photo by Rob Inh00d

We heard from a reader in Australia this week who wanted to alert us to all the sex- and gender-related craziness that is going on in the federal election Down Under. Because we, ahem, don’t have a reporting staff based over there, we thought we’d just share Courtney’s letter with you. The federal election in Australia takes place on Saturday, August 21st. Throw another legal loophole on the barbie!

Dear Em & Lo,

Our two prime-ministerial candidates are, to put it bluntly, very boring. Both have been very conservative, either adamantly believing that “marriage is between a man and a woman,” or too afraid of distancing voters to argue otherwise. To my disgust, even our only openly gay cabinet minister, Penny Wong, won’t contradict her party and support gay marriage. On the abortion front, neither are going to make it MORE difficult to procure a legal abortion in Australia, but they are certainly not going to make it easier, so that women must continue to take advantage of legal loopholes if they want an abortion. What’s worse is that the leader of the Opposition, Tony Abbott, has previously shown an extremely anti-abortion stance when he was Minister for Health in 2005, allowing his personal and religious beliefs interfere with his duty to act in the best interests of Australian women when he refused to approve the use of the drug RU-486, the cheap, safe, and less traumatic alternative to surgical abortion.

Abbott has also previously discouraged young men and women from having sex before marriage, and said that women should regard their virginity as a “precious gift.” You can probably see why I, as a 20-year-old woman, am not enthusiastic about this man having any sort of power over me and my rights. “Get Up!”, an independent community advocacy group, feels the same way, and has produced a fantastic and very effective ad featuring women reciting Abbott quotes on matters such as women in the workplace, the cervical cancer vaccine, and abortion.

Outside of the main two political parties, however, an even fiercer battle is raging, and that’s the one that’s captured my attention the most. It’s between two minor parties: The Australian Sex Party (a.k.a. good) and Family First (a.k.a. evil). The Australian Sex Party supports same-sex marriage, the decriminalization of abortion, a national sex education curriculum, stem cell research, and the overturning of mandatory internet filtering (more here on their policies). Family First opposes all of these things. A debate on these issues between Fiona Patten of the Sex Party and Wendy Francis of Family First aired on morning television last week, and wow, it was quite something. If you have a few minutes, it’s here. The good news is that while Fiona Patten was very well spoken and argued her case excellently, Wendy Francis came off as a rude, homophobic, intolerant cow, and I really don’t see how Family First could have won itself any fans in this debate.
Read the rest of this entry »

photo by photogirl7

Our contributor Chloë Browne, who’s pursuing an Honors Major in Gender and Sexuality Studies at at Swarthmore College, has a confession to make:

A few weeks ago I was at a bar with some friends when a guy started chatting me up. He asked me what my major was, and when I told him I was a Gender and Sexuality Studies nerd, he immediately balked, calling over his shoulder as he walked away, “False advertising much?!”

What he meant was, “You don’t look like a hardcore feminist.” Which begs the question, What does a hardcore feminist look like? Considering how often I get this same reaction from people (albeit with a slightly less douchey delivery), it would seem there’s one mold out there and I unequivocally don’t fit into it.

For as long as I can remember, I have had a deep and reverent regard for nearly everything traditionally associated with glitzy consumerist American girliness. On a family vacation when I was four, a cousin introduced me to the wondrous world of Barbie, immediately and effectively undermining years of my mother’s hard work to keep me unaware of their tanned, toned, augmented, and beautified existence. There she was in all her plasticized glory, gorgeous and sexy and taboo (thanks, Mom) and I was hooked. From that moment on, high heels, makeup, and general glamorizing became a source of hours of entertainment, and though the accoutrements have increased dramatically in size in the years between my adorning Barbie and my adorning myself, my fascination has remained something of a constant.

For just as long, though, I’ve had a deep sensitivity to issues of sexism and the gendered aspects of living in today’s world. What began as an early commitment to girl power (not of the Spice Girls variety, though — mom did succeed on that front) soon morphed into a precocious feminism. My Barbie didn’t take shit from Ken and I didn’t take shit from classmates.

My vocal stances on gender equality in and out of the classroom often baffled my more traditional, conservative, Southern peers. My speaking out on gendered themes in Tuck Everlasting while tottering around in the pale pink kitten-heeled flip flops that were (bafflingly) all the rage among my 8th grade class had my classmates calling me a lipstick lesbian long before I understood the phrase or frosted my lips with anything more than Bonnebell glitter gloss.

