At the beginning of Fall Quarter, I found myself drawn into a heated debate with a few acquaintances. Apparently one of them had a roommate who had recently hooked up with a girl and, upon waking up the next morning, found that she had made him breakfast. Slightly taken aback, he ate the food and then left. He didn’t call her again.

This led the four of us (three boys and myself) into an argument about the correct protocol for this kind of situation. What do you do when your hookup greets your sleepy, hungover face with a plate full of pancakes?

I certainly know my own first instinct: Run. As a girl, I’m probably supposed to be deeply touched by the kindness of this gesture or something squishy and romantic like that. But too many years of lit class have taught me that there are inevitably motives and reasons behind these kinds of actions. People don’t just make breakfast for fun. These aren’t regular pancakes; these, my friends, are pancakes with implications.

The thing is, though, not everybody sees that malice lurking beneath the tasty doughy surface. Two of the boys I was talking to were thrilled about the prospect of post-coital pancakes. They just saw it as a delicious treat, and nothing more. After consulting a wide range of unofficial sources (namely, everyone I know), I’ve determined that this laissez-faire attitude is not just a straight-guy thing; plenty of people of both genders and various sexual orientations saw no issue with the idea of a morning-after breakfast. In fact, some people would be thrilled to wake up to such a sweet gesture. There are folks out there who don’t immediately want to leave in the morning; in fact, maybe they like the other person enough to hang around for a while — and then again tomorrow. And the next day. At that point, we might be talking about relationship pancakes instead. But that’s a different issue entirely.

Really, there’s nothing wrong with the pancakes themselves; they’re just innocent little breakfast treats. The real problem with this situation, as with (unfortunately) almost everything involving sex or relationships, is that it really doesn’t work unless you’re on the same page as your partner. If you’re looking for a relationship, then breakfast in bed is going to be quite a few points in the chef’s favor; or, if you’re the one making the breakfast, it’s probably going to send a pretty clear signal to the other person that you’re actually interested in their personality. You just have to make sure that the signals you’re sending are the ones you actually mean.

Because let’s be honest, most casual hookups don’t happen because you’re really trying to find that special someone. You wake up, roll over and try to figure out where your pants are and whether you’ve slept through a meeting already and who the hell is that lying next to you anyways? For those of us who want our casual hookups to stay just that (casual), breakfast is a terrifying prospect. You mean we actually have to speak to this other person? In daylight? To paraphrase a great American poet, a lot of us would do anything for sex, but we won’t do that.

It’s not that all gestures of morning kindness are unwelcome, even for those poor souls with severe phobias about clothed human interaction. Coffee? Coffee is great. Coffee is an acknowledgment that you are another human being, that you have needs and most likely one hell of a caffeine dependency by this point in your life. A hot cup of joe is nothing more than an appreciation of the fact that you’re going to have to walk home, and walking is much more successful when said walker is awake. And as a barista, I can say with confidence that it takes almost zero effort to pour some coffee into a mug and hand it to another person. But there’s something much more personal about food, whether you go out for breakfast or cook up some eggs in the kitchen. It’s the fact that they’re putting more effort into the situation than the basic amount needed for you to gather your clothes, maybe offer a goodbye kiss and walk out the door.

There is, of course, the chance that we’re all reading way too much into this. Maybe your partner’s mama just raised them to be a good host or hostess. Maybe years of warnings to avoid strangers with candy, combined with our dependency on cynicism and impossible-to-interpret booty call text messages, have destroyed our ability to tell when someone is just trying to be nice to us. Many of us do have a tendency to automatically assume the worst in any situation, but there is always the possibility that there is nothing more malicious than chocolate chips hiding in those pancakes.

Unfortunately for that pleasantly hopeful thought, odds are the other person didn’t just whip up a batch of tasty breakfast treats because they were bored. Most college kids I know don’t exactly love cooking, especially not in the morning (or whenever you crazy love-monkeys wake up). It takes some kind of motivation to make that happen, and it can be either sweet or scary to realize that you just might be that motivation. But even if it does raise in you the overwhelming urge to go dashing home (or at least to Norbucks, where they won’t demand any information more personal than what kind of milk you prefer), you’re almost always better off resisting that urge at least long enough to explain to the other person that you really weren’t looking for more than a fun night.

Yeah, it sounds intimidating or maybe just callous, but think about how many awkward situations in your life could’ve been averted just by being straightforward from the beginning. Too often, it seems like we’re all stumbling around (whether drunkenly or not), falling in and out of other people’s date parties and beds without ever actually paying attention to what it is that we’re doing or saying. And God forbid we ever acknowledge our emotions about anyone, or pretend that someone means more to us than a good time and a place to sleep for the night.

It’s certainly true that some of us have mastered the hey-it-was-fun-I’m-leaving-now-please-don’t-ever-talk-to-me-again-okay-thanks-bye hookup and are okay with it, but it’s not an excuse to treat the other person like they don’t matter at all. They may not matter to you, but they’re probably important to someone. I’m sure their mother likes them (not that you should be thinking about someone’s mom while you’re having sex with them — but that’s beside the point). The point is that it’s fine to only want a one-night stand, and it’s equally fine to want a relationship. But either way, you have to be honest about your intentions with yourself and with the other person, because if you spend too much time sending mixed messages you’re bound to wake up one morning confronted by a pile of unwanted breakfast food — or the empty space on the other side of the bed.

We’re old enough now that we should be over games of make-believe and able to be honest about what we want from a hookup, because pretending isn’t helping anyone. If you haven’t figured that out by now, I’d say it’s about time for you to wake up and smell the … pancakes.

Have a great rest of the year, kids. It’s been fun being the resident sexpert this quarter, but I’m off to Argentina, where it’s warm and the men aren’t all econ majors. Stay busy, and stay safe.

The hot girl from your history class is naked, and she totally wants you. You reach for her, pull her into bed with you, and then — you wake up. Damn it.

If you’re one of the six people at Northwestern lucky enough to still be averaging a normal amount of sleep (or any at all), chances are you’ve had some kind of sex dream lately. You wake up, breathless, hoping you didn’t make any weird noises and wake up your roommate or neighbors. Before you fall back asleep, you wonder: How the hell am I going to look that girl in the face in class on Monday?

While it’s always a weird feeling to see someone who your subconscious has imagined naked, sex dreams are nothing to be ashamed of. According to a University of Montreal study conducted last year, sex dreams make up about 8 percent of all dreams for both men and women. The most common kind of sex dream involve good old-fashioned intercourse, followed by propositions or flirting, kissing and fantasies. The results of the study, which was the first exploration into the subject in nearly 40 years, run counter to much of that past (and outdated) research, as well as the long-standing assumption that men think about sex far more than women, both consciously and subconsciously. This change doesn’t mean that modern women have spontaneously started dreaming about sex a lot more — it’s just that women these days are much more comfortable discussing their sexuality and fantasies.

However, though they experience them with essentially the same frequency, men and women’s sex dreams aren’t exactly the same. According to a press release from Dr. Antonio Zadra, Ph.D., the study’s leader, “Men’s sexual dreams were more likely to take place in public or unknown settings, to have the dreamer initiate sexual contact, and to involve unknown characters or multiple partners.” In fact, men’s dreams were twice as likely to involve multiple partners. Both men and women had an orgasm in about 4 percent of their dreams, but women also reported that orgasms were experienced by a partner in about 4 percent of sex dreams. In contrast, men didn’t report that other people had an orgasm in their dreams. I guess if there’s a time and a place to be focused only on your own pleasure, it might as well be when you’re alone and unconscious.

“Observed gender differences may be indicative of different waking needs, experiences, desires and attitudes with respect to sexuality,” said Zadra. “This is consistent with the continuity hypothesis of dreaming, which postulates that the content of everyday dreams reflects the dreamer’s waking states and concerns.”

Still, the men weren’t getting all the perks: women’s sex dreams were twice as likely to feature public figures (9 percent to 4 percent). On the other hand, 20 percent of women’s dreams featured current or past partners, compared to only 14 percent of men’s. Unfortunately, this means that when your boyfriend wakes up all hot and bothered, chances are he wasn’t thinking about you — no matter how emphatically he insists otherwise.

