With spring comes bright colors, short skirts and…relationships. Is it just me or does it feel like everyone is in a relationship? On my way to class today I must have seen at least four couples holding hands and looking lovingly (or sickenly, whatever you’d like to call it) into each others eyes. OK, we get it. You guys are hooking up. You’re getting your frustration from finals out through sex. Lucky you! Those of us that aren’t in relationships are envious.

If you’re in a relationship or even just doing the whole “random hookup” thing, sex can always be made better. Whether you pull out one of these seven sex positions men love, or get it on in a new place, it’s always good to spice things up a little. Enjoy the freshness of spring and try out something new!

[Lead image via krivenko/Shutterstock]

It’s a common comment made in romantic comedies. The longer you are in a relationship, the less you have sex. Turns out, according to a new study by researches at the University of Guelph in Ontario, women’s decreasing sex drive is to blame.

Yes, over time women lose interest in having sex. Men, on the other hand, don’t. Sarah Murray and Robin Milhausen surveyed 170 undergraduates (men and women) that had been in heterosexual relationships for at least one month. They asked participants to rank their relationship satisfaction, sexual satisfaction and sexual desire at the present point in their relationship. The researchers created a Female Sexual Function Index to rank desire from 1.2 to 6.0.

While most of the participants were satisfied with both their relationships and their sex lives, research showed the longer a women had been in a relationship, the less interest she had in getting it on. Sexual desire on the Index drops by 0.02 points each month. Though it is incremental, for people in long term relationships it does add up. Male sexual desire alternatively, remains steady throughout a relationship. Read More »

Dear Dude,

I’m a college sophomore and still a virgin.  I’ve had my fair share of “almosts” and do enjoy the occasional heavy petting but I have yet to go “all the way.” I’m not waiting for marriage but I am waiting for a serious relationship with someone I can trust. I used to be confident in my decision (I mean, so what?) and felt no pressure to lose my virginity but lately I’ve been feeling like being a virgin is hurting my chances of finding that someone.

The problem is the handful of boys that I’ve started relationships with in college (emphasis on the word started because it never gets very far) initially say they respect the fact that I am a virgin. However, when that boy finds out that I’m REALLY not going to have sex with him (like never, ever) I don’t hear from him again. And when I try to hide the fact that I’m a virgin guys get mad at me for being a “tease” and disappear, too.

So basically I don’t want to lose my virginity because I’m waiting for “the right” relationship but I feel like being a virgin is preventing me from having ANY relationship. It’s a never ending cycle! Everyone around me is telling me to stick it out and wait for “the one,” but the thought of going through my college career without a real relationship is depressing. So dude, why do guys run away when they find out I’m a virgin? How does a virgin get a guy to stick around? Should I just give it up and get it over with? Or should I start filling out applications for the nearest nunnery?

Sincerely,
Not Necessarily DTF Read More »

Happy Thanksgiving!

In the spirit of the holiday, I’ve put together a list of 10 reasons I’m thankful for sex. I’m sure we can all agree there are many more than 10 reasons to be thankful for sexy time, but there is football to be watched, online sales to be shopped and pumpkin pie to be eaten. There just isn’t enough time in this day to say all my Thank You’s.

So, here goes.
My big, fat thank you to fornication!

1. Orgasms. ‘Nuff said.

2. Sex releases endorphins. Endorphins make you happy. They also make your hair shiny and skin smooth.

3. Sex makes babies. Babies are cute (as long as they’re not mine).

4. Sex is free (usually) and fun (usually).

5. Sex helps me connect with people. And not just the people I have sex with. Sex gives me dirty details to dish to my friends, the Internet, or even strangers on the subway.

6. Sex gives me something to write about every week. Which looks good on my resume. Which will help get me a job. Sex will get me a job!

7. Sex gives me something to daydream about during my long, boring biology lectures. (My professor may drone on, but he’s banging and I can only imagine what’s going on under those pleated khakis.) Read More »

It was Thanksgiving up in Canada this past weekend. I spent turkey day with my extended family, eating the most delicious of dinners (though, in all honesty, almost anything is a step-up from nightly KD), devouring pumpkin pie, and feeling a bit like an outcast.

You see, while my entire family is aware that I’m an up-and-coming journalist, I always find it interesting that no one brings up exactly what I write about or what kind of publications I’m aiming to write for after graduation. Even my successes – the fact that I just got to interview my sex-columnist hero, Dan Savage, and that I’m running my very own sex advice column in my school paper – were tiptoed around like a landmine. God forbid I say the “sex” word, I suppose.

Maybe I’m too wrapped up in this world of college where finding a condom wrapper in the kitchen garbage is just another thing to laugh at, and not used to being around people who blush at the word “vagina”. I can’t help but wonder, though, why sex is such an utterly taboo topic — why being a nearly-twenty-year-old sex columnist comes with this huge stigma, even when it’s approached in the most sex-positive and family-appropriate of ways (really, it’s not like I was going to get into the intimacies of my sex life around the dinner table).

And the thing is, this isn’t just an issue that surrounds my (apparently conservative) family. This is something that affects everyone – from the girls who refuse to masturbate because they believe their vulvas are “gross”, to the married couples who let their sex lives suffer horribly because they’re too embarrassed to put into words what exactly it is that they want in bed – we’re all being affected by sex-negativity, but where exactly does it come from?

Read More »

One of the things I love most about college is surprisingly not the pub nights, the endless good-lookin’ students, or the every-night spaghetti dinners — I really do love learning. Being a journalism student has taught me so much about the world of writing. Outside of learning how to write a good lede and how to master the inverted pyramid, my school makes us take a general education elective every semester (typically), so after getting my timetable at the end of August, I was stoked to check out what electives were available in my time slot.