Similar issues persist in my day-to-day life now. People hear that I’m a rugby-playing Gender and Sexuality Studies major and pretty quickly draw up a set of assumptions about who I am, what I look like, and who I sleep with. Others see me walking around in a flouncy dress, heels, and a ponytail and immediately think: nice, traditional, knows-her-place girly girl. The incongruity that people assume exists between how I look and how I think has me constantly defending my choices, my appearance, and my politics not only to my fellow gen-sex students and the occasional bar fly, but to myself as well. Read the rest of this entry »

photo by Jason Clapp

Our contributor Abby Spector, who is majoring in Feminine/Gender/Sexuality Studies at Wesleyan University, has a confession to make:

“Abby, you never seem to get angry,” my coworker said to me the other day. I hate that scumbag, but all I knew how to do was smile. If I was in a worse mood I might have left orange rinds on the counter. That would show him!

You see, in public life, I’m extremely passive. The only manifestation of anger I know is tears or a timid note. However, in the bedroom, I’m domineering. It’s like a creature kept somewhere between my genitals and my mind gets out of its cage. Best part is, I like it.

This creature is a new discovery. In the past, I was a starfish in bed — the kind of partner that lies back, limbs spread, and counts ceiling tiles until it’s over. I had never been on top for longer than thirty seconds. Up there, I’d clumsily bounce up and down while trying to keep my breasts from flopping into my armpits. It was terrible for all parties involved. Within no time I returned to the comfortable, tile-counting position on my back. It never crossed my mind to be aggressive. I was too much in my head to appreciate the pleasure of my body.

My choice in bedmates didn’t help things: they were all either drunken douches or douches who couldn’t blame their bad behavior on alcohol. In the moments that I had a sexual personality (which were rare) I resembled a self-loathing Lolita: I feigned inexperience because I knew the men I attracted wanted to feel powerful. As the first douche said, “Sex is about the man coming…the man’s pleasure.” All I knew was to give them what they wanted.

But what did I want? I took a vow of celibacy to find out. And I decided that when I eventually lost my “second virginity” I would make it count: no one-night stand, no married men, no starfish. I would be myself — whoever that turned out to be.

With the help of my vibrator, I spent thirteen months without any partner sex. It perhaps wasn’t the most therapeutic move (nor the most surprising) that I spent those  months jacking off to porn that puts the female in the submissive role. It may not jive with my personal politics, but it’s what gets me off. (Damn you, fucked up power dynamics of the porn industry!) As a result, I assumed that my sexual self would be like these fantasy women. I saw myself pinned to the bed and enjoying a good pounding by a muscled hunk named Stallion.

Turns out, I want to be the Stallion.

I was expecting my new sexual self to be like the personality of my outer-shell: a friendly, funny, free-spirited fuck. The bruises on my new, non-douchey boyfriend’s hips seem to tell another story. The inner me that emerged after thirteen months is the exact opposite of my usual people-pleasing passivity. In bed, I am, apparently, intense. I bite, suck, yell and pin my partner to the bed. It sounds violent but no worries, it’s not over the top. I am concerned with my partner’s feelings, but this concern is now on a par with my own pleasure.

Recently, I have been listening to the instinct I’ve just newly tapped into. Its drive is animalistic. For example, the other day I had a polka-dotted scarf in my hair and had a sudden urge to tie my boyfriend to the bed. In the grand scheme of sexual experimentation this is not unheard of. However, for me, a girl who is often seen as emotionally and physically fragile, taking a dominatrix-esque role is downright shocking.

My initial reaction is to call my sexual side the Jekyll to my Hyde. But these characters seem to imply a good and a bad, a right and a wrong. Despite the occasional bites, my bedroom self is not an evil villain. She is real. And because of that, she is wonderful. Who knows? Maybe my fragile exterior is the true villain.

