You wake up. You reach over to your bedside table, grab your ringing phone and click the dismiss button to stop the alarm. Phone still in hand, you rub your left eye, but leave the right one open and peek at the device in your palm. Eleven new emails and four texts. You check them sleepily–texts from your mom, your sister and two from your best friend. Then move on to the emails–one from work, a few from school, some announcing sales at your favorite stores and lastly, a notification that John Smith wants to be your friend on Facebook. John Smith? Who is that?

Getting out of bed, you plop down in front of your computer and pull up the social networking site. You check out John Smith, but still don’t know who he is. Then you realize he has sent you a message. “Hey, we met at a bar the other night. It wasn’t anything big, we just introduced ourselves. How are you?” You still don’t really remember him, but you accept the friend request anyway. Then you go back to your news feed, where you see that your friend in Texas has put up new pictures. Clicking through them, you realize you haven’t talked to her in almost two years, but still know most of what’s going on in her life.

So much of our lives has been infiltrated by virtuality and technology that it’s rare that we have more actual face time in a day than virtual. We text, BBM, Facebook chat, Gchat, Skype, iChat and tweet far more often than we take the time to meet up face to face, and we don’t have a problem with that. (In fact, I just stopped and typed out a text in the middle of writing that sentence.) Often we have online friends that we have never met outside of the digital world–something that not long ago may have been considered a little strange, but has recently become a social norm. The number of online dating sites grows almost daily, and people find shared interests on all different kinds of blogs–from fashion to comics to music. But just because we like to look at the same website as someone, does that mean we should be friends?

Many people believe that virtual relationships are fake and watered down, and in a lot of instances that is true. Think about it–how much do you really know about all of your Facebook friends? Are the majority of them even your friends at all? Are they even real people? Or just fakes created by a lonely woman in the middle of nowhere like in that Catfish movie?

We may feel like we know people that we meet online because we spend such a huge portion of our lives in front of our computer screens, but who we are online can be totally different from who we are in real life. The internet provides a safety filter through which we feel we can be more outgoing, wittier and all around more impressive than we may be when approached on the street. Imagine that you start following someone on Twitter because every single one of their tweets makes you almost pee your pants, but you decide to meet them in person and discover they look a little bit like Chewbacca with even less social skills. Or, there’s always the chance he looks like Bradley Cooper and is just as funny as his 140-character one-liners. Either way, meeting people on the internet is a gamble, no matter how well you think you know them. And we’re always crossing our fingers for a jackpot.

So is it bad that so much of our personal lives and relationships are online? Maybe. But it doesn’t seem to be a trend that will go away soon.

Casual sex is…well, rarely casual. More times than not it ends with frustration, regret and overuse of the word ‘asshole.’ And let’s be honest, the pissed-at-the-world scale generally tips towards the ladies. How is it that men appear more successful at ‘handling’ their casual relationships?

While some may argue that men have an easier time separating sex and emotion, I don’t believe that is the defining attribute. I think men are just better at picking their casual partners. When a guy says, “Oh, I would never be serious with this girl,” it’s because he means it. He doesn’t get emotional or attached because he chooses a girl he would never get attached to. Is casual sex possible for women? Absolutely. But if we want to enter the same playing field, we have to play by the same rules. Ladies, I give you the 10 Commandments of Casual Sex.

Let me be clear, this is not the 10 Commandments of Dating, and it is definitely not the 10 Commandments of Making Your Hook Up Buddy Your Boyfriend. If you allow yourself to enter a ‘casual relationship’ with the underlying motive to make it something more, 9 times out of 10 you will be disappointed with the outcome.

initiating the gallery...

Proposition 8 was overturned, and now we have to see that lesbian comedienne Ellen Degeneres as the new face of JCPenney? Where on EARTH will I shop now? Ladies, we’ve got to do something about this. Let’s protest that crazy talk show host so that her homosexuality doesn’t taint all our kids’ back-to-school clothes and our Christmas shopping.

