Sex and Drugs Trivia
Savant Project
1625 Tremont St., Roxbury Crossing
Sundays, 7:30 p.m.

Every Sunday evening, Maureen Hautaniemi stands at the front of the Savant Project, a Mission Hill bistro, with a coiled whip and The Practical Encyclopedia of Sex and Health.

"We punish cheaters with my whip, just so you know," she told the crowd, who had assembled last Sunday for a night of Sex and Drugs trivia.

Hautaniemi has the soft-focus good looks of a 1960's Scandinavian film star. Give her a haircut and she could vie with Liv Ullmann in Persona. Last Sunday, she hosted the trivia night dressed in school girl plaids and knee socks. As "Mistress Maureen," she shows up in a different style of fetish gear each Sunday. "It's like Halloween every week," she quipped, "and I never get hit on [by audience members], ever, which is awesome."

Boston's a great place for bar trivia, but the typical night is geared toward those who know more about mid-century hockey position players than ancient Greek sexual positions. Hautaniemi's trivia night is the one that gives a chance to the scholar who knows more about cannabis varietals than varieties of Swiss cheese.

Each round has a mix of open-ended and multiple choice questions, which make things easier for those whose brains might be clouded by sex or drugs. They also give Hautaniemi the opportunity to say a lot of dirty things.

She had toned the questions down last week, in deference to Restaurant Week diners who might have had a greater interest in the glaze on their steaks than the packets of Good Vibrations lubricant on their tables. Nonetheless, categories such as "Dan Savage," "Aphrodisiacs," and "Cheech and Chong," got the audience tittering.

Bostonist has mixed feelings about acing the "Celebrity Rehab" round.

Prizes were awarded to the top three trivia teams (Bostonist won first place, besting a contingent from Yelp.com) and to the team with the most creative name. "Lance Armstrong's Lost Nut" took those honors. Brookline sex shop Good Vibrations provided the prizes, which included a calendar of sexual positions, t-shirts, and vibrators.

Drugs, for obvious reasons, were absent from the prize table.

Hautaniemi admits that the event is a "guilty pleasure" for most, but she hopes that people get something more out of the evening. "I've always been into the factual side of sex and drugs," she said. "We really want people not just to know the answers, but also to learn something."

What did Bostonist learn? Prostaglandin E, a derivative of seminal fluid, can ease symptoms of erectile dysfunction, but only through direct injection. "Nobody wanted to get that one," said Hautaniemi.