– Abby Spector

photo by JDAC

Our contributor Chloë Browne, who’s pursuing an Honors Major in Gender and Sexuality Studies at at Swarthmore College, has a confession to make:

About a month ago, tethered to my parents’ couch by a recent wisdom tooth surgery, I found myself in pursuit of life advice from my technological bestie, Google. I was about to move in with my boyfriend, and — perhaps unsurprisingly — was rather underwhelmed by Google’s offerings in response to my query for “Advice for New Cohabitants.” I rolled my eyes through pages and pages of bulleted lists that advised me to “talk about expectations before move-in,” “share household duties” and “be prepared to see a less alluring side of your partner.”

Ugh! Of course I, a progressive and responsible young person, have already done all of of these things. Of course we’re starting on equal footing! Of course we’re sharing household duties! Of course my partner will not picture me as some delicate porcelain goddess who never farts, shaves, or plucks. Stupid lists, you underestimate me! I am together! I am a feminist! I have modern relationship ideals! I’ve totally got this!”

Back then I would have scoffed at the idea that a measly month later I would actually be compiling such a list. But here I am. Needless to say, my expectations of a seamless transition into egalitarian and paradisaical cohabitation were perhaps a smidge far-fetched. Some background: I’m an only child who has managed to get through two years of college with a roommate and maintain my sense of autonomous personal domain. I got to school and, to my delight, found that my roommate had approximately the same approach to organization and storage that I did. That is to say, she didn’t have one. We stayed out of each other’s hair and out of each other’s mess and coasted, individual dens of comfort intact. Read the rest of this entry »

photo by woodleywonderworks

Our contributor Katherine Chen, who is a sophomore English major at Princeton University (check out her personal site here), is penning a series of confessions for EMandLO.com collectively called “The Virgin Diaries.” Here’s her fourth installment:

When I first got my period, my mother wanted to avoid the dreaded “Talk” but still convey the fact that I was now capable of being impregnated, so she purchased a number of instructional books that explained how menstruation was actually a natural process and not the product of some disability or mutation. Surprisingly, the topics covered in these books were not confined to anatomy and the scientific mechanics of fertility. A few of them contained quite a healthy bit of sex, too. Well, maybe “healthy” is the wrong choice of words.

I distinctly remember reading about the story of one teenage girl who decides, perhaps against her better judgment, to sneak out of her bedroom in the dead of night and meet up with every parent’s nightmare: the bad boy. A few pages later, this boyfriend attempts to date rape the girl in the back of his car by shoving his hand between her legs, but she manages to escape. My feelings at the time were a combination of dread, fear, excitement, and interest.

Looking back, this one story fueled what would become my complicated fascination with and relationship to all things sex. While it turned me on (probably because it was the first “sex scene” I’d ever been exposed to), it also taught me certain gender roles, however misguided: guys want it, girls don’t; guys are aggressive, girls are submissive. It’s probably one of the reasons why I’ve been sitting on the sidelines when it comes to actively pursuing sexual partners today. But it’s also one of the reasons I admire certain female porn stars: they always look like they’re having fun and are on top of things (literally) instead of being controlled.

And while that story drove home the lesson that sex was dangerous, it also made me hyper-aware of the widespread occurrence of sex in everyday life. I started seeing it everywhere. Imagine my amusement when a high school English teacher suggested that the cross was a phallic symbol and that the scene in the movie-version of “Hamlet” where Mel Gibson points his sword at his mother’s breast contained strong sexual overtones. Everything, even the absence of sex (for example, when sexual desire is sublimated for a “higher” purpose), could still be explained through sex. This notion transformed libido, at least in my mind, into a truly powerful force with no boundaries, something that is both awe-inspiring and scary.

For better or for worse, my over-analysis of sex has raised my views to such black-and-white extremes that I can no longer reconcile my true feelings about sex in relation to myself. While I have not yet been in a relationship where I seriously considered the prospect of having sex, even if I had been, I doubt I would have known what I wanted to do. On the one hand, having seen all the good that can come from sex, I have placed it on such a high pedestal that if and when I  do engage in sexual intercourse with a partner, I fear it will inevitably be disappointing.  On the other hand, having also seen all  the bad that can come from sex, I am absolutely terrified by its potential consequences, such as the transmission of diseases,  unwanted pregnancy and heartbreak. And once I’ve had it, I’m most afraid of losing my outsider’s perspective — I’ll be forever comparing and contrasting my own personal experience with others, which seems like it would be more limiting than liberating.

