"OMG! I forgot I packed all these empty Bacardi bottles!"

At the end of senior year I shoved all my belongings into boxes and garbage bags without using any kind of rational order or logic. Whatever could fit in my boxes went in — and whatever couldn’t fit got thrown away.

Perfectly good pots and pans ended up in the dumpster (and soon after in a dumpster diver’s kitchen) while perfectly useless items like homemade off the shoulder t-shirts got rolled in bubble wrap and packed away.

This past weekend I moved into my new apartment and began unpacking all my boxes. It was like 8 nights of Hanukkah all rolled into one. I had forgotten I owned half of that stuff so each time I reached into a box and pulled something out it was like winning a raffle. The kind of raffle where you win prizes that are good for a laugh, yet have no purpose…a broken shower radio, a dirty mug, stolen freshman year dorm posters, a lime green shoe bag, 75,000 dryer sheets.

Basically nothing useful or even decorative for my new apartment. But they come from college and even though they should have been thrown out months ago, I can’t bear to part with them now. I held up every item and explained to my mother what each one meant to me. However she was increasingly less entertained as my stories got more personal. She finally cut me off at  “oh here’s the pregnancy test I – I mean my roommate – used one time she thought she was pregnant.” Read More »

Talking sex with your doctor isn’t always easy. Whether you are afraid she or he will judge you,  you just don’t feel comfortable sharing the intimate details of your life between the sheets, or you can’t think straight with a speculum between your legs, many people get tight lipped in the doctor’s office. But that doesn’t mean you don’t have questions.

We thought we’d help and every Thursday our friend Dr. Lissa Rankin will be answering your questions. The ones you couldn’t ask your doctor in person and didn’t really trust the Yahoo community to answer for you. Just leave your questions in the comments, or send em over to us. (We’ll keep it all anonymous for you.) Dr. Lissa will answer anything – really, anything – about sex and other lady things. Don’t be shy; she’s waiting for ya!

Q: My period is irregular every month. Sometimes it comes 6 weeks apart and other times it can be up to 9.  I am not on birth control (can’t handle the side effects) and practice safe sex with my boyfriend. The problem is that I get freaked out every month that I’m pregnant. How soon can I take the test? Are there any signs I can look for that will either tell me I’m absolutely not pregnant or that maybe I am?

A: Sounds like your periods are annoying, unpredictable and scary. Bummer about that.  Chances are, if your periods are that irregular, that you’re not ovulating regularly, but that doesn’t mean you don’t have to worry about pregnancy. Your ovaries can still spit out an egg from time to time. When you’re not ovulating regularly, your uterus doesn’t know when to bleed, and your hormones can be all over the place.  Why might you be skipping periods or not ovulating? Read More »

After countless years of sex education and awkward lectures from our parents, we all know to use condoms. They are the cheap, safe way to keep your uterus empty and your lovely vag disease free — but we know that already.

So you bring home a (somewhat) nice guy one night and decide to get your freak on. Two horny willing participants? Check. Place to do the deed? Check. Condom? Check. Congratulations, you’ve done the responsible thing.

Things get heated up, and you’re too busy blissing out to notice anything, until your man-of-the-night pulls out and says “Um, I don’t know where the condom is…” (actual quote from a friend of mine). Yep, that thin latex bugger slipped off, exposing you to both his swimmers and any potential diseases he might have. Now what?

1) Breathe. Don’t panic. Accidents happen.

2) Find the damn thing. Check the bed, the sheets, the wall? If those locations turn up nothing, take a trip to the bathroom and check out yourself. Yes, there. Sounds gross, but chances are, that’s where it’s ended up.

3) Make sure you’re on the pill. While, of course, it’s not going to protect you 100% from getting knocked-up, it will help ease your nerves. Still freaking out? Continue to step 4… Read More »

 For the past few weeks I have been freaking out about the fact that I might be pregnant. My period has always been irregular and I go months without it quite often, but for some reason I couldn’t shake the idea that I might soon be sharing my apartment with a 6th roommate….and binkies and bottles.

