Everyone hates Barbie. Is it because she’s tall, leggy and disproportionately well-endowed? Or is it because her lashes are permanently curled to perfection and is always matched up with the incredibly good looking Ken? Banish the biatch from shelves for good (or at least hide them behind a bunch of much uglier toys). Do what you gotta do, Iran—this pernicious piece of Western culture is eroding morality codes everywhere!

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Question?! Answer: Ask TuffyLuv@collegecandy.com.

Dear Tuffy Luv,

I’ve been dating my boyfriend for almost all of college (we’re seniors) and he’s my perfect guy. I never believed in soul mates until I met him. We get along great, we have so much in common, we have almost all the same friends, and it’s just a great situation.

Perfect, right? Well, I thought so.

We’ve  been making plans to move in together, and he seemed totally fine with that, but a couple of week ago I mentioned in passing something about getting married (I know, I know) and he threw a major curveball at me. It turns out that he won’t marry me–unless I convert to Catholicism.

I never knew this was a big deal for him. He doesn’t seem to be very religious (I’ve never seen him go to church except Christmas and Easter) and he’s never brought this up before. But when we talked about it a couple of weeks ago he was really clear that I would need to convert or else it wasn’t going to work.

I thought about it for a while. I’m not religious so I thought, hey, what the heck, maybe I should just do it for him. But then I started getting kind of mad. Why do I have to pretend I believe in something that he never even told me he cared about before? I think it would really upset my parents and, actually, I think it would really upset me, too. I don’t think I should have to pretend to be something I’m not.

I don’t know if I should be mad or break up with him before it goes any further or convert or what. Also, don’t you think it’s kind of suspicious? He can move in with me but he can’t marry me? Is this BS because he just doesn’t want to marry me?

I don’t know what to do. Any advice would be appreciated. Until then, I am

Not Converting

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For a lot of my life, I’ve been a religious person. I went on mission trips every summer with my church, I was on my church’s Youth Board, and I attended mass every Sunday (oh yeah, I’m Catholic). So when I got to college, one of the first things I did was to see what campus ministries were available. While other girls were rolling out of bed at 1:00 pm on Sundays and going for a hungover brunch, I was in the student cinema with about a hundred other students praising God.

Because I became so involved with my campus ministry, I met a lot of friends with my same beliefs and morals. While this shouldn’t be a problem in my life, it became one almost from the very beginning. Once people find out that I’m religious, they start to make a lot false assumptions about myself, as well as my friends.

Assumption #1: We are holier than thou

The first thing I always hear is that we are “holier than thou.”  I’ve learned through my experiences that a lot of other Christians have trouble going to church. They say that if they went, it would make them feel like they have to act holy all the time. So this makes it even difficult for me to really express everything I feel about God. I don’t want people pointing out examples of how I’m not leading the most holy life. And I’ll be the first to admit, sometimes it’s easier for me to pick one persona or another. Either the quiet, Christian girl who won’t talk about her problems or the troubled party-goer. A lot of people will argue that it’s not worth going to church because all the pews are filled with a bunch of hypocrites. Sure it’s a valid point, but they’re forgetting why we go to church in the first place.

We go to church because frankly, we aren’t good at being a holy people. We need God (because we aren’t perfect), so we seek Him in church. My friends and I are just like you and we won’t judge you because you might make different choices than us. I have never condemned people for their life choices, because that is one thing the Bible tells us to never do. What it does tell us to do is love everyone. As a Christian, I try to view people as God views them – with unconditional love.

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Chag Samach and L’Shana Tovah everyone!

For those of you who have no idea what I’m talking about (or even how to pronounce that mumbo jumbo), allow me to explain.

Wednesday at sundown is the start of Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year. It’s one of the happiest and holiest days of the year, filled with fun (and a few…er….interesting) traditions. And a lot of praying. For those of you who’ve never celebrated before or are wondering why all your Jewish friends get excused absences from class during the first week (how unfair!), allow me to guide you through some of the finer points of our celebration (and show you that we’re not just playing hookie for no reason here).