In the end, I am grateful for my outsider view of sex, and thankful for the fact that I am not yet one of the initiated, if only to prevent myself from getting hurt or disillusioned about something I have built up to “heavenly” proportions. This may come across as contradictory for someone who has just admitted to being fascinated by sex, but I do not believe that I am such an outsider that I cannot understand the important role sex plays in all forms artistic, musical, spiritual, religious and even scientific. Plus, spending all this time thinking about sex enables me to understand better my own opinions about this confusing topic. So until the time comes when I feel confident enough to step outside of my box, writing and reading about sex will do just fine.

photo by David_and_Katarina

A college-student contributor friend of ours, who wishes to remain anonymous, has a confession to make:

“I thought you said you were going to pull out.”

In the dark, I could still see his expression, startled yet a little defiant, as if the fact that he had just come inside me without the safety barrier of a condom was somehow my fault.

I see now that in part it was. I shouldn’t have been blinded by hormones and newly devirginized excitement to give up after a few minutes of looking for a condom that I knew I had lying around my room somewhere from one of those “Safer Sex” campaigns on campus. I should have taken his hands off my breasts as I half-heartedly opened drawers and boxes in my bedroom and found it. But I didn’t. All I wanted to do was to start having sex. Sex is fun; opening drawers, not so much. So I muttered a quick prayer under my breath and hoped he’d actually follow through with his promise of pulling-out so we could just do it already.

A few minutes later (and that’s being generous) we were staring at each other, realizing that, at that very moment, one 20-year-old girl who wasn’t on birth control might have just sealed her fate for the next few days, or the next nine months, maybe even the next 18 years!

“It’s okay. We’ll just go get you the morning-after pill tomorrow. I’ve done this before. I thought I got some other girl pregnant once, too, when I forgot to pull out one time.”

This was the moment when I realized forgetting the condom wasn’t the only mistake I’d made that night.

I didn’t sleep at all, in part because of his thunderous snoring but mostly because I was in shock and terrified. Hardly removed from my own virginity and I was already having a pregnancy scare? I always thought I would be too smart to get myself into this situation. I’m obsessively careful and in early sex-education classes considered forcing partners to wear two condoms, just in case. (And yes, for the record, I do realize now that two is less safe than one.) What the hell would I do if I got pregnant? What would happen to all of my plans, the things I wanted to accomplish, the college life I wanted to keep on living? At the time, pregnancy was all I could think about — worries of STDs weren’t even close to the forefront of my mind. Despite the fact that I had just hooked up with a tool who had obviously gone condomless before, I thought (wrongly) that the only real negative consequence I could face would be a pregnancy. I could hide an STD, I thought; I couldn’t hide a baby bump.

He told me the next morning that he had to run an errand but then he’d come pick me up to get the pill. One errand turned into two, two turned into the entire morning, some of the afternoon and a series of crappy excuses. So I decided not to wait.

As I walked to Target alone, my mind raced and I started tearing up. I was faced for the first time with one of the realities of being sexually active: you have to be responsible for your decisions, no matter how horny you were when you made them. I am the idealizing type; I always assumed that once I finally had sex with someone, everything would be magically awesome. But here I was, crying on the way to Target to get the morning-after pill alone to use after having sex with a guy who had proven himself to be a huge tool.

Fifty dollars later, I was back home, pill box in my hand, staring at my reflection in the mirror. I popped the first pill, swallowing it quickly as I made a silent vow to myself and my body to never be that irresponsible again.

I’ve made good on that promise (though unfortunately it took me far longer than I’d like to admit to get over the toolish guy). Now there’s always a condom in a zippered pocket in my purse, you know, just in case. (Yep, just double-checked. Still there.) I take my birth control religiously each morning. Most of all, I know now that if I want to be sexually active, I can’t rely on the guy to make sure we’re safe. I’m a part of the partnership too. And I’ll never listen to another stupid guy who promises to pull out. Sex can wait a few minutes. I’ve got a life to live.

photo by Chi King

Our contributor Abby Spector, who is majoring in Feminine/Gender/Sexuality Studies at Wesleyan University, has a confession to make:

Twenty-first century men are stuck between the macho and the metrosexual. They are told to be tough yet sensitive, strong yet vulnerable, careless yet compassionate. The manifestations of this straight man’s limbo differ depending on the group. Hipsters wear tight-fitting pants. Jocks cry during legendary sports matches. Frat bros sleep with one another. However, the breed I am most familiar with is the New-Ager who uses Eastern philosophy to avoid commitment.