But sex dreams aren’t all fun and games, either. Just like real life, it’s very easy for something to go wrong. According to Dr. Gillian Holloway, a psychologist specializing in dream interpretation, there are two primary kinds of sex dreams. One is the idealized encounter, where everything is perfect. “For men, it’s often that they encounter a partner who looks at them like they’re James Bond” and simply offers him or herself to the dreamer, said Holloway. For women, the idealized dream often features an uncanny or very deep connectedness with a partner. However, the other, more common, type of sex dream is the one where something goes terribly, terribly wrong. Unfortunately, since reality is suspended, and pretty much anything is fair subject matter in the dreamworld, this can result in a huge range of potential problems, particularly for women, who are slightly more prone to experiencing frustrating sex dreams. “In general, men’s tend to be a lot of fun, whereas women’s tend to be more about relationships or things inhibiting passion,” noted Holloway.

But what does it all mean?
Sure, nobody likes the idea that their significant other is getting busy with someone else, even if it is subconscious and basically impossible to control. But does it even matter? Should you actually be worried that your girlfriend’s recurring sex dream is going to make her leave you for Justin Long, or does it mean something totally different (like maybe she just really wants a new iBook for her birthday)? Most dream experts agree that your dreams, sexual or otherwise, should not be taken exactly at face value. “Dreams are exaggerations,” said Holloway. “They make everything more dramatic. So if you have a little problem, that’s going to be a big problem in your dreams.”

Often there’s a far different message buried in your dream than what the content might imply. According to Holloway, dreams can act as a subconscious sorting tool, allowing you to go through “more material than you would be able to sort logically.” They can be a means of exposing latent concerns, a way to compensate for things lacking in real life, or a neutral space in which you can experience something that you might be afraid to try in waking life. Sex dreams are totally natural, though, and they don’t mean that there’s anything at all wrong with you or your life (romantic, sexual or otherwise). To calm any remaining fears, here are a few of the most common sex dreams and what they really mean.

Famous partner
Okay, so maybe this is just your brain needing a break from studying for all those midterms and indulging in the most harmless (but satisfying) way it can. But, it could also mean that you’re looking for a little something more from your life right now. Maybe it’s a reminder to your deprived single psyche that there are awesome people out there, beyond the confines of Sheridan Road. It could also mean that you desire some quality of that person, either for yourself or in your partner. “If you’re having a dream, especially a recurring dream, about someone who wouldn’t be your top erotic star, then it’s likely that they’re representing some quality that you desire or that you’ve had a recent experience with,” said Holloway. So you want to be a rock star? It’s no surprise, then, that you find your dream self locking lips (and other bits) with Caleb Followill. Just stay away from the tour bus in real life — you don’t want to end up as an actual diseased rock star. Gross.

Interruption/nowhere to go
You’re getting it on, everything’s going great when — suddenly your mom or your best friend walks in. Granted, this is a legitimate fear (and a horribly embarrassing experience) in real life, but it’s also pretty common in dreams. This doesn’t mean, though, that you need to start padlocking all of your doors. Instead, it’s likely that some quality or opinion of this person has affected your attitudes toward sex or relationships. Maybe your mom told you that sex would make you sprout hair out of your knees, or your best friend always makes comments about how you spend more time with your partner than you do with him/her. If you’re having dreams about interrupted sex, don’t worry about who’s getting interrupted, but take a good look at who’s doing the interrupting. After you cover yourself up, of course.

Another side of this is the classic conundrum that afflicts many a college student: the inability to find a place to have sex. In real life, this just leaves you pissed off, frustrated and, occasionally, really amused, but in a dream it probably means that you feel like the relationship is lacking some intimacy or strong connection. This is a particularly common dream to have after a break-up or even during a separation period.

In public
It’s like the nightmare where you suddenly find yourself naked on stage in front of hundreds of people — except this time it’s worse, because there’s someone else involved, and chances are you aren’t just standing there. Again, this dream doesn’t mean you secretly want to go out and see how hard you have to try to get arrested for indecent exposure. Rather, it reflects how you feel about other people viewing your relationship. There is somewhat of a gender discrepancy in reactions to this kind of a dream; men often find it more fun and exciting, while for women, “it halts the action,” says Holloway. Regardless of your gender, if having all those people watching terrifies you, then you’re probably worrying about how your friends, family, TMZ or the world in general feels about this relationship. According to Holloway, a dream featuring coitus interruptus is often a result of “some element of exposure or vulnerability intruding on [the participant's] pleasure.” On the other hand, Kinky McExhibitionist, if you find the giant crowd exciting then it’s likely that you just have an awesome sex life and kind of want to brag about it to everyone. Yes, you win; we’re all jealous. Congratulations. Just watch where you’re getting it on in real life. Some of us would prefer to go to Modern Cosmology without worrying about what else has been happening on that stage, thanks.

The ex
These are often both the most exciting and the most upsetting dreams. But this does not under any circumstances mean that you should go dashing back into the arms of your awful ex, no matter how good the dream sex was. Exes in dreams often serve as “emotional snapshots” — basically, they act as a stand-in for feelings you might have about sex, love or relationships. Especially if they’re your most recent ex, they’re probably showing up in your dreams now because you’re thinking so much about sex or relationships and, by extension, about your most recent experiences with them. Don’t dwell on the fact that you dreamed about them. However, if this ex is a particularly unpleasant character, you might want to take a second to reflect on why you’re dreaming about them now. “If you’re starting a new relationship and you have flashback dreams about being back with a bad ex, it could be because you’re subconsciously picking up on some qualities you don’t like in the new person,” said Holloway. This doesn’t mean you should dump them immediately and run screaming to get a restraining order, but it’s worth asking yourself if there’s anything you’ve been noticing lately that might be reminding you of this ex.

Wrong gender
So you’re having a steamy sex dream when suddenly you realize that something is very wrong. Somewhere within that dream, you switched genders — and you kind of liked it. Maybe you didn’t even notice until you woke up. First off, don’t panic. You did not just suddenly become transgender. You can leave your Facebook profile just the way it is. Your naughty bits are still all in the correct order, I promise. This kind of dream isn’t so much about getting inside the body of the opposite gender as it is about their mind. Usually, a dream where you are the wrong gender is pushing you toward some kind of realization or understanding about the psychology of that gender. Maybe you’ve been having trouble communicating with your partner lately, or they haven’t understood you. Rather than telling you to go out and spend thousands of dollars on fancy operations, this dream is really about seeing things from a different emotional or psychological perspective that you probably hadn’t thought about before.
Of course, there’s always the possibility that it’s just to teach you what oral is like for the other half. Either way, you’re learning something valuable, so pay attention.

And hey, maybe you’re like me and remember your dreams about once a month or so, if you’re lucky (and they are never about sex. Often they do involve scary politicans. But scary clothed politicians). If that’s the case, don’t worry, either. If you haven’t had your wisdom teeth out yet, you’ve still got anesthesia-induced sex dreams to look forward to. Apparently even unconscious sex is better on drugs.

This facial hair? Definite dealbreaker. Photo by kevincrumbs on Flickr, licensed under the Creative Commons.

We Northwestern students are, by and large, focused and driven individuals with fairly high standards in life (disregarding the infamous Northwestern goggles). It stands to reason, then, that most of us have a pretty solid idea of our biggest dealbreakers. So what exactly will set you up for rejection by a Northwestern student? To find out, I pounced upon 27 unsuspecting students in Norris and posed this question to them in an anonymous survey. They were asked to come up with their own personal dealbreakers, differentiating between those that applied to a casual hookup or one-night-stand vs. those for a long-term relationship.

Some people insisted that their dealbreakers were the same across the board, but most acknowledged that their standards for one-night-stands were based much more on physical aspects and less on personality than those for longer relationships. As one student wrote, “I’m more inclined to look past particular shortcomings in a girl for a one-night-stand because I don’t have to have dinner with her the following week.” It seems that most people are willing to overlook a whole lot when they never have to see the other person again.

