For many of us, reading period and finals are a stressful time of papers, exams, all-nighters, and little else. And though, as we posted about last semester, it is important to give yourself a little self care, you can’t afford to blow off steam like you may have earlier in the semester. Getting drunk and going out seems nearly impossible when you’re pulling consecutive all-nighters trying to get your shit done. You can’t afford the day-long hangover, nor can you stomach a diet of Powerade and Pepto-Bismol.

If bodily destruction isn’t in the cards right now, you need an alternative. Instead of hurting your liver, why don’t you give a gift to your body this time around? Why not do it while simultaneously enhancing your studies? We know that sexual activities have all sorts of stress reducing and health beneficial properties (that don’t include destroying any internal organs), and you can do them while still being productive.

So here are Caitlin’s ‘creative’ methods for studying and being sexy:

Strip paper: We’ve all heard of strip poker, strip monopoly, strip crazy eights (okay, maybe some of us haven’t heard of that one)—now it’s time to welcome strip paper! All you need is any form of a written assignment to work on, and the concept is simple: for every paragraph you write, you remove an article of clothing.  For all you kids out there with ten-page papers: things are about to get sexy. [Read more →]

As the semester winds down, many of us are finding that it’s now or never to get to know (biblically, that is) that special someone in our comp lit class that we’ve been eyeing. Or maybe there was a really enjoyable hookup during Spring Weekend that we want to re-acquaint ourselves with. And, if we’re lucky, we’ve managed to get that person’s phone number but are now at the point where we begin the dreaded texting game. I’m sure many of you know the one I’m talking about: you’re trying to formulate a text message that is equally coy and flirty. You’re trying to seem cool and aloof while still indicating interest, and you definitely don’t want to seem creepy and desperate. So here are my tips on how to craft the perfect text message to your person of interest. The key, I think, is to be honest. And to utilize some semblance of grammar and punctuation; put question marks at the ends of your sentences, folks. Please.

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We hope your Spring Weekend was as wild and as full of debauchery as ours was. Not so surprisingly, both of your lovely Sextion writers managed to get some action this weekend and we’re here to tell you about it.

Monica Bruinsky: So, Margaret, it sounds like you had a really eventful Spring Weekend. Wanna tell our readers about it?

Margaret Snatcher: Well, Friday night started out pretty normally as far as Spring Weekend goes. I was just pre-gaming with my friends before the concert, brought a flask, and was wearing clothes that I would never let my parents see me in…the usual. However, I went into the evening with high expectations, and let’s just say they were met. [Read more →]

Menstruation itself is a taboo subject, let alone engaging in sexual activity during those days of the month when Mother Nature is wreaking havoc on a woman’s uterus. Honestly, I couldn’t help but laugh when, during a not-so-sober evening, one of my guy friends leaned over and said to me, “You’re not a real man until you get some blood on your sword.” While this is mildly chauvinistic and heteronormative, there is some truth in suggesting that sex should not be entirely written off when a woman has her period. For all of those interested, we have listed some pros and cons of having sex when a woman is on her period below. Find out how you can ensure that you are doing it cleanly and safely after the jump. 
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I hope you all had an amazing spring break. If you’re one of the many people that went home over break, you may have realized that vacation is the perfect time for your parents to bombard you with questions about your sex life. Or maybe they got a little too wine-drunk during Passover and shared too much information about their own experiences in the bedroom. Either way, our parents say some pretty horrible and hilarious shit stuff when it comes to sex.

Fortunately for me, my older siblings have had to bear the brunt of the majority of my parents’ sex talks, and I was spared some of the worst questions. Like when my dad asked my oldest brother if he masturbated with his whole hand or just the top two fingers. Poor kid. But because my parents know about my passion for sex and sex education, they actually end up asking me a lot of questions. My dad watches a lot of South Park, so when he learns of a new word like “teabagging,” he likes to quiz me on their meanings. And the time I had to explain to my mom that, no, oral sex on a woman does not have to be performed exclusively on a bed. I don’t know if I have to blame my mom or my dad more for that question.