Kindness, serenity, an open mind, freedom from suffering — the basic ideas of Buddhism are undeniably appealing. Combine this with an attractive guy and it seems like a match made in heaven, or rather, Nirvana. But don’t be fooled. There are plenty of “Buddhist” dudes who treat their religion less like a way of life and more like an accessory, one designed to attract a mate (or should I say mates?). After all, Buddhism has become cool. Between their muscle-building yoga classes and whiskey-enhanced soy lattes, these twenty-something liberal yuppies have figured out a way to turn selfish casual sex into a hoity-toity spiritual journey.

Jonah was the first in a long line of meditating misogynists. His poetry, praised by his literature professors, lured me in. He had a poem about being a roasted almond and a daffodil. “It shows how we are all one and yet all nothing, the secret of Buddhism.” He said this with such confidence that I agreed, despite having no idea how an almond and a daffodil were related. We eventually had sex on his yoga mat.

This went on for a few months. Over time, his confidence turned into patronizing arrogance. He didn’t want to be exclusive and was always late. “Stop stressing, babe. Live in the moment.”  Bullshit. His version of living in the moment was calling me when he was horny. I remember looking up in a post-coital daze and seeing my red lace, Victoria’s Secret bra hanging from a copy of The Laozi, another ancient Eastern philosophy emphasizing simplicity. He clearly left it out to seem deep, and this relationship was anything but — irony at its finest. I laughed. Jonah, however, saw this as disrespectful. Turns out my laughter was too “in the moment” for him. We broke up a week later, a difficult task considering that we were never officially together.

After Jonah came Andrew. Then Bobby. Then Isaac. Then Skylar. Hey, Liberal Arts colleges are infested with these Kerouac wannabes — it’s hard to avoid them! Of course, after enough exposure, you start to see the tell-tale signs. They all avoid commitment, claiming that labels are pointless social constructs. They prefer nature over cities, tea over coffee, and their opinion over yours. A guitar sits in their bedroom. (Whether or not they play it is a different story.) Most of all, they all identify with Buddhism. They weren’t raised this way, just picked it up once they decided to be part of the alternative in crowd.

You would think that the sex would be good, or at least interesting, with someone so invested in spiritual awakening. Wrong. Their ego makes it impossible for them to let loose. Doing it becomes very serious. You end up feeling like your approach to sex is stupid or illegitimate since it isn’t underpinned by some greater, metaphysical force.

Ten months ago I would’ve ended this confession with an incredibly judgmental, half-assed vow to stay away from Buddhists and their ilk. That was before I fell in love with one.

From afar, my current partner, Nate, seems like the kind of guy I am chastising. He lives in a Buddhist dorm. He studies music. He values simplicity and is mind-bogglingly intelligent. However, unlike the others, he doesn’t use these qualities as tools in his game. Buddhism is not a way to get into some elite social circle or into my pants. His beliefs are sincere. Our relationship often benefits from his Buddhist-based philosophies. I have learned from his spontaneousness, kind-heartedness and peacefulness — a trifecta of traits I appreciate and admire, yet have difficulty possessing myself. Oh, and the sex is incredible. Nate’s passionate and communicative approach makes me feel comfortable being myself…sometimes three times in one night.

There is a Buddhist saying that goes, “Pay no attention to the faults of others, things done or left undone by others.  Consider only what by oneself is done or left undone.” So I’m letting go of those past flings. And now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to go consider doing my boyfriend.

photo by eflon

Our contributor Katherine Chen, who is a sophomore English major at Princeton University (check out her personal site here), is penning a series of confessions for EMandLO.com collectively called “The Virgin Diaries.” Here’s her fourth installment:

A few months ago, I was working on a paper at home when the phone rang and on the other end of the line, I heard what sounded at first like a combination of gasps and moans.

“Katherine!” The voice broke off into a series of heart wrenching sobs. “He called me a whore!”

Long story short, my friend had recently announced her engagement to a young man she had been seeing for a little over two years. She had mistakenly spilled the happy news to an ex-boyfriend who she still kept in touch with, and he had without warning showed up at her doorstep in an attempt to sweep her off her feet (literally). Her fiancé, of course, was none too happy that someone was trying to steal his future bride. But instead of channeling his anger at the ex-boyfriend, he decided to vent his displeasure by blaming her.