Want a lover? Better work on your stand-up routine.

Apparently NU students’ ideal mate is Tina Fey. The two most widely cited dealbreakers were lack of a sense of humor and unintelligence. Although some people specified exactly how unintelligent the potential hookup would have to be (“REALLY DUMB,” wrote one guy), most simply said that they could not be interested in someone who wasn’t intelligent. More than a third of those surveyed also said that no sense of humor was one of their top three relationship dealbreakers. Although when you think about it, it may be less that the person doesn’t have a sense of humor than that they have a completely divergent sense of humor. The Monty Python fans out there are going to have a pretty hard time finding common ground with someone whose idea of humor is watching Larry the Cable Guy’s latest instant classic, no matter how nice they are. But kids, if you’re not funny, don’t show off your inner Carlos Mencia. It’s better to be honestly not funny than the kind of girl that inspired one boy to write that his dealbreaker is a lady who “tries to be funny, thinks she’s hilarious, laughs at her own jokes — isn’t funny.”

Surprisingly, most people actually stayed far away from the big wedge issues, choosing instead to stick to more individual characteristics. Nobody mentioned religion at all (not even Scientology!). Politics wasn’t too significant of a factor, either, but a few people did say they would never date Republicans. “I tried it and it just doesn’t work,” wrote one woman. Interestingly enough, nobody said they were unwilling to date liberals. The liberals may need a little work on their sense of irony.

Motivation was a big one for the ladies. Several girls said they could never date someone who “isn’t a go-getter.” And more bad news for the vertically-challenged, commitment-shy menfolk out there: height (or lack thereof) was a commonly cited dealbreaker for potential hookups, with one woman even declaring a height limit (”Really, no people below 6′2″”). Guys were less specific in their relationship dealbreakers, mostly sticking to the common factors like unintelligence or lack of personality — but a few of them did make sure to rule out sports-haters (it’s fair to guess that none of them will be finding happiness with the women who had no use for “over-love of sports”). And, contrary to the illustrious example of some would-be role models, several guys specifically said that they wouldn’t be willing even to hook up with someone who was just too drunk and sloppy — or, as one perfect gentleman put it, “not if it looks like she’s about to vomit.”

Though Facebook lets us all superficially judge each others’ taste in music, books and movies, most Northwestern students appear to be fairly generous when it comes to judging in person. Only two people pointed out those preferences as absolute dealbreakers, while the rest seemed content to tolerate a love of the Pussycat Dolls in an otherwise perfect partner. However, one awful specter of pop culture did manage to make its presence known: two men declared that they could never be in a relationship with someone who watched ‘The Hills.’ And honestly, can you blame them? That’s almost as bad as saying that your favorite book is The DaVinci Code, which in turn is basically admitting that you are a terrible human being with even more terrible taste in books. (Seriously. This is true. Do not ever trust anyone who says that it is their favorite book)

Kiss and tell

The most surprising aspect of the survey was that nobody said it was a dealbreaker if someone was either a bad kisser or bad in bed. Funny, because usually that tends to be one of the first things people cite as a potential dealbreaker. I don’t know whether this means that NU students just have sex so rarely that anything is satisfactory, or if it means that they focus more on personality or readily apparent physical traits and are willing to allow for a generous learning curve when it comes to the bedroom. Giving you all the benefit of the doubt, this isn’t a bad thing at all; not everybody has the same level of experience, and it’s always fair to give people a chance to learn from their mistakes. But really, does nobody see bad kissing or (god forbid!) bad sex as a potential dealbreaker?

Despite the apparent tolerance of the NU student body for the inadequacies of other students’ bodies, there’s pretty strong scientific evidence to the contrary. In fact, kissing is extremely important in terms of judgment and can act as a very strong influential factor and, sometimes, a dealbreaker. A study conducted last year by researchers at the University of Albany found that many college students who were initially attracted to someone found that they weren’t interested anymore after kissing the other person for the first time.

“Kissing is part of an evolved courtship ritual,” said Gordon G. Gallup, Jr., an evolutionary psychologist and one of the study’s leaders, in the official press release. “When two people kiss there is a rich and complicated exchange of information involving chemical, tactile, and postural cues. While many forces lead two people to connect romantically, the kiss, particularly the first kiss, can be a deal breaker.”

Beyond the straight-up rejection of sloppy kissers, the psychologists also found differences between the sexes in the importance of kissing in terms of both physical and emotional relationships. Guys tend to kiss as a means to an end — maybe to move things forward toward sex or to make up after a fight. Girls, on the other hand, often use kissing as a benchmark, to monitor the status of a relationship or gauge their partner’s commitment level.

Because women place more significance on kissing, this also means that most of them won’t have sex without it. While most men were fine with the idea of having sex without kissing, the majority of women insisted on the importance of kissing before, during and after sex. But guys, even though it doesn’t matter to you, you might want to brush up on your technique a little bit — far fewer women than men are willing to have sex with a bad kisser. Think of it this way: chances are you’re not going to score if you trip rounding first base.

Watch your mouth

Though nobody specifically called out kissing, general mouth hygiene and odor was a big issue for almost everyone. Needless to say, nobody wants to go near some snaggle-toothed dude with a severe case of halitosis. But several people were much more specific than just bad breath or hygiene. Almost one-fifth of those surveyed named cigarette smoking as a definite dealbreaker for both hookups and relationships, while one woman declared that for her to consider hooking up with a guy, his “lips must be nice.”

And it’s not just about looks; what that mouth does is important, too. A guy wrote that he couldn’t tolerate either “baby talk or porn talk” from a partner, while “loud chewing noises” were the ultimate turnoff for one woman. Be careful about what you do between chewing, too, as one girl’s biggest dealbreaker was “someone who is openly rude to waiters.” However, the lactose intolerant among us might just be straight out of luck; I’d hazard a guess that none of them will manage to make much progress with the girl who won’t play tonsil hockey with anyone who “drinks soymilk.”

Oh, and you fellas should still be on guard even when it’s not your mouth that’s busy. As one girl wrote (and I think she speaks for many straight ladies and gay men), the ultimate hookup sin has to be “grabbing my head when I’m going down on him. Do it once, and don’t expect me ever to go anywhere near there again.”

But it’s not all about flossing and blowjob etiquette, young’uns. Most dealbreakers, at least the superficial ones, just aren’t that hard to avoid. Don’t be that guy who gets shot down by one lady after another because you’re wearing too much hair gel and rocking the Kyle Orton neckbeard, or the girl who can’t go home with the person you like because you were too busy earlier making out with everyone else at the party (one at a time. Or maybe all together. I don’t know what you kids do in your spare time). And at this point in time, it’s just an asshole move to exhibit one woman’s dealbreaker of “environmental insensitivity.” Recycling and treehugging is hot, guys! Just ask Jessica Alba! Maybe you’ll even be lucky enough to run into the girl whose major hookup dealbreaker is “whether he’s paying for the taxi home.”

Of course, this isn’t anywhere near a comprehensive list, and certainly nobody who answered the survey is speaking for anyone but themself. Everyone has their own quirky rejection standards and pet peeves — that’s what makes this game so much fun. But those of you who think, “Never mind,” when you hear that cute girl order a grande soy latte, or say something about LC’s new fashion line can take comfort in the knowledge that you, my judgmental friend, are not alone.

(Oh, and the answer to my hypothetical debate? The Republican. I might agree with a Yankees fan on some other things in life, but I’d have a hell of a hard time finding a conservative who has much in common with my tree-hugging, recycling, gay-marriage-supporting, godless Unitarian Universalist Massachusetts liberal self. And even if I did, there’s no way he’d ever get past my dad. Protective dads: the ultimate dealbreaker.)

You don’t want sex to end up as scary as this situation. Photo by Katherine Tang/NBN

So without further ado, Carnal Knowledge presents you with enough ways to hurt yourself during sex that you might just be too scared to ever have sex again. (Not really, I hope. Please? I would feel so responsible. And so, so guilty.)