Okay, so maybe I’m exaggerating the thought process of a member of One Million Moms, a conservative group that’s got their high-leg briefs in a twisted bunch because out and proud Ellen Degeneres is the new JCPenney spokesperson. The group issued a statement following the company’s announcement:

“Funny that JC Penney thinks hiring an open homosexual spokesperson will help their business when most of their customers are traditional families. More sales will be lost than gained unless they replace their spokesperson quickly. Unless JC Penney decides to be neutral in the culture war then their brand transformation will be unsuccessful…By jumping on the pro-gay bandwagon, JCPenney is attempting to gain a new target market and in the process will lose customers with traditional values that have been faithful to them over all these years.”

Fox News contributor Sandy Rios, who supports the One Million Moms perspective, summed up this week’s Hot Button Issue while on The O’Reilly Factor: ”The problem is that Ellen DeGeneres has chosen to act out her lesbian lifestyle and marry her partner, it’s what that represents,” she said. “And the fact that JCPenney is supposed to be middle America, the place where families shop…and people who believe that marriage is between a man and woman and children should not be exposed and propagandized in homosexuality have a moral problem with that.”

Well I’m sorry, Sandy, and the members of One Million Moms, but America—the land of opportunity, the land of the free and the home of the brave—is changing. And for the better. Thank goodness it’s been allowed to change, or else women would never be able to proudly make a buck in any workplace and we’d still stupidly have slaves everywhere who each only count as three-fifths of a person. Though the country has managed to acknowledge the basic human right of being considered an entire person to these minority groups, why can’t such a given be also applied to those who aren’t perfectly heterosexual? Those who choose to be both free AND brave?

If you’re protesting Ellen’s employment with JCPenney, you’re asking that the company discriminates based on her sexual orientation. Hm, discrimination definitely sounds like one of “the negative influences our children are forced to contend with”—you know, the part of society’s “filth” that you should be working to fight, rather than avoiding the hilarious and kindhearted Ellen Degeneres and every product she’s ever endorsed. I’m guessing you’re missing out on the greatness that is CoverGirl LashBlast Mascara and the daily dose of awesome on The Ellen Degeneres Show. Oh man, your kids must have never even seen the movie Finding Nemo! Do you tell them that they can’t go on the Submarine Voyage ride at Disneyland because that funny blue fish is the voice of an evil lesbian?!

Oh, and by pushing Ellen down and calling her names, you’re being a bully. That’s right, One Million Moms, all 40,000 of you are guilty of anti-gay bullying.

Thankfully, the group’s protests and cries were no matter for the department store, as the company stood behind their decision. And yesterday, the free and brave Ellen Degeneres addressed her haters and, therefore, her motivators, on her talk show. ”I’m proud and happy to say that JCPenney stuck by their decision to make me their spokesperson. Which is great news for me because I also need some new crew socks.”

On a more serious notes, she continued, “I really want to thank everyone who is supporting me…Here are the values I stand for. I stand for honesty, equality, kindness, compassion, treating people the way you’d want to be treated and helping those in need. To me, those are traditional values. That’s what I stand for.“

To be honest, I’m surprised that One Million Moms even had the time to jumpstart a JCPenney protest. The group has also requested action against Macy’s, ABC’s Modern Family and Mattel. Don’t shop at Target for promoting the destructive program that is Degrassi, don’t watch Dancing With The Stars because the show “aired a definition of ‘transgender’” and don’t support Ben & Jerry’s because of their “tasteless” ice cream flavor names. Thank goodness—that means there’s more Schweddy Balls for me!

Watch Ellen’s full speech now. It’s hilarious, it’s heartwarming, it’s all things Ellen Degeneres.

Should JCPenney be concerned about losing conservative customers? Or will they gain more respect for taking a stand?