For the rest of the evening, I was on the phone trying to calm my friend down while she begged me to speak with her ex-boyfriend about leaving her alone. Eventually, with encouragement from me, she stood up for herself, confronted her fiance about his disrespectful behavior (he apologized) and called her ex herself and insisted he keep his distance (he has).

And this wasn’t the first time a friend has come to me for advice about some big romantic issue.

Since I was in high school, I have been approached with questions and problems ranging from losing one’s virginity to having anal sex for the first time, neither of which I have ever experienced before. A few weeks ago, a former roommate of mine complained to me over green tea at a local cafe about how her boyfriend refused to get tested for STDs. Days later, she called me in a state of hysterics, asking me whether she should break up with him. Having read many articles on the necessity of practicing safe sex (and knowing they haven’t been), I advised her to cut off all intercourse until he began taking a little responsibility for their sexual health and peace of mind (she did and he has).

It’s ironic that I’ve become, in a way, the relationship guru within my circle of friends. My best friend tells me that I am a good listener, but I think there’s more to it than that. I believe that my utter lack of sexual experience enables me to get to the kernel of these various relationship issues — it allows me to be more objective.

Oftentimes, the problem has nothing to do with sex. A friend who was worried about getting “experimental” in the bedroom ended up realizing, after talking it through with me, that her insecurities were all founded on the fact that she was unhappy with her body. Yet another friend wanted to know why her boyfriend never went down on her, and after a few conversations, we came to the conclusion that he was just not a “giving” sort of person, not only in bed but also in everyday life. (He forgot her birthday on two occasions and in an attempt to make up for it, took her out to Hooters three nights in a row!)

While I do not consider myself a relationship expert, I realize that there are advantages to viewing and understanding a relationship outside the complicated realm of sex. Listening to my friends, I am more concerned with their happiness and security than their prowess between the sheets. I am less prone to chastise or judge them if they confess to feeling pressured in bed or worried about their bodies. And despite the fact that I am not one of the “initiated,” my friends tell me that I have a healthy outlook on sex and an even healthier understanding of happiness and success.

To some, seeking advice from a virgin about anything sex-related may be ridiculous, but I would say that wisdom does not always come from experience. Usually, the friends and acquaintances who turn to me for help already know, deep down, what they should or should not do, or what choice would benefit them the most. But sometimes it just takes someone with an open ear and mind to help them realize it, regardless of whether or not that someone has ever been in their shoes. After all, what good would it really do to get into technical jargon about sex positions when the real issues at stake are ones of trust, love, and happiness?

Mrs. & Mr. Cleaver

A college-student contributor friend of ours, who wishes to remain anonymous, has a confession to make:

I have never met two people who love each other more than my parents. They get a pre-work coffee together every morning. They never get sick of talking to each other. They complete each other’s sentences. They even complete each other’s puns.

Growing up with them was like living inside a slapstick comedy routine. Dinner is a running line of jokes, and most nights when I eat at home I laugh so hard I snort and choke on my food. Unlike many of my friends’ families, my parents rarely argue, rarely raise their voices above a “frustrated” tone, and give my brother and me the sort of near perfect support usually seen on heartwarming family dramas.

But when I find someone who I want to settle down with for the rest of my life, I don’t want to be like them.

I was 16 when I realized that I’d never once heard my parents tell each other “I love you.” Not when my dad went to Chicago on a trip for two weeks, not before they head off to work, not on their anniversary. I’ve never seen them kiss, either. Or hug.

I’ve asked my older brother, and he confirms he’s never seen this, either. It’s not that they’re resistant to saying it. My mom tells people she loves them all the time. My dad is always up for a hug or a pat on the back. But they just don’t do it with each other. It seems like they’ve never really been the types to do that, either. Photo albums of their early dating years don’t show any pictures of the two of them physically expressing their love.

Back when I first started noticing this, I thought it was some apocalyptic sign that their marriage was doomed. Where was the romance, the chocolate, the flowers, the unexpected kisses? My dad bought my mom flowers once and made a huge show of it and it just left all of us feeling awkward. It felt so unnatural.