In any case, our parents took on a major role in our sex education, whether by passively giving us books to read like The Naked Ape, or by sitting us down and giving us the dreaded “Talk,” so I thought I’d ask some fellow bloggers about the best/worst/most ridiculous things their parents ever told them about sex: [Read more →]

We hope you had a fantastic time exploring your sexuality during Sex Week last week. We certainly had a lot of fun. And though we, your two lovely Sextion columnists, see ourselves as “sexperts,” we definitely learned a thing or two. Like how to put on a condom with our mouths, for example. Didn’t get to make as many events as you had hoped? No worries! Here are the top 10 things Margaret and Monica learned during Sex Week: [Read more →]

Mag the Vag and I could not be more excited to announce that SEX WEEK HAS ARRIVED. Below you will find a schedule of events throughout the week, but be on the lookout for happenings on the Main Green as well. Even if you’re just walking through, it doesn’t hurt to pick up a condom or taste test the many different brands of lube! This week is going to be AMAZING and we hope to see you all at these fun and informative events and presentations! Here is the Sex Week website with all the information you’ll ever need!

Note, asterisks denote that the event will include a sex toy raffle. (Find the schedule of events after the jump.) [Read more →]

High school sex ed was the best. You got to sit for hours and be talked to about, well, sex. And the best part? You didn’t have to learn about it from your parents (might I remind you of the awkwardness that comes with learning about how babies are made from the two people who made you?). Sadly, I still hold a bit of a grudge against the more conservative-minded parents who kept my school’s sex education programs from the full glory they could have been. We got a lesson in basic anatomy, a brief overview of birth control, and then a heavy dose of abstinence. Nothing to the extreme of “If you have sex, you will get pregnant…and die,” but I was never given the opportunity to put a condom on a banana, and I’m still—and will always be—bitter about that.

However, the point of my writing today is to celebrate the awkwardness that was everyone’s first view into the world of sexuality. Whether your parents forced you to read these books, or you had a health teacher whose name was  “Ms. Humphrey” who performed a sperm dance, sex education was decidedly terrible and delightful at the same time. And whether you were taught in an abstinence-only eduction program, played condom volleyball, or played the penis game (yelling “penis, Penis, PENIS!!!!” louder and louder until everyone was supposed to be comfortable), at least one of our writers on Blog can relate. So here we have our bloggers’ memories on some of the most comically nostalgic topics covered in our sex ed classes: [Read more →]

Most of us are aware of the plethora of “Brown buzzwords” that circulate on campus. They’re words that are perhaps used more frequently here than at our friends’ schools: hegemony, discourse, unpacking, spectrum, and social construct, to name just a few. Not only do they set us apart from other schools, but they make a wicked set of Halloween costumes, as we saw from this year’s costume contest.

One of the many words in the quintessential Brown vernacular is heteronormativity. Heteronormativity is the belief system that assumes heterosexuality to be the norm and rejects or ignores individuals or relationships that do not fall into the strict man-woman paradigm. It also, according to Karen Lovaas and Mercilee Jenkins in their comprehensive book Sexualities and Communication in Everyday Life: A Reader, assumes “that there are two sexes and therefore two genders” and therefore “requires that all discussions of gendered identity and opportunity be framed strictly in terms of this dichotomy” (98). We inclusive Brown students openly reject this notion.

But how inclusive are we as a whole? How much does each of us truly know about the LGBTQ community? Probably not as much as we think, considering that the acronym is much longer than that! The acronym, as I know it now, is LGBTQQIAAP2S. So click on the image of the Sporcle quiz below to test your knowledge of the entire acronym, and then read below for a description of each of the components!

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Hormonal contraceptives are no doubt one of the most important medical breakthroughs in women’s health since they were first brought to the public in the 1960s. A pill a day keeps the baby away.  However, there is something about the pill that frequently goes unmentioned – not the most common side effect, but not entirely unheard of either. For certain women, being on birth control lowers their libido and erases their sexual enjoyment, defeating the point of taking the pill in the first place.

Fewer orgasms, less frequent sex, difficulty getting aroused – those are just some of the possible side-effects of birth control that you won’t be reading on the side of this month’s pill package.

Throughout a menstrual cycle, hormonal fluctuation can alter a woman’s facial appearance, body odor, and vocal pitch. When she’s ovulating, these changes make her more attractive to men because they indicate fertility. Since the pill works by tricking the body into thinking that it is already pregnant, the pill inhibits ovulation and women taking it miss out on that peak fertile period during which they normally would be traipsing around oozing sex appeal.  Women may lose the time during the menstrual cycle when they are most attractive to men- and most easily sexually aroused.

Not only can the quality of your sex life depreciate, but you also might end up looking at your partner one day and realizing that you’re not attracted to them anymore.

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