Ashley is a UC San Diego grad who is holding on way too tightly to a potential career in magazines and goes to Vegas all too often. She’s fascinated with celebrities and strawberry beer and doubles as a pathological texter/emailer/blogger. Feed the addiction with tweets @cashleelee. Thanks in advance.

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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.

Researchers haven’t yet nailed the cause for the general decrease in desire among women. Some theories are that women’s attention turns towards raising children, decreasing their interest in sex. As they looked at university students, another theory emerged that younger women lose interest once the “honeymoon phase” of a relationship over. Yes, once a guy stops trying to impress a gal, she’s going to stop putting out.

The researchers hope that this information could help couples from losing the spark. They also found that women with realistic expectations about sex did not face the same decrease in desire.

So there you have it boys! If you want us ladies to keep getting it on with you, you might want to drop the whole “I’m going to blow your mind,” act and be realistic. Also, presents help.

Leah is in her final semester of her Bachelor of Journalism at Ryerson University in Toronto. She’s rounding out her degree as the Senior Online Editor for the Ryerson Review of Journalism. In her limited spare time she’s honing her cupcake making skills so she can one-day fulfill her dream of competing on Cupcake Wars. Follow her (and drool over her tasty treats) @ElleandBee.

[Image via altafulla/Shutterstock]

Remember when you got rejected by some snot-nosed brat named Brad because you had a pimple on your forehead and your mom told you he was an idiot and looks don’t matter. She was lying, partly. Looks matter, whether we like it or not.

This isn’t a fat/thin kind of thing. So take your head out of that dark and periled pit filled with Weeping Angels and Halls of Mirrors. Beauty really is subjective, despite whatever environmental standards may have been implanted on our subconscious. But make no mistake, beauty counts when attracting the beasts and the princes alike. When you interact with someone for the first time what do you do? You look at them. And if you don’t like what you’re looking at, things are a bit more uphill from there, aren’t they?

This is a common sense article. Do you give guys a second look if what you see isn’t appealing? Don’t pretend you don’t judge some books by their covers. Everyone does! And that’s okay. It’s natural. “Shiny, good!” We all f*cking do it. No reason to be hypocritical and claim to be immune to such primal determining of potential mates.

When did people suddenly get on this, “only what’s inside a person matters” bullcrap? Don’t dare try to pass off that how you dress, how you get your hair cut, what style you envelope yourself into — hell even what kind of glasses you wear — don’t matter to you. You make choices. You pick. Or you decide not to, because that “don’t care” look is your statement. Oh, it’s all a bit persona reflecting the person. In class, job interviews, with your family, a million different set of circumstances that you make choices to look differently for. Why? Because how you look matters!

And you better believe it does when it comes to sex and love. Regardless if you’ve been together with someone for 2 years, 5 years or 20 years, how you look STILL matters. I mean, let’s be frank. Sometimes part of the thing that distances couples is the fact that they lose their attraction to each other. How does that happen? It’s not JUST — notice the qualification — because you feel like the other person is acting differently, they’re probably looking differently.Less appealing somehow and less stimulating. It takes work and it’s an effort BOTH partners need to make. We have a responsibility to our relationships to keep the spark alive and that requires some calculated or spontaneous changes to our looks.

Hell, we’re all going to evolve our styles and our looks anyway. Aging will dictate the changes we will need to make and help us be motivated to make them. Just to feel better if for no other reason. Because the point, ladies, is not simply “you need to look attractive for him,” it’s that how you look matters more to YOU. Own it!

If you don’t think you look good, no one else is going to. You’ve got to find that happy comfort in your body and in that comfort is your inner hotness that will radiate outward, for all to see.

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Are you actually together, or are you just really good friends who frequently have sex? Are you ‘dating’? Are you ‘in a relationship’? Maybe ‘it’s complicated’? Are you ready for engagement…or marriage? Or is it time you two just moved in together already?

