Anonymous '16
Number of articles: 6First article: September 20, 2013
Latest article: February 7, 2014
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The bears and the bees Bedtime aversions: my fear of getting down and dirty
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The bears and the bees Don’t do it just to do it: the collegiate pressure to lose your v-card
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The bears and the bees Condoms aren’t just male birth control
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The bears and the bees Pillow talk: let’s bring conversation to the bedroom
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The bears and the bees Assumption of hidden motives hinder hookups
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The bears and the bees: Condoms aren’t just male birth control
Disclaimer: I am not a doctor.
You’ve probably already figured that out, but I wanted to confirm, because I think it’s time we talk about birth control. Specifically, male condoms.
I’m not going to talk about the pros of using condoms, because if you’re like me, you’ve probably gotten that message countless times in various forms. Possibly including that time the health practitioner interrupted you when you asked about birth control to tell you that ONLY CONDOMS PROTECT YOU FROM STIs. Which isn’t entirely true, though I was a little too taken aback by her delivery to make the point at the time. Then again, this was the same one who slut shamed me over getting a birth control prescription in the first place, so maybe she’s not the best example. I don’t go to her anymore.
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The bears and the bees: Assumption of hidden motives hinder hookups
Hook ups are delicate things. The physical act, maybe not so much—but emotional transactions that occur during can be awkward, to say the least. Last spring I was with a dude in his room having fun when, out of the blue, he told me he “loved my eyes.” Said eyes became very wide. Love? We’d met maybe two hours earlier in a dark basement.
Granted, “I love your eyes” is a far cry from “I love you,” but it was still strange to hear from someone who, in all honesty, probably didn’t even know what color my eyes were. Then again, maybe it had just slipped out in the heat of the moment. I ignored it, assuming that either nothing more would happen between us after that night or we’d get to know each other well enough that I’d be cool with hearing that kind of compliment regularly. As it happens, we took the former path and never really spoke again.
But I did think about the compliment. More precisely, about how that sort of thing—the whispering of overly affectionate sweet nothings—is gendered. A girl, in my experience, could never get away with saying something like that. If, in the middle of an alcohol-fueled dalliance, she said anything beginning with “I love…,” alarm bells would start going off. CODE RED. STAGE FIVE CLINGER ALERT.
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The bears and the bees: Pillow talk: let’s bring conversation to the bedroom
Americans are obsessed with sex. It’s everywhere—movies, magazines, billboards, even our classrooms—and we are constantly talking about it. We want to know how to have good sex, how to get a person to have sex with you, how to get someone to call you after a one-night stand, how to avoid making or receiving that call—the list goes on.
Sex is constantly in the conversation.
But for all the talking we do, there is very little discussion where it matters most: in the bedroom.
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The bears and the bees: Bedtime aversions: my fear of getting down and dirty
I have a confession to make: I’m afraid of giving blowjobs.
I feel like a failure of a sex columnist; how can I properly talk about sex things on campus when there’s stuff I just don’t do? And yet…
My only real experience with giving oral occurred while I was a bit too inebriated. It was incredibly sloppy and ended almost immediately, as my partner quickly realized that I was too drunk to properly make decisions and put me to bed.
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The bears and the bees: Comfortable consent: only say yes to hooking up when you want to
Happy Friday, Bowdoin students. What are your plans for the weekend? If you answered “to be the drunkest girl at the party and crash in someone else’s room at 11 p.m.,” then your Saturday night might just live up to my most recent weekend adventures.
At 3 a.m., back in my room, I woke up to my friend just getting in. She grabbed us matching glasses of water and we went to sleep. Seemed like a normal (if somewhat embarrassing, on my part) night.
At brunch the next day, however, she recounted a fairly unusual series of events: she had gone to a College House, danced under a blacklight in a too-revealing dress, and eventually went home with a first year. That’s not the unusual part—it happens to the best of us.
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The bears and the bees: Don’t do it just to do it: the collegiate pressure to lose your v-card
According to a National Center for Health Statistics report published in 2011 by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, about 70 to 75 percent of students (depending on gender) have had heterosexual intercourse by the time they reach college age (about 18 or 19). To use a statistic that’s less heterocentric and slightly closer to home, Harvard’s survey of the class of 2017 found that 65 percent were virgins before matriculating, and their 2013 senior survey showed that 30 percent of students were virgins by graduation.
While Bowdoin is definitely a sexier place than Harvard—just look at our attractiveness rankings on College Prowler—that still means that the majority of the first year class hasn’t had sex, and that many people go through college without doing so. So why is being a college virgin so frustrating?
If you came here devirginized, you might not know what I’m talking about. But others among you might understand: it can be really difficult to be a virgin in college.In many high schools, it’s the norm not to have sex. Some people do, but often the assumption is that most people are virgins. College is in most cases the complete opposite. There are no parents; no one cares if you sneak out of your dorm for an illicit meet up. You’re surrounded by fit guys and girls all your age, bubbling over with hormones. Most pressing of all, it seems like everyone else is doing it.