Posts by Heather HotPants

“A wise girl kisses but doesn’t love, listens but doesn’t believe, and leaves before she is left.” -Marylin Monroe

Take a look at the latest cover of Cosmo or any popular women’s magazine and you’re sure to find a catchy title promising secrets about how to gain the upper hand in a relationship via bedroom techniques. The idea that we can control a person by sex — either by “giving it up,” or “limiting it,” or “doing it well” — is a common myth plaguing our pop culture. Heather HotPants is guilty as charged. Growing up, I was told that withholding sex was a sure way to get whatever I wanted from the person I was with. My crazy Great Aunt Ruth would make comments like, “When your Uncle Robbie and I fight, I never apologize,” adding proudly, “I just don’t sleep with him and he always caves in after a few days.” Thanks, Aunt Ruth!

A relationship is a war for control. Or so we’re told. Stand strong, hold your line of defense, you’ll win the fight!  Want nice dinners? Don’t have sex! Want to meet his parents? Don’t have sex! Want to be treated nicely? Hang with his friends? Land a wedding ring? Don’t have sex!

Does this really work? [Read more →]

“Beauty is…the promise of happiness.”   —Stendhal, De L’amour, On Love (1822)

In a culture that prizes beauty above almost all else, it’s hard to believe that looks don’t matter. The BDH recently ran an op-ed, “Heroin Chic is Back,” detailing how beauty standards are pushing new, dangerously impossible heights. On this campus, especially with the warmer weather, being beautiful and skinny are “in.” But I’m telling you, when it comes to sex and love, beauty simply isn’t what it’s cracked up to be.

I recently overheard a conversation at the Ratty on looks. “She’s so beautiful and like, omigod, the nicest person, too!” I thought about that for a moment. Why were these girls holding this beautiful person to any different standards than others? Why is a beauty worn like a badge of entitlement? Does being attractive really matter that much?

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Excited for Spring Weekend? Neon bras, muscles in tanks, and cheap beer. Sounds like a recipe for some good ol’ fashioned fornication, college style.

Not so fast, eager beaver. Before you put on your booty shorts and party helmet, spend a few hours learning from one of the master sexperts. This week, SHEEC, those fabulous people behind Sex Week, is bringing another sex-licious event to campus to kick off Spring Weekend with a bang.

“Dirty Talk” will feature speaker Ben Privot. Added plus? Sex toy raffle! You could win buzz big!

Barus & Holley 166 @ 7 p.m. on Wednesday, April 18. See the Facebook page for more info.

Brown students often throw around accusatory labels. Heteronormative, relativist, dogmatic and sexist — the list goes on and on. But perhaps no epithet stings more than the label ethnocentric, an accusation that you evaluate the world based on your own biased cultural values.

As a Brown student, Heather HotPants also reflects on her biases from time to time. And today, Heather has something to admit: she’s been a little ethnocentric.

Writing a sex column can be hard. No two individuals are exactly alike, which is why a lot of us run around for so many years trying to find another mate whose sexual and emotional preferences match our own. With people’s wide range of tastes and desires, it’s tempting for a sex columnist to make the occasional generalization about our species. I’ve tried to avoid making blanket statements like “women are bitches” or “men cheat,” but, nevertheless, the temptation exists.

All I can do is write what I know. Any wisdom I’ve imparted has been shaped by my experiences as a white, privileged, heterosexual female. I’ve talked a lot about being heterosexual and being female, but I haven’t spent much time talking about how the white and privileged parts shape my views of sex and sexuality.

I recently came across a shocking article in Psychology Today, which explains that most of what we know in psychology is based on a very small, special population (hint: you’re a member). This special population, which one review in Cambridge’s Behavior and Brain Sciences calls “WEIRD,” is made up of “Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic” societies. This group makes up a paltry “12% of the world’s population” but can account for “96% of the subjects whose behavior has been reported in top psychological journals,” according to the article. [Read more →]

It’s springtime at Brown. Birds are a-chirping, flowers are blooming, and underwear strewn frisbees are being tossed on the Main Green. And in spring, we see a lot of students pairing off two by two. It’s the perfect season for love.

Falling in love evokes fun images of joy, laughter, and stylized heart shaped body contortions. (Googling “love” also evokes weird websites of Israelis and Iranians virtually professing love for each other.) But if you’ve ever been in love, you know that falling in love can be a deeply painful and confusing experience, too. [Read more →]

With the end of the semester rapidly approaching, you might be wondering where next semester will take you. Study abroad, perhaps? Maybe you’re a graduating senior who’s moving across seas or a sophomore looking to take some time off to travel. If you’re going outside the US, you’ll need to prep yourself on how to navigate your sexy way around the globe. Last week, Heather HotPants covered some popular abroad destinations. This week, she’s giving you more:

Argentina: It takes three to tango. Argentines are known for their love of fooling around, and that includes with people who aren’t their partners. “If an Argentine ever takes you on a date to a café, but when you enter the café he tells you there are ‘too many people’ for the ‘intimate atmosphere,’ [that] means he has a girlfriend and he’s worried that her friends are at the café,” according to one friend who studied in Buenos Aires. “And I know this because my Argentine professor explained this to me.”