Women’s magazines and Hollywood seem to be preoccupied with the notion of moving one’s relationship forward, as if a relationship were some sort of vehicle aiming for a finish line, some sort of ephemeral end goal (it’s never really defined, is it?). Indeed, film and television producers like to parcel out relationship plots as mostly linear narratives with some sort of final objective on the horizon: Girl meets Boy. Girl likes Boy. Girl and Boy date. Girl and Boy become a Couple. Couple co-habitate. Couple get engaged. Couple get married. Couple have children. Couple’s happiness is demonstrably achieved (apparently). Oh, perhaps the writers will throw in a few twists — perhaps Girl meets Girl. Maybe there’s a nearly disastrous misunderstanding involving a jilted ex-lover. Or maybe the Couple must overcome adversity in order to marry. Radical.

The thing is, relationships rarely happen like that in real life. Particularly, I would argue, for modern 20-somethings. By the time you’ve experienced a relationship (or several) yourself, you come to the realisation that relationships seldom occur as neatly as Hollywood would have you think. Relationships are messy, confusing, exhilarating and frustrating, and no two are the same. How, then, do you know when it’s time to move your relationship to the next level? How do you know when it’s the right time to have sex, to decide to be exclusive, to change your Facebook status to ‘in a relationship’, to consider engagement, marriage, children, whatever?

At the risk of sounding deeply ‘new age’ and annoyingly like your high school counselor, I can’t answer that for you. You and your lover are the only people who can decide where your relationship is going and when. I do have a few morsels of advice, though.

Firstly, don’t be beholden to whatever it is you think society wants you to do. Please! If you’re three years into your relationship and people are speculating as to when the ring is going to appear on your finger, don’t feel required to get engaged. Relationships aren’t a race to the finish line (what is waiting at the finish line, anyway?), you’re absolutely free to meander at your own pace. It might be better to let things develop organically, rather than forcing ‘progress’ upon a relationship. Pressures such as ‘keeping up with the Joneses’ can distract you from the fact that a relationship is a journey, not a destination (ew, I feel so grossly airy-fairy and existential for writing that, but it’s true). So quit your worrying and enjoy things as they are.

Similarly, don’t feel the need to define your relationship by traditional standards. There’s a guy in my life – we get along really well, and we’re good friends. We spend a lot of time together and we have a lot of sex. We cuddle and we talk and we cook together. We’re exclusive. But he’s not my boyfriend. There’s all sorts of reasons that neither of us feel like defining our relationship as ‘boyfriend and girlfriend’ and we’re both perfectly comfortable with that. It’s other people who seem so keen to slap a definition on us. Are we together? Sorta. The label isn’t important. If you’re in a similar situation, don’t feel the need to move your relationship to the ‘boyfriend and girlfriend’ stage just because others think you should.

Thirdly, remember that completion of one step is not a prerequisite for completing another step. I used to live with my boyfriend. We lived together for two years. I learned a lot during that time, including the realisation that I really need my own space. I will always be hesitant to move in with a significant other. But that doesn’t mean I cannot be in a serious, meaningful (etc. etc.) relationship. Personally, I think Tim Burton and Helena Bonham-Carter have the right idea — adjoining houses. They have kids, a great relationship (it would seem), intimacy, and personal space. So, just because you’re getting engaged, it doesn’t mean you have to move in with each other. Just because you’ve decided that you’re in a relationship, doesn’t mean you have to be having sex. Just because you’re moving away, doesn’t mean you have to break up. You decide which steps to take and when to take them.

Finally, don’t be afraid to end things if the ‘next step’ is just not what you want. Perhaps your friend with benefits wants to be more than a friend, but you’re not comfortable with the idea. Don’t be afraid to end the relationship there — if your differences are irreconcilable then there’s probably not much point in carrying on. If he’s talking about marriage and babies and you’re terrified, maybe it’s time to have a think about where things might be going, and if it’s time to abandon ship.

I suppose I’ve talked around the issue a little here, but the salient points for you to remember are these: ‘moving forward’ and ‘taking things to the next level’ are not always necessary. Screw society’s expectations and do your own thing at your own pace. And, if you want out, don’t be afraid to say so.