• Maybe you shouldn’t spend so much time on your knees. Rug burns: one of the most common, and probably the most annoying, sex-inflicted injury, because really, you should know better. At the time it seems like your knees will be fine — that is, until you look at them the next day and they look like raw meat. The best way to avoid this is just to watch where you’re kneeling, but there aren’t always a plethora of options. Luckily for the tender-skinned folks out there, there are ways to protect yourself without recycling those giant plastic kneepads from the days when rollerblading was cool. You can buy sexy cushioned knee pads to protect your joints from those awful dorm carpets. They even have adjustable straps! Who knows, maybe you could figure out a way to work them into your Halloween costume, just in case.
• Your back won’t bend that way. Don’t try. A friend (who will remain unnamed in order to avoid public embarrassment) was complaining a few days about how much her hamstrings hurt. Apparently she’d had them in a bit of a compromising position for a little too long the previous night, and she was feeling the aftereffects. While Position of the Day Calendars always sound like a good idea, just because the person in the picture can balance on one elbow on a moving pogo stick doesn’t mean you can, too. And instituting a mandatory five-minute yoga-and-stretching break sometime during foreplay would be great, but it kind of breaks the mood a little. It’s not worth trying to force yourself to attempt things beyond your physical limits, unless you really want to end up with a broken rib. We’re not all Nastia Liukin. If you want to be daring and adventurous, go for it; just be prepared to explain exactly how the Pair of Tongs works when someone asks you what happened to your ankle the next day.
• Even worse than losing your NU lanyard. Okay, we get it, you think you’re super-adventurous letting your partner handcuff you to the bed. Congratulations, you’ve now joined the 22 percent of sexually active people who use blindfolds or handcuffs in bed. Good for you. There’s nothing wrong with a little old-fashioned, horizon-expanding fun — until you forget the keys. Please, please do not forget where you put the keys. Look, it’s easy to lose things during sex: your bra, your balance, your virginity. Abandoning an old tank top on your partner’s floor is one thing — devices that free you from becoming a permanent bedpost decoration are a whole different story. Don’t be like this unfortunate couple and let yourself get trapped in your cuffs — as much as the EPD might like telling the story back at the station, it’ll take both your wrists and dignity a long time to recover.
• Poison! It seems like every week, China tries to kill us in an increasingly creative, sinister way. The latest one is hitting us where it really hurts: in the bedroom. This week, British sex-accessories store Ann Summers issued a recall of several edible sex products manufactured in China, including chocolate and strawberry body pens and erotic chocolate lotion. According to Britain’s food regulation organization, the Food Standards Agency, the products were contaminated with small amounts of melamine, an industrial chemical that has already been found in many milk products from China. Sure, that Jessica Simpson Dessert Treats whipped cream sounds good now, but your sex appeal will probably be ruined when you sprout gills.
• Don’t Do It and Drive. You know those warning labels on beer bottles telling you not to operate heavy machinery while under the influence? Looks like we should probably start printing those on condoms, too — or maybe just tattooing it above everyone’s naughty bits. You’d think adults would have figured this out by now, but sex leads to all kinds of accidents every year, especially car accidents. Whether it’s your drunk girlfriend giving you road-head and making you crash or your friends treating you like a taxi driver and getting it on in the back of your Chevy so enthusiastically that the “tippy” Blazer tips right into a telephone pole, there are more than enough reasons (and potential injuries) to persuade you to keep your pants on until you get home. Actually, you should probably make sure you get out of the garage, too. And cars aren’t the only danger zones. God forbid the mood strikes you when you’re steering a boat — unless you’ve got the urge to destroy some property and human lives, you’re better off waiting until your shift is over. Then you’re welcome to sneak up to the crow’s nest and do the no-pants dance to your heart’s (or any other organ’s) content.
• Also, death. Maybe you’ve seen Like Water for Chocolate a few too many times and have started thinking, hey, the sack wouldn’t be such a bad place to go. But think of the humanity! Think of the children! No, really, think of the children. You probably don’t have any right now, but by the time you’re old enough to have heart problems, you might have one or two rapscallions running around. And as nice as it might be for you to have your last moments on earth be in bed, there’s no way it’s going to be pleasant for the people left behind. Your partner will most likely never feel confident about their abilities again, and your kids are going to have a hell of a time explaining it on the playground for the next couple of weeks. Plus, without you around, they’ll probably turn into mush-mouthed, naked-bongo-playing, stoner jogging buffs. And that’s not the legacy you want to leave, is it?
• The Scariest Sex Injury Ever. Don’t forget, sex injuries don’t just have to affect your body! Take it from Christopher Plummer: They can knock your pride down a couple notches and, in the process, create something terrifying. In 1956, Plummer was set to star in the lead role of Shakespeare’s Henry V. But the morning after a one-night-stand, he woke up wracked by abdominal pain. Turned out his frolicking the night before had dislodged a kidney stone, and he had to undergo surgery to fix it. And the worst part? Obviously, the surgery meant Plummer couldn’t perform in the play, and the role was instead given to his understudy: the one and only William Shatner. According to Plummer’s autobiography, “I knew then the SOB was going to be a star.” You’ve got to wonder how Plummer’s hook-up must feel, knowing that they’re responsible for this. If there ever was a good reason to avoid one-night-stands, this is it. Seriously, guys, don’t have sex outside of a relationship. Your mistakes just might pave the way for the next William Shatner. And that’s scarier than anything you might run into in a dark alley on Halloween.

If someone asked you what your type was, you’d probably have a complicated, adjective-laden answer ready for them. Some people say they prefer blondes. Others will only date football players. Some of us constantly fall over ourselves for skinny, brown-haired musicians — hypothetically speaking, of course. Everyone has an ideal of what “type” of partner they’re looking for, and yet it seems like so often we find ourselves attracted to someone who doesn’t fit the description. Why, we wonder. Why do I like this person? Chances are it’s not because they dabbed on some pheromones before they left their room. It’s more likely that you’re simply wrong about what you want. But rest assured, you’re not the only one. Most of us are actually mistaken about what we like — we just don’t know it.

Countless studies have shown that people are remarkably incompetent when it comes to self-assessment or being aware of their motives for doing something. We may say, or even think that we’re looking for a skinny, tattooed blonde girl who’s into Indian food and yoga, but then we find ourselves drawn to the short, redheaded art history major in the Coldplay hoodie instead.
It might be true that you can’t always get what you want but before you can complain about that, you have to figure out just what is that you do want. So why are we so bad at it?

“This is the million-dollar question,” said Paul Eastwick, a sixth-year psychology graduate student at Northwestern specializing in relationships and the process of attraction, in an e-mail interview. “We have some ideas, but no bulletproof data yet. One possibility is that when you meet another person, you don’t size that person up as a piecemeal set of characteristics. People aren’t comparing a potential romantic partner with their piecemeal ideas appropriately.”

It’s a valid point: When you meet a stranger and feel that little twitch of attraction somewhere in your ribcage, you don’t stop to analyze if it’s because of the clever joke they just made about Malcolm Gladwell’s hair or because they smell like delicious pie. You just go with it.

“Attraction is such a complex phenomenon and often occurs in such an automatic, gut-level fashion, people don’t stop and think ‘He just made me laugh, therefore he has some level of intelligence and creativity, therefore he is a suitable partner,’” said Dr. Mark Prokosch, a researcher and psychology professor at Elon University, in an e-mail.

Finding love…or, let’s be real — a fling

While following your instincts is generally a good way both to go through life and to avoid getting hit by cars, this uncertainty about what is attractive does make it a whole lot harder when it comes to snagging a partner. How can we possibly try to figure out what other people are looking for when we don’t even know what we’re looking for?

There’s no perfect answer to this– but this isn’t necessarily a bad thing. People aren’t all the same, and most people are looking for different things, which is good. You can’t predict exactly what personality qualities will make that cute girl at the bar go home with you tonight. There are, however, a few qualities that tend to be attractive almost across the board.