And for all you non-Jews out there: if you can swing it, secure yourself an invite to Rosh Hashanah dinner. The food is good, the wine is plentiful, and there’s bound to be an interesting character (or 2) at the table. Here is everything you need to know:

The Deal: Rosh Hashanah, which starts at sundown and lasts for two days, is the start of the Jewish calendar. It’s not as big or booze-filled as the New Years you’ll celebrate in December/January (actually, it’s more family and prayer filled), but it’s a celebration nonetheless. We dress up, go to temple, sing, dance, and eat. It’s a time to celebrate the end of one year and look forward to another, complete with resolutions, making amends, and family gatherings. It’s also filled with symbolism, which we love. And food. Did I mention we’re big on food? Read More »

Why does it matter how many people someone has had sex with?

In the world of journalism, that, my friends, is called a question lede. I’m supposed to spend the rest of this article trying to answer that question, but honestly I can’t make any promises. You see, that question has been in my mind for a while now, and I can’t seem to figure it out. Why do people care about someone’s “magic number,” and why is a person’s morality level judged by how many sexual partners they’ve had?

Historically speaking, it’s understandable why chastity and virginity were important. Without any kind of protection, getting pregnant or catching a disease was very much a reality. Virginity was maintained until marriage because no one wanted to catch a disease from their future spouse. Which is fair enough, really.

But those reasons are mainly invalid in modern times; we have condoms to save us from diseased genitals and unwanted fetuses. So long as sex is protected, it really shouldn’t matter how many people have been involved. Sex with multiple partners (not necessarily at the same time…) is often frowned upon as being immoral and looked at as being a “sin of the flesh” – but what is so immoral about it? No one is getting hurt and no one is being damaged. So long as the people involved are consenting and protected, there really is nothing immoral about it. Read More »

[It's pretty obvious that the average CollegeCandy reader has some very strong opinions. Opinions that she likes to share with everyone on the site. We love a strong woman (unless she happens to be charging at us with her fists raised), so we thought we'd give her a real forum to discuss her thoughts, feelings, and perspectives. Every Friday I'll be featuring a hot topic (like banning 21st birthday shots) and leaving it up to you, the readers, to duke it out. So, read it and get your debate on in the comments section below!]

This week, under the category of “news that made me say WTF!” was this little story about students at Georgetown University taping their mouths and chaining themselves to a statue in front of the school in protest of the fact the Georgetown doesn’t provide or help to provide contraceptive options like condoms to it’s students. The school, a private Catholic university stands by the religious policies of the Catholic church under which it was founded and refuses to provide any contraception that prevents the creation of life. Let the debate begin!

OK, let’s go ahead and get this out before the NYC-liberal-arts-student part of me literally explodes – SERIOUSLY! Are you freakin’ kidding me?! Georgetown, a major university, which does not require it’s students to follow Catholic doctrine, is still, in this day and age, refusing to hand out condoms!? Are you gonna provide daycare, Georgetown?

Ah, I feel better now.

But honestly, there are a lot of good reasons why Georgetown should step up and help with the sexual health of it’s students. To begin with, Georgetown is located in Washington D.C. where officials have declared a citywide HIV/AIDS epidemic. That means that, completely outside of the pregnancy prevention argument, Georgetown is refusing to help it’s students protect themselves from devastating, life-changing illness. And yes, students at GU could just go around the corner to the drugstore and buy their own condoms, but as many many schools have found out, it’s a lot harder to get students to do that (when you’re this close to getting it on in your dorm, that CVS might as well be China). Read More »

In the few weeks before I moved away for college 3 years ago, I remember being over at a friend’s house when the topic of religion in college was brought up by her mom. She was a big supporter of being active in a church at school, arguing that it was the best place to meet like-minded people. “If you find someone in college that you fall in love with, it’ll be a heck of a lot easier if they’re the same religion as you.”