China: You are a western god(dess). Anyone who has been to China will tell you that if you’re not Asian-looking, you are an automatic celebrity. Careful — just because they want your autograph doesn’t mean that they want to sleep with you. In fact, talk of sex is taboo in China — sex education only opened up in the last decade. But like most things in this country, all of that is changing quickly. [Read more →]

Ah, restless Brunonian, your intellectual curiosity knows no geographic limits! Why spend time reading about Joyce when you can truly experience his words for yourself in Dublin? Why study science in a lecture hall when you can visit CERN in Geneva? You have to go and see the world for yourself! So, at least, you told Mom and Dad as you signed your study abroad application last Friday.

But let’s get down to the real reason why you’re going abroad. That’s right, some good ol’ fashioned foreign sex. Brown is wonderful, sure, but it’s no secret that by senior year, you likely will have slept with all of your friends. We live in a small place. A place where your last one-night stand is lurking at every turn of the Rock and the most exciting sex news is a cameo appearance of the John Street masturbator… again. Let’s fly, fly away from Brown, just for a safe semester or two, and let our genitals express themselves globally! Before you go, though, a heads up on what you’ve gotten yourself into. [Read more →]

It’s Sex Week @ Brown.

SHEEC, the Sexual Health Education & Empowerment Center, organizes the 7-day long event comprised of workshops, lectures, screenings, and more. Sex Week is in its fourth year and is in full swing until this Saturday, March 17.

The point of Sex Week? To “bring events to campus about things people may want to know about but might not feel comfortable asking about,” says Jenn Conti ’12, co-chair of SHEEC. “Sex and sexual health are usually spun in a negative way — ‘don’t do this, don’t do that’ — but through Sex Week, we’re talking about things in a sex-positive way.”

Sex-positive? Sounds good to me!

But is Sex Week just another sad example of Brown kids talking about sex without actually having any? Maybe. Sex Week certainly won’t go around knocking on Keeney doors and forcing coitus where it’s not wanted. But talking about sex openly might be the first step in that giant leap from just curious to full-blown sexually active. Plus, some events — like the “Orchestrating Orgasms” workshop with star sex educator Megan Andelloux — prove much less academic and much more utilitarian, hem hem.

Events at Sex Week you should not miss: 

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Conversations with my guy friends at Brown reveal a surprising statistic: 100 percent of them have perfect sex lives, make their partners orgasm every time, and never finish before 60 minutes. This is in stark contrast to the men I’ve slept with — 0 percent of whom fit this same bill. I’d love to believe my guy friends, but I’ve got this nagging suspicion that something’s up. I’m not sure why — call it social pressure or self-consciousness — but the point is, guys aren’t coming out with it.

I don’t mean to downplay the seriousness. When problems down there do happen — as they will to us all at some point in our sex lives — it can be embarrassing and frustrating. Probably the scariest problem for a guy in bed is going soft. This problem can tug on a guy’s deepest psychological strings and make him feel like he’s “not a man.” No fears, gentlemen! The first step is recognizing that this same issue has happened to every single man in the history of the universe (according to a fictitious survey I did dating 10,000 BC–present). The second step is better understanding what’s going on down there. There are tons of reasons why you might be finding yourself going soft like a pretzel, so read on to discover more. [Read more →]

Chances are you’ve already heard plenty of reasons to scare you from having sex — particularly if you are a woman or a homosexual male. All over the planet we’ve got rules about what we shouldn’t be doing and whom we shouldn’t be doing.

What are some of the things about sex you’re supposed to fear?

1. Pregnancy
2. Rape (apparently, ladies, if you have sex or even flirt with a guy, then you’re probably asking for sex with anyone at anytime)
3. STIs
4. AIDS (yeah, I know, similar to #3 but this one has historically been directed towards gay males)
5. Being labeled a slut or a manwhore (they even have a sort of slut IQ test for it now)
6. Not being able to have a family  (if you like to have sex with people of your same sex)

At a place like Brown, most of us can shrug off the critics and decide for ourselves which risks we’re comfortable taking. There is, however, one fear voiced quite frequently at Brown and it’s this:

Ruining your chances of establishing a meaningful relationship with someone. [Read more →]