I knew deep down that there was no possible way there was a baby in by belly (I use multiple forms of birth control), but whenever I would feel a pain in my stomach, or have the urge to dip things in frosting, I let my paranoia get the best of me. I would go to CVS to buy a pregnancy test, but every time I walked into the store I would freak out at the prospect of a little blue plus sign showing up and walk out empty handed.

It just seemed easier not to know for sure and let the irrational thoughts pass. Read More »

OKCupid.com, an online dating site, recently surveyed a bunch of college kids to find out what everyone loves, hates, and does behind closed doors (or in corners) in college.

Their findings, highlighted on BettyConfidential.com, are surprising and hilarious. Here’s what you, college ladies, had to say:

Did you know that vegetarians enjoy giving oral sex 2.5 times more than carnivores do? (Dramatic pause as you snap a carrot from the crudites platter.)

Redheads are eight percent more likely to participate in a menage a trois than college students with other hair hues. Also, 24 percent of redheads have taken naked photos or posted sexy videos of themselves online. (Lucille Ball would be so proud.)

Lest you think carrotheads are the only kinky kids out there, nearly 60 percent of college students have participated in a one-night stand. And 41 percent have had sex while someone else is in the room. Sounds more risqué than it is, when you calculate the inevitable roommate factor. Ah, dormmates, the mother of exhibitionism.

Next time a friend or offspring announces her longing for a tattoo, throw some tat stats in her face. According to the study, students with tattoos are twice as likely to have STDs and take pregnancy tests than their tat-free counterparts. They may also be destined to a lifetime of boring sex, as tattooed folks prefer the missionary 2-to-1 to the cowgirl position.

Do you agree with these findings? And don’t you think it’s weird that people who don’t eat meat like to…well, you know.

[Read part one HERE]

Finally, I left the store with no pregnancy test and no lack of huffing and stomping. As I drove to the next grocery store, I started to think about what I would do when the test told me I was pregnant.

I had all but assumed that I was, at that point. I had talked about it with my boyfriend, who was enormously supportive, as we tried to figure out how I could be pregnant. We were almost always safe when we had full on sex, but not quite as safe during foreplay. And there was that time we played the pull out game.

I honestly had never really thought about this situation before, because in the almost three years that we had been having sex and playing that game occasionally, nothing like this had ever happened, not even close.

I stood in line at the next grocery store, sandwiched between two harried looking mothers and their brood, and cursed myself for being so stupid. I should have gotten on the pill even though it was expensive and made me fat, I should have used spermicide even though it grosses me out, I should have made my boyfriend wear a condom at all times, even when I was just thinking about sex.

Eventually, I bought the damn pregnancy test. I read the instructions and, in my haste to be done with the damn thing, made the mistake of not peeing on it long enough. I sat on the toilet, staring in fury at the now useless pregnancy test that had taken so much guts and time and money to acquire and threw it across the room. I was mad at the thing, yes, but mostly, I was so mad at myself, that I wanted to cry. Read More »

I’m at a certain age and place in my life where I thought the time had come and gone for bad decision making. You do enough stupid things that at some point, you are supposed to cross this imaginary line into something that looks suspiciously like adulthood. Once on the other side of this line, you can look back on all the youthful blunders you and people close to you have made and you learn from it, move forward.

As of last week, I was forced to admit that maybe I hadn’t come quite as far as I thought I had.

I had a pregnancy scare.

My period isn’t like clockwork, but it’s close enough that I know the part of the month in which it will fall. As March drew to a close, I looked at my calendar and realized that I hadn’t had my period when it was supposed to come, around the 12th.

At first, I didn’t think anything of it. Two weeks was a long time, but I had been stressed out from school and I wasn’t eating as well as I should have been. I also sit next to about four girls at work, so I assumed that we were syncing.

Every day that my period didn’t come, I felt the small lump of fear in my chest grow exponentially. I kept finding little things that made me worry, like the fact that my breasts were tender and that despite the fact that I wasn’t eating as much and getting a lot of exercise, I thought that I was gaining weight. I started to feel nauseous, and although part of myself knew that I was feeling this way because I was scared and I was almost looking for these telltale signs, they persisted. Read More »