Unfortunately for the fascinating and hilarious but genetically-deprived among us, looks still matter. A lot. A study conducted last winter by Eastwick and Northwestern’s famous assistant psychology professor Eli Finkel (did you do that speed-dating event with Finkel back in winter quarter? Congratulations. You are this study.) found that, for both men and women, physical appearance is still the most important deciding factor in attraction. Despite our reactions to other qualities like intelligence, how a person looks is still going to be the first thing we notice about them. Sorry, folks. Blame evolution.

“We do still find that those first impressions are mostly driven by physical attraction,” Prokosch said. “Traits like intelligence and creativity come on line a bit later.”

But just because physical appearance tends to dictate our immediate response doesn’t mean that other traits still aren’t very important, especially beyond that instantaneous first impression.

Glasses are the new Lamborghinis

First of all, stop making fun of the nerds in your econ class. According to a study conducted by Prokosch earlier this year, intelligence is actually one of the most attractive qualities, at least to women. In the study, women watched videos of 15 different men perform a series of tasks, then rated their intelligence, attractiveness, creativity and appeal for a relationship (both short- and long-term). The results showed that perceived intelligence was a strong indicator of both kinds of relationship appeal — a bit surprising, since it often seems like all that most of us require of a one-night-stand partner is a reasonable state of consciousness.

“It isn’t quite clear why intelligence is important,” said Prokosch. “Theoretically, the idea is that women prefer intelligence because higher intelligence indicates that the man has ‘good genes’ that may be passed on to potential offspring. This isn’t a conscious process, but simply occurs because a smart guy who can be clever, witty and hold a conversation is sexy.”

Now I know you’re thinking about it, but guys, don’t try cramming the contents of an encyclopedia into your brain before going out; Prokosch’s research also found that women tend to be fairly accurate judges of a man’s intelligence just from seeing or interacting with him. Faking it isn’t going to work here.

So if intelligence is what gets all the ladies, why do we still have things like Beauty and the Geek telling us that smart guys need Ashton Kutcher’s help to even speak to a girl without stuttering into a state of helplessness? The truth is that, despite the popular image of a Halo-playing, socially incompetent, bespectacled nerd, most of the stereotypes we associate with intelligence are actually positive ones. According to Prokosch, we tend to think of smart people as socially confident, wealthy and witty. There’s even a “halo effect” that makes us perceive intelligent people as being more attractive. So, next time you head to Hundo, wear your Cthulhu shirt with pride. It might be just what gets that hot girl to talk to you.

Men and Women: actually from the same planet

But one characteristic is not going to close the deal for you. Years of sitcoms and countless romantic comedies have informed most of us that women and men are looking for entirely different things. Women want men with big paychecks, and men want women with big tits.

In fact, this idea is absolutely wrong, except maybe for the terrifying people featured on Real Housewives of [insert overpriced, overrated region]. Eastwick and Finkel’s study found that, for the most part, women and men place equal importance on broad traits like physical attractiveness and earning power, even though they said they didn’t. Prior to the study, Finkel and Eastwick had participants rate how important appearance, earning potential and personality were in deciding whether they would want to date someone. More women said they valued earning potential, while more men stressed the importance of physical appearance. Yet the study’s results didn’t support this at all. Instead, Eastwick and Finkel found that both genders rank physical appearance as the most important quality, followed by personality and earning potential. In fact, men and women generally placed the same importance on each quality, totally negating the cultural notions and the participants’ own ideas of what factors matter the most.

“In live interactions, people don’t seem to be pursuing their ideals,” said Eastwick. “But it’s hard to say yet whether this is a good thing or a bad thing.”

We’re finding out more and more that looks aren’t everything, particularly when it comes to forming relationships, and that the qualities we assume are the most attractive ones often aren’t. Maybe we should stop worrying so much about whether our hair is straightened or what brand of our polo shirt we’re wearing, and concentrate a little more on developing a personality beyond the facade of what we think will make people like us. Because most of the time, being genuine is the best option. The only people that like fakeness are the ones running the porn industry.

Now go to class and learn something. It’ll help you pick up chicks.

Am I good in bed?

Don’t act like you don’t want to know. Everyone wants to know. It’s just like that desperate need to hear what people say about you the minute after you walk out of a room, or what your teacher said in all of those parent-teacher conferences. Except it’s worse, because this time, it involves your naked bits.

Nobody wants to be bad at sex. Depending on how important sex is to you, your sexual prowess is fairly closely tied to your self-esteem and confidence. And for the typical college student, it’s pretty much the most important thing in the world. Who cares if we have jobs or Social Security as long as we’re getting laid?

So if it’s so crucial, how can you tell if you’re doing it right? It seems like everyone has a different theory, from the ability to hold eye contact to clothing choices. I personally have decided, without any scientific evidence whatsoever, that Justin Timberlake is good in bed. This has nothing to do with his music — it’s just my own certainty, and it’s no more ridiculous than assuming a guy who talks quickly or stumbles over words sometimes has a problem making it to the starting line.

Unfortunately, there isn’t a multiple-choice test you can take to determine your bedroom skills. You can’t exactly hand your partner an evaluation form and ask them to fill it out before they leave in the morning. Short of asking them point-blank or IMing them a few days later with questions (hasn’t happened to me, but I’ve heard stories), you’re not going to get a summary. Even asking might not get you an honest answer — if people are willing to fake orgasms to protect their partner’s ego, why couldn’t they tell a little verbal white lie, too?

The basic problem even with the idea of being “good” at sex is that it’s not like being good at calculus or swimming. Unlike those admirable pursuits, sex isn’t an individual sport. Despite your best efforts, every time will not be the same, because every partner isn’t the same. You can have fantastic sex with one person and a mediocre experience with someone else, even if you’re doing the same things. The importance of chemistry can’t be discounted — you just work better with some people than others.

Call me?

It’s true that experience is usually the best way to improve your sexual ability and knowledge. Like any other hobby, practice gets you just a little closer to perfect. But, like size, experience isn’t everything. Because when it comes to sex, the ability to make the other person scream your name in eight different languages isn’t just about specific techniques or movements.

What’s more important is your attitude toward the sex. If you start with the right mindset, you’re going to learn pretty quickly what works. You know how they say that the brain is the biggest erogenous zone? They ain’t kidding. Your brain’s going to help you improve in bed much more than ExtenZe ever will. So before you start worrying about memorizing the Kama Sutra, take a second and make sure you’re still thinking with the right head:

• Wake up! The simplest way to be bad in bed is not to pay attention to the other person. Yes, it seems obvious, but it’s pretty easy to forget in the moment, when you’ve got other things (or nothing) on your mind. Still, this is the easiest and most effective way to improve your sexytime. Watch your partner. See what they respond to. Let them tell you what they like — either aloud or non-verbally. Think of it this way: Being good at sex is kind of like being a detective, except this time you’re looking for reactions, not Carmen Sandiego.
• Be open to new things. Don’t assume that what works for one person is automatically guaranteed for someone else. Your last hookup might have been the lights-off-under-the-covers-missionary kind, but maybe your new partner would rather have you handcuff them to the fridge and put ice cubes in their clavicle. You don’t know, but finding out is really the fun part. An open mind is sexy; being predictable isn’t.
• Figure out your motives. Sometimes you just really need to blow off some steam. That’s fine, but you’re not going to astonish anyone if you go into their room with the mindset of “I just want to get laid.” If you don’t have any higher expectations than that, then you probably won’t be disappointed, but don’t expect anything amazing if you’re just doing it so you can brag to your friends tomorrow about what happened after you left the Deuce.
• Act like you’re interested. This. Should. Not. Be. Difficult. It really shouldn’t. You’re having sex, for god’s sake. This is especially important for girls to keep in mind; a huge complaint from guys is that sometimes the girl will just lie there like a tipsy little blow-up doll. This is not hot.
The worst case scenario is that you end up looking silly, and even if that happens, you’re still having sex.
• Take initiative. This is a team activity, and it’s unfair to ask one person to do all the work. It is actually impossible to be decent at sex if you treat it like your own personal episode of My Super Sweet Sixteen. If you want to do something, do it. Get on top. Pull your partner into an abandoned classroom in Kresge (but not the one where I have class! I have to sit in those seats!). Tell them in astonishing detail what you’re going to do to them. There’s nothing to lose, guys. The worst case scenario is that you end up looking silly, and even if that happens, you’re still having sex. There’s really no bad way for this to end.
• Know what you like. Just because you’re paying close attention to your partner (We haven’t forgotten that one yet, right?) doesn’t mean you should forget about yourself. If you can tell your partner how to please you, you’ll be way more into the sex, which will (hopefully) make you want to figure out how to please them. Plus, they’ll feel better and more confident about their own abilities.
• Oh, and people? Stop taking yourselves so seriously. Sex is not serious. Sex is funny, and awkward, and sometimes clumsy. It’s great, but it is a pretty silly thing when you think about it. So do think about it. There’s nothing wrong with being able to laugh at the situation, as long as the other person doesn’t think you’re laughing at them or their inability to figure out the intricacies of how bras unhook. If you can’t giggle at yourself, you probably have bigger things to worry about than your bedroom skills. Like where you misplaced your sense of humor.

