory and criticism is a specialized field of study. If you’re talking to people who haven’t studied it or who have just a passing acquaintance with it, you may encounter some generalizations about what it is and its value. Here are a few of the most common misunderstandings about literary theory.

It’s a lesser-known aspect of American history: Native Americans fought in the Civil War.

This week’s events at the University of Missouri haven’t gone unnoticed by staff and students at colleges in the Las Vegas Valley.