Back then I thought that religion should have nothing to do with love, but I may be starting to see her point of view.

I was raised Catholic. My boyfriend Matt was raised mainly by his Presbyterian mother, but his dad was Catholic and so Matt was baptized as an infant. In all reality, neither of us are very religious now. Ever since I was a teenager, I’ve considered myself Christian, but have never been a big fan of organized religion. My beliefs are my own and I don’t like other people forcing their beliefs on to me.

None of that really means much now, religion doesn’t really come up much in our college relationship, but with Matt and I planning our future together, the topic of kids came up which begged the question: Do we raise them in the church, and if so, which one? Read More »

[It's pretty obvious that the average CollegeCandy reader has some very strong opinions. Opinions that she likes to share with everyone on the site. We love a strong woman (unless she happens to be charging at us with her fists raised), so we thought we'd give her a real forum to discuss her thoughts, feelings, and perspectives. Every Friday I'll be featuring a hot topic (like plastic surgery!) and leaving it up to you, the readers, to duke it out. So, read it and get your debate on in the comments section below!]

OK, I can already feel this one’s gonna get messy, so hold on tight folks.

I admit, I’ve put off talking about gay marriage here for a while, in part because, well, I went to a liberal arts school in NYC – I have way too many gay friends to really be impartial here. Then last week, the assistant managing editor of the Notre Dame student newspaper resigned during the controversy over an anti-gay joke that appeared in the paper’s comic strip and I realized that this is an issue that still affects us all, and we need to talk about it.

Now I’m not going to get into a moral argument here – I doubt that I could change anyone’s opinions one way or another about that particular issue; my questions instead are logistical – is gay marriage inevitably going to become legal and if so, what’s the point of fighting it?

Right now, five states allow gay marriage and several other have passed bills allowing it only to have them repealed. Regardless of your moral standpoint, the legal (and yes, marriage is considered a legal institution, not a religious one in the US) arguments for gay marriage are persuasive. Now, admittedly, there’s a lot of strange and old-fashioned laws still on the books that just hang around (did you know that it’s illegal to let a donkey sleep in a bathtub in Arizona?), but that’s mostly because people forget about them. Same-sex marriage is one issue that people are fighting for and are probably going to continue to fight for, so why not just let it go? Read More »

A lot of people find part of their identity with their religion:

“I’m Catholic”
“I’m atheist”
“I’m Jewish”

Even if someone’s beliefs can’t be put under a specific religious category, everyone has their own opinion on how humans got here and how people should live their lives.  All of these different views come together to make a unique world, but religious differences have the potential to hurt or even end a relationship.

Because religious views generally have a great impact on a person’s lifestyle, differing views can cause conflict in relationships. An atheist may be incredibly uncomfortable if their significant other wanted to attend church every Sunday and prayed every day. Likewise, a person who is used to being involved in religious practices may feel like something is wrong with them if their boyfriend or girlfriend doesn’t want to come with them to Bible study or other religious gatherings.

And then there’s the family. And the potential future family.
It can really become a hot mess of opinions, beliefs and arguments.

While this may be overwhelming for some, there are ways to cope with religious differences and make a relationship last. Taking turns attending religious practices can give both members of the relationship a look into a new religious lifestyle. Each person could take time discussing with the other what their religious views mean to them and what they do or do not want to do because of them. Essentially, a couple needs to reach a compromise that makes them both feel comfortable. Read More »

I really can’t give MTV’s new series “College Life” enough praise.  I’m not a huge fan of the whole reality thing, but since the show is shot by the students themselves it really puts a good spin on a tired genre.

Every episode is chock-full of the real life drama of being an actual freshman at one of America’s largest party schools – the University of Wisconsin. Check out for yourself, you can watch all the episodes online in full here.

We caught up with the star’s of the show Josh, Kevin, Jordan and Andrea and asked them a few questions about  hooking-up, drinking, studying and if women can be considered pimps and men sluts. Oh, you know, the important things… Read More »