SEX: The Morning After - The Reality of Sex
By Anonymous on 01 Oct
Check out this article giving a real account of college dating, sex and its consequences. Written by staff reporter Erin Maynard for The Spectrum, an independent student publication at the University of Buffalo.
So, you've swiped your V-Card. Now what?
See, here's the thing: sex columns don't talk about the day after, unless it's to tell you how effective the morning-after pill is. They don't generally address things like regret and consequences mostly because it's unglamorous. Let's face it, getting all prettied up for a date is way more fun than doing the walk of shame the next morning with ratty hair and your underwear (if you were lucky enough to find it) crammed into your purse.
Sex columns are like that too.
It's much more interesting – and entertaining – to talk about homemade vibrators and X-rated webcam sessions. But it's not the whole story; not by a long shot. But in the interest of keeping this semi-comparable to The Spectrum's regular sex column, I'm OK with dishing a little dirt first.
My V-card got swiped just after I turned 18. We were in the front seat of a Dodge Daytona. It was messy, it was over fast, and it was dumb but I thought it was what I was supposed to do. After all, I was heading into my sophomore year of college and I was still a virgin. So, after dating this guy for a few months, I did it.
I had no idea what I was doing. I mean, I understood the basic mechanics of sex, but there's only so much you can get from sex-ed class. I was so clueless that I didn't know that not swallowing was even an option. And after that less-than-memorable first time, well, we did it a bunch more since practice apparently makes perfect.
You know what else it a makes? Babies. And so just as my second year of college started, I found myself in a bathroom stall – in the library of all places – praying to God that I was only going to see one purple line. I saw two.
While all my friends were out partying, travelling abroad, and doing what other young adults were supposed to be doing, I was having a very different college experience: one that consisted of morning sickness, re-hydration therapy, gestational diabetes, toxemia, and surgery.
After my daughter was born, there were rounds of paternity tests, court battles that set state legal precedent, and the joy of navigating the state child support enforcement bureau. There wasn't enough time to raise a child, hold down a full-time job (as well as a part-time one) and also go to school. I had to make a choice, and school was what I had to sacrifice.
Now finally, I am able to go back to college. I know that my age and my perspective make me a non-traditional student. And some of you readers may automatically dismiss anything that I say because I "just don't understand." But it really wasn't all that long ago that I was your age.
More to the point, it won't be all that long before my own child heads off to college – and I have to say that given what I've seen, the idea scares the crap out of me.
It's not that I expect my daughter to be a virgin on her wedding night. I'm not that naïve. But, what I do hope is that she knows that sex isn't a game either.
That isn't a lesson she's liable to learn if her university newspaper perpetually presents only one perspective when it comes to sex.
There is a time, and a place, for frank discussion of sexuality. The school's newspaper may even be that place. But the discussions about positions, lingerie, and masturbating should be counter-balanced by equally frank discussions about the more serious side of sex.
The sex column is a new addition to The Spectrum and has been widely read across campus. But that, right there, is the issue I have with the tone and tenor that every article has taken thus far.
This is not a niche publication like Cosmo or Maxim: it is a student newspaper. As such, it needs to represent the entire student body. Surely some of the students are interested in cupless bustiers, but given the comments this column has generated, others most definitely are not. The sex column shouldn't be so focused on the lewd and titillating that it ignores the more serious issues.
Sex sells, but what sort of message is this column sending to the community and to potential students? All we're doing as a newspaper – and as a university – is selling ourselves short.
Do it; don't do it. That's a personal choice. But it's one that shouldn't be based on one-sided representations of sex that ignore the reality of regret and consequences. Women (and men) get enough misconceptions about sex from glossy magazines with advertising agendas. Readers of The Spectrum should expect a more well-rounded viewpoint.
Sex isn't all about mastering positions that would make Cirque du Soleil contortionists wince. It's about much more: sex is a complicated emotional decision with potentially life-altering ramifications. Yes, it's fun sometimes. Heck, it's fun lots of times. But it is not some euphoric experience that comes without consequences, nor should it be the defining event of anyone's college experience.
Here's the most important thing I've learned after being sexually active for a decade and a half: sex isn't magic. Good sex won't save a floundering relationship and bad sex (or the lack thereof) won't destroy a solid partnership.
It's hard to weigh the pros and the cons of becoming sexually active if you're being bombarded by only one sort of message: you're "corny" or "nerdy" if you aren't screwing like rabbits, as a previous column stated.
Education is the reason to attend a university. And while the argument that life experience is a part of that education is certainly a valid point, an equally valid point is that there is a whole multitude of opportunities that make up your college years – opportunities that can be derailed if you don't stop and think.
Go ahead, make the decision to have sex if that's what you want to do. But make it after you've determined that you're ready to make that commitment, and that you're ready to deal with the possible outcomes, good and bad. Yes, sex can be amazing, but it can also be forgettable, or worse, regrettable.
Sex is never free of consequence. Some of those consequences, like mind-blowing orgasms and a deeper connection, are awesome and worthwhile. Other consequences include broken hearts and health worries. There are two sides, and both ought to be presented.
Real.College.Life.
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