I’m the last one to want to think about my parents’ sex life, but on the outside it seems pretty dead. I mean, my mom is asleep in their bedroom by 8, my dad is asleep downstairs in front of the TV by 8:15 and, when he eventually makes his way upstairs to go to sleep, he’s passed out snoring within moments. The only noises emanating from their room at night are the TV and thunderous snores. Not exactly a setting for passion or romance.

I’ve gotten close to asking my mom about this on several occasions, but I always stop myself. Not only because I don’t want to talk about sex with my Mom, but because I already know the answer. For them, there’s nothing missing. They both have the perfect companion. They’re perfectly in sync: same sleep schedules, same taste in movies and music, same passion for teaching and learning, same taste in radio stations. Their relationship isn’t about passion, it’s about happiness.

I know there are so many different types of love and companionship in the world, and my parents’ relationship falls more comfortably into the realm of “best friends” than it does “passionate love.” But it makes me wonder: do they feel like something’s missing?  I do. I know I’m the type who needs that love, that physical expression of closeness. I need the flowers and the unexpected kisses (chocolate would be a nice idea, too, future boyfriends). While I know my parents love each other, I need a relationship where I am in love with someone, too.

This will probably change as I mature. It’s practically scientific fact that you can’t keep someone’s heart constantly aflutter during a lifetime together. But for me, right now, I can’t imagine life without that spark. And I need it just as much as I need someone who can complete my puns.

photo by PinkMoose

A college-student contributor friend of ours, who wishes to remain anonymous, has a confession to make:

I have this dress that I bought at H&M a few months ago that I wear whenever I’m in the mood to feel sexy. Translation: I wear this dress all the time. It’s nothing particularly trashy: just a brown shirt dress, belted at the waist. But it does make my boobs look fantastic.

This is my sole criteria for buying clothes. Even if the color is terrible, even if the fit’s a little iffy in other places; if my boobs look splendid in it, I’m buying it. Because I’m a little bit obsessed with the twins.

This all started in sixth grade, when they began bursting out of my chest with a rapidity usually only seen with the help of a fast-forward button. By seventh grade, they were a B cup. And, eight years later, they’ve finally stopped at a DD.

Any relationship or self-esteem self-help book will tell you to pick something you love about your body and keep it at the forefront of your mind, to think about how great that part of your body is when you want to feel great too. So every time I’m getting ready to leave the house, painting on a last-minute swath of mascara with one hand and cramming breakfast into my mouth with the other, I look at my chest and smile.

I’ve given up on buying clothes that I think should fit and look good because of the size on the tag. Instead, I’ve made dressing my boobs the number-one priority. I’ve stopped worrying about feeling fat just because I can’t fit my top half into the same size as my bottom half and instead, started focusing on how awesome I look when I buy clothes that fit my chest. And that makes me feel hot.

As I’ve come into my own sexuality, I’ve noticed that women who have decided to work with what they have and work it well — however much or little available to them, from 32A to 46DDD — have a sort of sexual energy about them. My body’s not perfect, and my boobs don’t sit atop a super-toned set of abs or balance out a Kim Kardashian-esque butt. Far from it. But the more I focus on how much I love my breasts, the less I think about needing to look supermodel perfect with the rest of my body.

I wish every woman could feel this good about her boobs. Because I truly believe loving them means loving yourself. And guys notice this too. Until recently, I was one of those girls who spent hours nitpicking my body. But when I spend less time making sure my gut’s sucked in and more time thinking about how fantastic this dress makes me look up top, guys see more of the easygoing, upbeat person I actually am. I sound happier. I smile more. I actually act like myself.

Sure, there are the gross guys who focus only on my anatomy. One such gentleman actually told me that I “made Jenna Jameson look like a nun,” which is a lame, fatally flawed comparison. Just because I like to play up the part of my body I love with a cute belt and a tasteful v-neck doesn’t make me a porn star. My style tends more towards “cute and chic” than it does towards “Halloween-costume slutty.” And my body type doesn’t magically make me put out. Sorry. I may have boobs, but that doesn’t mean I let just any asshole touch them.

Instead, I’m a little more discerning. I hold out for those guys who see the smile, the passion for NPR, and the love of literature that make me, well, me. Sure, they like the boobs, but they see the actual person behind them, too. And they’re able to see all that because I carry myself with my head held high, my back straight, and my chest puffed.