Since John McCain’s selection of Sarah Palin as his running mate, we’ve all heard a lot of talk about “qualifications.” Many wonder if Palin is really qualified to be vice president — or president, if Maverick McJowls kicks the bucket while in office. In fact, Gwen Ifill, moderator of the vice presidential debate, suggested during the debate that Palin’s Achilles heel is her lack of experience. But what exactly makes someone qualified to be “a heartbeat away from the presidency,” as all the pundits like to say? Is it national experience? Decades of service in Congress or the military? The ability to shoot a wolf from a moving helicopter? Or is it just cute glasses and that certain je ne sais quoi?

Honestly, it’s probably all of these things. But behind that telegenic face, there’s no doubt that Palin is lacking in several areas that should be required for a potential vice president. Despite this, the McCain campaign and the GOP have attempted to redefine what it means to be qualified, focusing on physical proximity to other nations and a pretty face instead of things like any experience whatsoever working with international leaders or national politics other than asking for $233 million for certain infrastructure repairs.

Unfortunately for the red-staters, Palin isn’t even the leader in the categories the Republicans are stressing these days. In fact, there are many people, places and things out there with more expertise in these fields. In order to illustrate these glaring spots of inadequacy, here are just a few notable items that are more qualified than Mrs. Palin:

• The Diomede Heliport. The heliport is the only safe means of transportation in and out of Little Diomede Island, Alaska. Located off the coast of the mainland in the Bering Strait, Little Diomede is less than a mile from the International Date Line and only 2.4 miles east of its sister island, Big Diomede — which happens to be Russian territory. This proximity to Russia clearly makes the Little Diomede heliport far more experienced in matters of international relations than Palin. It’s closer, so it must know so much more! Not only does its location offer the best foreign affairs experience one can receive while remaining on American soil, but its eight-year tenure as the only way to get to and from the island has provided it with years of experience dealing with pressing national issues such as transportation, security on flights and infrastructure for all 170 of the island’s residents. Sarah Palin may be able to see Russia on a clear day, but the heliport on Little Diomede could tickle Siberia if it wanted to. But it doesn’t. Because we’re not really friends with Russia right now — and nobody knows that better than International Relations Expert Little Diomede Heliport.
• Dina Lohan. Have you noticed that Sarah Palin is a woman? And a mother? The Republicans certainly wanted you to notice, trotting out the whole gol’danged family on stage at the convention, like it was the country’s biggest Thanksgiving dinner. But Palin isn’t the only one who can get married and reproduce. You know who else is a woman with kids? Bleached-blonde stage parent Dina Lohan. Like Palin, Lohan also has a large brood of children and, also like Palin, Lohan’s oldest daughter has been the recent subject of much controversy and tabloid fodder. But while both of them have pushed their motherhood into the limelight, only one of them has won an award for it. That’s right: Dina Lohan, Long Island Mother of the Year. She even got a plaque! Sarah Palin may be a mom five times over, but has she won any prizes for it? I think not. Dina: 1, Sarah: 0.
• Dexter. It has a relatively small regular viewing population of about one million, but the vast majority of those people are fiercely loyal to it. Some criticize it, saying it only has experience airing on a minor cable channel, or that it appeals only to a concentrated, specific demographic with a tolerance for serial killers. These may be valid points, but what actually matters is that, while Sarah Palin has only been a figure on the national stage for two months (twenty if you count her gubernatorial term), Dexter has been making its way into the homes of everyday, hard-working Americans since October 1, 2006 — a whole two years. Now that’s experience. Given Dexter’s significantly longer tenure in the national spotlight, it seems clear that this television show would be far more prepared to deal with national issues than Gov. Palin.
  (And for those of you who agree with the experience issue but feel that Dexter is tragically lacking in the crucial prerequisite of serious-looking glasses, never fear. There is still a solution. Know what other creative, bespectacled show premiered in October ’06? That’s right — 30 Rock.)
• Google. Hey, remember that Katie Couric interview where Palin couldn’t think of a single example of John McCain supporting regulation of the economy in his 26 years in Congress? Maybe she was right and there are no other examples, but she could’ve at least tried to dredge up some ancient, almost-irrelevant speech from 10 years ago. Oh wait, Google can do that. Google would find those (hypothetical) examples of McCain’s action, and you can bet Google would “bring ‘em to ya” a heckuva lot faster than Palin, even if you still have a dial-up connection. With her inability to answer Couric’s question, Palin cast herself as the cuil of the political information gatherers. And please — I think we all know that Google is still vastly superior to little upstart cuil. I’d frankly be much happier if Google were running the country. They’re all going to be our overlords in a few years anyway. We might as well elect them.
• A cicada. Those of us who spent last year here in Chicago know all too well the terror of cicada years. Like Palin, these beady-eyed demons are kept cloistered out of sight for extended periods of time, with only the occasional 29 seconds of contact with the media. But then they suddenly burst forth, covering the ground, the cable channels and random town halls in Michigan with their omnipresent drone. Though we usually can’t make any sense of what they’re saying, the wise ones among us know it has something to do with a global takeover — or possibly moose hunting en masse. However, unlike Palin’s sporadic and completely unpredictable emergence from her cone of silence, at least cicadas are consistent. We know when to expect them, and we know what they’ll do. Which is more than we can say for “America’s Hottest Governor.”

So Sarah Palin may not be the most qualified person or even inanimate object for the vice presidential position. But it’s not hopeless, even for her. She can take comfort in the fact that if this politics thing doesn’t pan out, she’s got a future for herself in the film industry.

Wait! Put down the calendar and back away from the chastity belt. Maybe we don’t have to give it up after all. Apparently middle-schoolers got something right — it turns out seven minutes might be all we really need.

Time flies…in bed. Photo by inocuo on Flickr.com, licensed under Creative Commons.

A study published in the May issue of the Journal of Sexual Medicine surveyed members of the Society for Sex Therapy and Research and asked them to rate the amount of time that heterosexual intercourse should last (dividing lengths of time into “too short,” “adequate,” “desirable” and “too long”). But that’s easy! I know that one! The answer is “forever”, am I right?

Well, actually, no. The results looked a little more like this:

• 1-2 min was determined to be “too short”
• 3-7 min was “adequate”
• 7-13 min was “desirable”
• and 10-30 min was “too long”

Before we all fall over in shock or start making ‘that’s what she said’ jokes about the categories, there are a couple of things to keep in mind about this survey. The first is, obviously, that it doesn’t include anything about same-sex couples: it’s all about penis and vagina. This isn’t discrimination; according to Dr. Eric Corty, who led the survey, the choice was made to focus on heterosexual couples because they’re the majority and so there’s more information available. Okay, fine, but I do think that including same-sex couples would have been interesting.

Second: The seven minutes in the survey does not include foreplay. The study isn’t discouraging foreplay; it just keeps its focus only on intercourse. This doesn’t mean you should apply this to real-life situations. Because, let’s be serious, unless you only have seven minutes until the cops break down the door and drag your partner off to prison, you’re probably not skipping straight from sitting down in front of the TV to making the beast with two backs. And, more importantly, why would you want to? Foreplay is awesome. It should not be forgotten. Ever.