Want to see when He Said it’s the right time to take things to the next level? Check it out at COEDMagazine.com!

Raquel is a Wellingtonian and an Art History graduate. When she’s not studying to be a teacher, she’s downing coffee and reading the autobiographies of people much more amazing than her. You can follow her on twitter @raquel_marty.

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No, not the guy on the side of my actual relationship — I don’t have a real boyfriend either. I had boy reserved for cold New York nights when I felt particularly needy for human affection. Hey, no one is immune and dating is difficult. Any single girl in the city who refuses to date “just anyone” for the sake of having a boyfriend will say the same. Which is why I have a backup boyfriend, someone who can play the role when you need a night of pretending. I’ll call him Smith.

Smith is a few years older than me, incredibly intelligent, beautiful and in a band. You’re thinking, “Why the hell isn’t he your actual boyfriend?” Well, I have a long (and rather entertaining) history of dealing with men like Smith. They weren’t all assholes. Just most of them. Smith isn’t an asshole, though. He’s incredibly affectionate, mature and most importantly honest. And the sex? He’s a passionate (albeit slightly melodramatic) artist, so it was theatrical, violent and absolutely mind blowing. His flaw? Smith is first and foremost in love with himself.

He once asked me, “What if we tried this? Tried actually trusting each other. It could be great.” To which I responded, “Unfortunately, Smith, you will never make me feel like I’m the only girl in the room. And I don’t think you have the capacity to love anyone as much as you love yourself.” “Well, should I love you more?” You get the idea. He’s the perfect Mr. Right Now. Or he was. Until he dumped me.

It’s pretty ironic how it went down. Ironic in the way that, even though it totally sucks, you can’t help but chuckle at the universe a bit. So here I am, feeling totally in control of the situation. We were cuddling affectionately after a lazy day of watching Shameless. Comfortably nuzzled in his chest, I said, “What are you going to do when I actually start dating somebody?” He snickered, “I’ll be polite to his face and make snide comments to you behind his back while attempting to sleep with you.” “Fair enough.” In an odd (and what you’ll surely deem unhealthy) way, it was adorable. Did I mention that this is one of my best friends’ older brother? We’re pretty stuck in each other’s lives. Yeah, yeah, judge as you may.

So here I am thinking I’m in the perfect situation. I don’t have to wade through all the douche bags and losers that plague the New York City world dating scene. I can focus solely on my career knowing that great sex and something-a-lot-like-love is only a phone call away. Meanwhile, if the actual Mr. Right comes along, I’m free to be swept off my feet.

A few days after the aforementioned cuddle fest, Smith has a big show that I attended. I wasn’t surprised when he didn’t smother me with attention. He was busy flirting with everyone, working the rock star charm for all his adoring fans. I get it. What did surprise me, however, was that the next day when I was out doing a nice bit of day drinking with his sister, I texted him to meet us…but he never responded. That was unlike him. Even if he was out with a hoard of women, he always used to respond. I follow up again. Still nothing.

When I felt that inner girl crazy (oh, you know what I’m talking about) stir within me that wanted to text him something ugly, uncalled for and over-dramatic, I immediately deleted his number. Not as mature as having actual self control, but still probably more mature than had I said something I would later regret. After a few days of not hearing from him, I knew something was up. So, I email him and ask. We have the uncanny ability to be perfectly honest with each other. I didn’t mind admitting that it hurt me and I even explained the vulnerability the hurt implied.

I got the sweetest email back explaining that he met someone that had totally overwhelmed him in the greatest way possible. Fuck. Isn’t karma a big, ugly bitch? What will I do? I guess now I’ll be polite when she’s around, make snide comments to him behind her back…always tempting him.

I’ve obviously changed names for the sake of privacy…. but you should totally check out this band, Deadbeat Darling. They’re awesome. Download their stuff and like them on Facebook.