It might be surprising to you guys, but I kind of have a penchant for sex, so I’ve opted to take a course that is right up my alley – philosophy of love and sex.

So far, this class has been pretty cool. Every week, we’re given a question that have we half an hour to answer on paper. Our first “question of the week” was something that really got me thinking – is it more desirable to have sex with love, or sex without love?

I took a while to think about my answer, but I think I eventually went around in circles and landed at “love isn’t the important factor in desirable sex. Comfort is the most important thing.” Because we all know awkward sex = bad sex. Or at least, that’s what I concluded in my mindless philosophical ramblings. But really, what’s the difference between sex with love and sex without love? Read More »

I learned a lot of valuable lessons during my high school years. Not so much from going to class or doing homework (because I didn’t really do that), but from being a horny teenager who lived at home and had thin walls.

You see, my bedroom was directly beside (sharing a wall) with my mom’s room, and that wall that we shared, the one right by my bed, had a vent that happened to be connected to her room as well. You couldn’t see through it, but we learned pretty quickly that this vent in our adjoining wall wasn’t quite soundproof.

Having acquired my very first “real” boyfriend (one that lasted more that a week…) and having a lot of fun experimenting with sex for the first time ever, this vent in the wall became something of a challenge. For a good few months there was a pillow wedged up against it, acting as some weird sound-proof barrier, but when the winter months rolled around and I started freezing at night, I realized that blocking the main source of heat that filtered into my room probably wasn’t a good idea.

But then we figured out the perfect way to drown our sexy noises while keeping my room at a comfortable 20 or so degrees – music. Sure, it’s not silence, and it still traveled through the walls, but I guarantee my mother appreciated the sound of slow bass late at night a lot more than hearing anything else coming through our walls. Read More »

Some people are into long walks on the beach, candlelit dinners, and getting fancy. Other people are into staying in, watching movies, and keeping it low key. Some people work in big office buildings bringing in the cash, while others bus tables and do dishes for minimum wage. But what do all of these people have in common?  Some of them, from any category and walk of life, are into being tied up, spanked and dominated.

That’s right, folks, kinky people are everywhere.

I know when I used to think of “kink”, I would think of a leather daddy or someone who walks their boyfriend on a leash around the mall. We tend to be taught the extremes, so I never really thought of it any other way. Once I started educating myself on what it actually means to be kinky, I realized that the kinky lifestyle isn’t always so extreme after all.

Okay, so to start with, what is a kink? What’s a fetish? Broken down very simply, a kink is something that turns you on, while a fetish is something you have a hard time getting turned on without. Kinks are typically less extreme, like high heels and handcuffs, while a fetish is typically a bit more out there – like feet, centaurs, and genital mutilation. Not that there is anything wrong with either a kink or a fetish… that’s just usually how it plays out. Read More »

Got a health question? Don’t trust those “Doctors” at the University Health Center? Are you scared of Web M.D. because it always tells you you’re gonna die? Ask a real doctor, like our friend Dr. Lissa Rankin. She’s here every Thursday to answer whatever you throw at her – like how to deal with HPV – so ask away. Leave your question in the comments or send it over to us. Don’t be shy; she’s waiting for ya!

Q: I just started having sex and all of my friends tell me I have to pee after. They say that if I don’t pee I can get a UTI. The problem is that I never have to go. I try every time – I run to the bathroom and sit there but nothing ever happens. Is that bad? Do you HAVE to go after? Is there something wrong with me that I can’t go?

A: Your friends are giving you good advice. In general, it’s a good idea to pee after sex. Sex can introduce bacteria where it shouldn’t be, up inside the normally sterile urethra (the tube from the bladder to the outside world). Urinating flushes out an bacteria that may be lurking near the opening to the urethra, just dying to crawl inside and wreak havoc with a urinary tract infection (UTI). Read More »

Got a health question? Don’t trust those “Doctors” at the University Health Center? Are you scared of Web M.D. because it always tells you you’re gonna die? Ask a real doctor, like our friend Dr. Lissa Rankin. She’s here every Thursday to answer whatever you throw at her – like performance anxiety – so ask away. Leave your question in the comments or send it over to us. Don’t be shy; she’s waiting for ya!

Q: I just recently started having sex with my boyfriend. It always feels fine (great, actually) when we’re in the act, but everything just feels…weird the next day. It sorta hurts when I go to the bathroom (mostly when I’m…er…cleaning up), when I sit, and the muscles in my inner thighs hurt. And I’m just so sore down there that I need a couple days before I can even do it again.

Is that normal? Is it something I’ll get used to? Should I be worried?

A: Sex can be uncomfortable in a variety of ways, especially for women. What you’re describing sounds more like the result of a serious sexual workout than any medical condition.  Most people with sexual pain disorders, such as vulvar vestibulitis (inflammation of the vestibule) or vaginismus (involuntary tightening of the muscles in the vagina), experience pain during intercourse. The fact that you’re enjoying the act itself is good news.

If the muscles in your inner thighs hurt, it’s probably because you’re using them to cling to your partner during sex- and just like any workout, they can ache afterwards, especially if you’re using muscles you’re not used to using. Try taking ibuprofen (Motrin) or naproxen (Aleve) to help the aching you feel. And just like spin class or lifting weights, chances are, the more you do it, the less it will hurt. (Which I’m sure your boyfriend will enjoy…)

Read More »