The study may not say anything about foreplay, but it does raise some extremely important points. Most people do have certain expectations about how long sex is “supposed” to last — or at least how short it shouldn’t be. Yet, at some point, most of us have also had an overwhelming incident with chocolate cake or Halloween candy that proved once and for all that there can be too much of a good thing.

“People who have the idea it should last 30 or 60 minutes are doing themselves a detriment,” said Corty, a clinical psychologist at Penn State Erie. “It’s just not comfortable after a while. Every good thing must come to an end.”

Corty said that he decided to conduct the study simply out of curiosity. He said he had always been interested in knowing the answer to this question and figured other people would be interested as well. Yet it’s more than an issue of interest. It’s about our health and, really, our happiness.

In our health-obsessed society, you can find (often contradictory) information on the best or right way to do almost anything. There are nutritional labels everywhere, individually-tailored workout plans and the government is even stepping in in some places to stop us all from getting so fat. Yet when it comes to sexual health, the amount of misinformation floating around is ridiculous. The point is, if this is what health professionals are saying, it should not be news.

But most people who have heard about these results (myself included), have been surprised, to say the least. It doesn’t fit at all with our concept of what sex “should” be like. Which begs the question: where exactly is that “should” coming from? Where did we all get the idea that sex isn’t good sex unless it lasts for two hours and someone pulls a muscle?

Dr. Corty isn’t quite sure. “I’ve thought about where the message comes from, and I couldn’t give you a definite answer,” he said. “I blame the media, to a certain extent. But the media’s not just making it up by itself. It has to come from somewhere.”

Dr. Mary-Lou Galician, a media literacy advocate, author and head of Media Analysis and Criticism at Arizona State University, is more willing to condemn the media directly. “Mass media does create or at least help support and foster unrealistic expectations,” she said. “These expectations lead to a general lowering of one’s happiness and standards.”

According to Galician, mass media tends to portray sex as something that is both easy and wonderful every time. Look, we all know better. Nothing is perfect, and certainly nothing is perfect all the time, especially not something so dependent on human error as sex. Everyone’s had at least one bad experience; maybe you were too drunk to enjoy what was going on, or realized halfway through that this person really wasn’t that attractive and totally lost interest. Maybe your partner had no idea what they were doing and you were too tired or didn’t know them well enough to try to fix it.

“The media normalizes for us many behaviors that are not normal,” she said. “Some of them are downright stupid for real people to follow or model. But people do, because they make it seem so normal.”

That’s the real problem here. We have these totally unrealistic ideas of what is supposed to be happening in bed, and when these things inevitably don’t happen, we feel like we’re doing something wrong. We’re setting ourselves up for a lifetime of disappointment and perceived inadequacy. I know most of us at Northwestern are crazy perfectionists, but there are some regions (like the ones in your pants) where you need to let go of that need to do everything just so. Especially when your ideas are actually, scientifically wrong.

“There is this impression, this myth that men always have rock-hard penises and last all night long,” says Corty. “To the extent you buy into that myth, you’re bound for disappointment. Things almost never work out that way.”

This doesn’t mean you have to go into sex expecting to be disappointed — it’s just that we need to be more realistic about our expectations. And it’s not like trying to force things to last longer than they should is the only (or even a good) way to improve your sex life. You know what does make sex much better and more fulfilling, though? No, you can’t get it from one of those strange emails in vaguely imaginary foreign languages, and it doesn’t involve two claw-footed bathtubs on a mountain. It’s called talking to your partner. This isn’t “The Talk“, so don’t get scared. It’s just basic communication, and a lot of us tend to forget about it or be too shy to say anything — which, as Galician points out, is totally ridiculous.

“We have this idea that we shouldn’t have to say or explain [to our partner] what we like, because you rarely see or hear that in the media,” she says. “But in reality, different people like different things. If you’re embarrassed to speak to your partner, how are you ready to get undressed and share body fluids with them?”

Seriously. You may not be ready to break out the dirty talk, and that’s fine, but at least have the confidence to tell your partner that nibbling on your ear isn’t sexy — it’s just wet. And stop thinking that just because James Bond can please a lady while hanging upside-down from a helicopter for three hours, you can too.

“We have to focus on critical thinking about the portrayals that people may be operating on,” says Galician. “Ignorance is never bliss. Ignorance only leads to more ignorance, and not knowing things does not keep people from doing things.”

We all have to learn from our mistakes at some point, but there’s no reason to create false expectations that we don’t need and can’t fulfill. It’s just going to make us unhappy in the long run.

“I’m hoping we can get the information out and it becomes part of human sexuality,” says Corty. “People can stop rolling their eyes when they find out, and start to realize that it’s normal.”

This information isn’t going to ruin anyone’s sex life. In fact, it’ll probably improve sex (or at least the satisfaction level) for a lot of people. It’s nice to know that you’re not doing something wrong.

And it doesn’t mean you have to settle for that seven-minute quota, either. After your seven-to-thirteen minutes are up, there’s no reason why you can’t wait a few minutes and then do it again.

But there’s a problem here, and it’s not sleep deprivation. Back on March 11, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released a report that found that one in four teenage girls has an STI. One out of every four. That’s 2.5 players on a lacrosse team, one between your room and the room next door, and at least one cast member of High School Musical. And we don’t even know about the boys yet.

How did this happen? We’re smart. We’re supposed to know about these kinds of things. We have sex education, right?

Well, sort of. But it’s not working. That same report also found that neither the 66 percent of classrooms teaching comprehensive sex-ed, nor the 25 percent teaching abstinence-only, are having a significant effect on reducing those numbers. Not to mention that once you graduate from high school (or, at my public school, once you were above sophomore year), it seems to be assumed that you know all there ever is to know about sex, health and safety, and you’ll never have to be reminded again. But by now, years since, all we remember from high school sex ed is that the rhythm method doesn’t work and that condoms are really fun to flick across the room at each other.

About two weeks ago, John McCain tried to convince Americans that Barack Obama wants to teach kindergartners about sex. With the presidential candidates casting an ever-wider net of topics to snipe at each other about, you had to know it would get to sex eventually. Unfortunately, sex education is more than just a talking point to wave in front of reactionary voters.

How America messed up

So this must be an international catastrophe, right? Kids these days are screwing like rabbits, so it’s no wonder they all have HPV, no? And what about Europe? They’re running around on topless beaches, giving wine to their kids and legalizing prostitution. They must have like, seven STIs each!

Wrong. As of 2001, the gonorrhea rate of American teens (age 15-19) was more than 74 times higher than that of the Netherlands or France, and the HIV rate was more than three and five times higher, respectively. And that’s not even counting the pregnancy rate (nine times higher than the Netherlands, almost four times greater than France). These numbers are still going up, and that’s no accident. This isn’t because European kids don’t have sex, or because they have herpes-resistant vaginas. This is about education, and knowing the information you need to stay safe. It’s statistics like this that show just how badly we need ads like this sex-ed PSA from Belgium (hint: that’s not Listerine in her mouth).

Ads like this one are common in European countries. The governments support and sponsor widespread, long-term public education campaigns that use as many forms of media and avenues of influence as possible, from billboards to web sites to the pharmacies where people buy their condoms. The ads are funny and direct and, more importantly, they’re everywhere, instead of hidden in the back pages of magazines and the 1–3 a.m. time slot on Bravo.

One of the most notable examples of an ad campaign affecting sexual health and habits took place in Uganda between the late ‘80s and mid-’90s when the ABC (Abstain, Be faithful, use Condoms) dramatically lowered HIV rates in the country, from 15 percent in 1991 to 5 percent in 2001. Similar campaigns implemented in Zambia, Jamaica, Cambodia and several other nations have also seen infection rates fall. The general consensus among Ugandans and foreign analysts is that the combination of the ABC campaign and a widespread, media-based message portraying HIV prevention as an issue of national importance and civic duty, all significantly helped bring about this change.

So if these kinds of campaigns work, why don’t we have them on this side of the pond?

The recent push for abstinence education here is a huge reason. Throughout the Bush administration’s tenure, abstinence education has been promoted both here and in the anti-AIDS programs we sponsor in Africa. Programs such as Be The One send the message that “sex is a wonderful thing when it is in the proper context of a healthy, faithful, committed marriage.” And they’re right. There is nothing wrong with teaching abstinence as part of sex ed. It’s still the only way absolutely not to get pregnant or contract an STI.

Abstinence is great, if you can pull it off. The problem is that most Americans can’t. Seventy-four percent of us have had sex before age 20; and by the time we get married, 95 percent have done the deed. So while abstinence is great to teach, there ain’t a whole lot of it going on.

And even if people aren’t actually having intercourse, they aren’t staying locked in their room reading the Bible, either. Twenty-four percent of teenage boys and 22 percent of girls who haven’t had sex have had oral sex.

But we’re still not taking action

“While abstinence is a public health message that we can all support, it cannot be the only message,” reads a February 5, 2004, press release from Theresa Raphael, executive director of the National Coalition of STD Directors. “Public health officials are obligated to dwell in the real world and support an approach…that reflects how Americans actually live.”

Adapting our classes to focus on comprehensive health-based education is an important step, but it won’t solve all of our problems. If we’re going to fix anything, we need to also change the practices of mass-media venues in sexual health campaigns.

Until just a few years ago, major television networks would only air condom ads late at night, when they assumed no children were watching. I don’t know about you, but I’ve been watching football and baseball since I was about six years old, and those same networks have no qualms about showing seventy zillion Viagra, Cialis and other dirty-old-man-drug commercials during games (not to mention all the half-naked chicks selling beer). I think most young American sports fans find out about erectile dysfunction before we even master long division.

Even when stations did begin to show condom ads, it was still within or after the prime-time window: after 9 or 10 p.m. Remember that Trojan “evolve” ad from last year — the one where the pig turned into Local Bar Hottie of the Year after he bought a condom? Fox and CBS both refused to air it, even late at night. Why? There was no nudity, no sex (except for maybe the implied kind) and nothing even nearly as horrifying as My Big Fat Obnoxious Fiancé.

Fox’s reasoning, in a written statement to Trojan, was that “contraceptive advertising must stress health-related uses rather than the prevention of pregnancy.” Funny, because the ad didn’t say anything about either pregnancy or diseases. In fact, the only words in it came at the end: “Evolve. Use a condom every time.”

And that seems like a pretty good message. The truth is that there aren’t any laws banning or even regulating condom advertising during primetime; the networks just don’t want to show them because they’re afraid of a backlash from viewers.

This is just irresponsible, plain and simple. Promoting and educating people (not just teenagers) about ways to keep themselves safe is beneficial to our collective welfare and therefore to our economy, our health care system (or lack thereof) and our society. Our government should be fully aware of this and follow the example of those European countries, instead of throwing $176 million annually at abstinence-only programs that don’t work. Our television networks and other media outlets should stop finding poor reasons to avoid showing condom ads when the content of their own programs and even other commercials is consistently more racy. Because letting one quarter of American teenage girls (and who knows how many boys) go through class, hockey practice and prom with an STI is not okay. We as a culture need to stop pretending that sex doesn’t happen and start treating our young people like potential solutions instead of problems.

Oh, and that study I mentioned at the beginning — want to know why nobody in the news covered it? There was this little scandal going on involving the governor of New York and a hooker. Gotta love the irony. Just more proof that sex sells — except when you’re trying to talk about sex.

Yes, it’s the college hook-up, that little hobby that still has the grown-ups just shocked (shocked!) and terribly concerned for our emotional well-being. Maybe they’re right, and this is going to destroy our ability to ever form meaningful relationships and we’ll all die alone and unloved, surrounded by cats. But probably not.

The truth is, as we get older, sex simply loses a bit of its currency (kind of like our economy right now, yeah?). Casual hook-ups don’t mean we’re all emotionless robots, but they do take a little getting used to, especially in the first year at college.

Older, wiser and less attached

It just wasn’t like this in high school, at least not for most of us. Dating meant you put someone’s initials in your AIM profile, right next to a cute little heart and the date, two weeks ago, that you decided marked the beginning of your relationship. It’s not that sex didn’t happen when we were all impressionable little pieces of jailbait, but there was a lot less of it, and it usually happened for a reason other than “I was drunk and didn’t feel like walking home from North Campus at 3 a.m.”

“When you’re in high school, you’re still just playing,” says Laura Sessions Stepp, the author of Unhooked, a book about young women’s attitudes toward sex and love in our newfangled hookup culture. “You’re not as likely to have actual intercourse. In college, the hookup scene becomes more about intercourse, and you’ll get there more quickly.”

Hundreds of movies have tried to convince us that the high school years are the time in a young man or woman’s life when they cash in that V-card. This is sometimes true, but it’s not as common as you might think: According to a 2007 study by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, about 48 percent of high school students have had sex. Though this number climbs to more than half by senior year, Stepp says that the majority of these kids still probably haven’t done the deed more than a few times. For most of them, it’s still a big deal.

But like any good Christmas present, the novelty of hooking up wears off eventually. You don’t cover your notebooks with hearts and the initials of the person who swapped spit with you last weekend. It’s just not that important anymore. It’s still the age of experimentation, of course — it’s just that the experiment has changed from “will she let me take her pants off?” to “would she be okay with a threesome?”

“High school groups tend to do a lot of heavy making-out or oral sex, but college kids will wake up, put on some pajama bottoms and walk home across the freshman dorm,” says Stepp. “You do it more, too, and that’s where dealing with emotions can start to come into play and it becomes more problematic.”

More work, less action

Another difference about college is simply the amount of time available to develop emotional connections with people. Sure, in high school, most of us were presidents of fifteen clubs and played seven varsity sports just so we could get into this illustrious institute of higher education. But we still had time to watch bad movies at our friends’ houses and drive around at night for lack of anything else to do. This doesn’t happen nearly as often at a college where time is usually our enemy.

It’s not just us, though. A 2007 study by the University of Washington found that college freshmen have less sex on average than people of the same age who aren’t attending college. If you were looking to get laid every night, maybe you shouldn’t have taken the SATs that fourth time.

“This generation of middle-class, upper-middle-class college students is occupied with so many different activities,” says Stepp. “Becoming attached means giving some time over to that person. If you’ve got papers to write and meetings, who has time for a deep attachment? The business of your lives makes you believe that you can’t afford it.”

But hey, independence is cool, man. We don’t need anybody and we don’t need to depend on anybody. It’s our bodies, our lives, and we can do what we want with them, right?

Well, yeah. But also no. It’s true that one goal of the college years is growing up, finding out who you really are, and sex can be a big part of that for many of us. The idea of exploring, understanding and owning your own sexuality, however you define it, is crucial to having a comfortable and healthy attitude toward sex and, often, toward yourself. But this exploration shouldn’t compromise your decisions or judgment.

“Freshmen, especially girls, want to meet a lot of people and they don’t want to get attached immediately,” Stepp says. “That’s fine, but if this is still your M.O. by the end of freshman year and you’re still searching for people to be friends with, it becomes a habit of being detached from other people.”

Stepp’s book came out in 2007, and is available on Amazon for $16.47.

Maybe you truly aren’t looking for a relationship, and if you’re aware of that and honest about it, great. You don’t have to fake emotions that aren’t there. You don’t need to care about their favorite band, or spend the whole day cuddling in bed. Just take a minute to think before you send that booty-call text. Ask yourself why you only feel comfortable seeing this person after a few drinks at the Keg, or why you’re always so scared of running into his or her roommate in the hallway.

Have fun, but make sure you’re doing things that you enjoy, and that you’re doing them because you want to, and not because the cool kids are doing it. After all, we’re at Northwestern. None of us were cool in high school — even the ones who were getting laid.

“You have to know yourself and what you can handle,” Stepp says. “Just think about what’s going to happen afterwards, and remember that. Listen to yourself, instead of what everyone else is doing. Tune into what feels right for you.”