[We'd like to take this opportunity to welcome our favorite love, sex and relationship blogger - Lena Chen - to the CollegeCandy team. Lena is smart, funny, and her perspective on all things relationship is incredibly thought provoking. We're so pumped to have her here, so be sure to let us know in the comments what sorts of things you'd like Lena to discuss!]

Marriage isn’t a right; it’s a privilege. Depending on the time, place, and partner, getting married could be harder than getting into Harvard, if not downright impossible. As recently as fifty years ago, miscegenation laws would have forbid me from marrying my boyfriend (or any man not my race) in certain areas of the United States. Before that, the legal and social benefits to getting married were denied to minorities, immigrants, and the poor for centuries. Marriage is, for lack of a better analogy, membership into the biggest country club in the world.

For me, getting married would be a personal endorsement of some of the worst societal norms in existence.

The supposed “right” to marry has never been much of a right at all, and our understanding of marriage as a basic liberty is unique to contemporary times. Thanks to my predisposition for heterosexuality, it’s a liberty I could easily exercise, but I’d much rather march in a rally than down an aisle, because I find it difficult to take part in a practice that is denied to others (plenty of them my friends). Even with the best of intentions, I can’t imagine that my own wedding will serve any purpose but to reinforce existing norms, such as the idea that a relationship is only valuable if recognized by a third-party institution. Read More »

Due to a mixture of ugly rain and extreme exhaustion from losing an hour of sleep (seriously, that hour kills me every year!), I spent my Sunday in bed feeling sorry for myself with my laptop and a bag of Doritos. Probably not the best idea considering I have a white Macbook, which now has orange fingerprints all over it.

That is when I found this.

The article discusses women of all ages and our constant comparisons to others, but it really struck me as something college girls deal with daily.

When I force myself to think about it, I realize that I am an accomplished girl. I go to a great university where I excel in my classes, I have great friends, a great family and plenty of awesome life experiences. But I don’t often think that way.

Instead, I am always comparing myself to the people around me. The friend who always gets better grades, the girl who always has the boyfriend, and every single girl who is thinner and prettier than I am.

I constantly find myself thinking that I should have a boyfriend by now, that I should have seen Europe by now, or that I should have done a lot more by this stage in my life than I have. No matter how well I do on an exam, I always think that I should have done better. No matter how good I look before I leave the house, the other girls at the bar look better. Read More »

Laurie Sliva is the founder and director of BRIDGES Camp for Girls, a self-esteem and leadership building summer camp.  We met up with Laurie when we were doing research for CollegeCandy’s Eating Disorder Awareness week and knew instantly that her work and message had to be shared.

We are all fed up with our society’s impossible and unrealistic perception of beauty, and Laurie urges women everywhere to stop trying to change our bodies and start trying to change our mindsets.

I read somewhere that women have a negative thought about their bodies every 15 minutes. Sadly, this doesn’t surprise me.  I can look at my own thoughts over the years and say that sounds about right.  The more I talk to women and girls of all ages and body types, the more

I realize I am not alone.

I did feel alone at one point. I didn’t know that other girls felt like me.  In junior high, the pain of feeling left out, created an overwhelming desire to feel accepted and to feel a sense of belonging.  After losing some of my post-gymnastics, puberty weight the summer before high school, I noticed I got a little more attention from guys and girls. I felt pretty good. Soon I began skipping all meals except dinner with my family (so they wouldn’t find me out) and, when I needed more control, I began throwing up every night after dinner. My battle with anorexia-bulimia took over my life for the next six years my thoughts were occupied with how I was not going to eat, or if I had to eat, when I could throw it up, and how I would hide it from everyone who cared about me. My recovery began my sophomore year of college for a variety of reasons and with the support of family and friends who really didn’t have any idea how to help. Read More »

Remember the days when a chaste woman wore a white wedding gown and saved herself for the honeymoon? Me neither. Times are changing, and so are society’s views on sex. Just look at prime-time television.

Gone are the days when the big Dawson’s Creek episode was the one that kept everyone glued to the screen trying to guess whether it was Joey and Jack, Pacey and Andy, or Dawson and Jen who finally took their relationship to the next level (remember that one?). Instead, we’ve got Blair and Chuck’s one night stand in the back of a limo (definitely remember that one!).

Outside of the small screen, relationships in the real world are dwindling. “Dating” is becoming a thing of the past, and casual sex is flourishing. The value of the once-prestigious “first time” isn’t such a big deal for many of us as it was for our mothers, aunts, or even our older sisters. Hell, my first time was not the stuff that teen romances are made of, but I walked away without any permanent emotional scars and afterwards, since it was out of the way, I was able to make better choices regarding who I chose to sleep with.

And yet, I couldn’t help but be surprised when my younger cousin proudly announced that sex was one of her favorite activities (albeit with a steady boyfriend, but still). Just a few years age difference, and there’s still a difference in our mindsets. Read More »

We love the internet for 3 main reasons:1. We can do just about everything (shop, date, job hunt, talk to professors) in our underwear.

2. Talk to people and say things we would never have the balls to say in person (“You are being a bitch,” “I totally heart you.”)

3. We can procrastinate on everything in favor of the endless entertainment the inter-webs provide.

The sheer number of blogs and awesome websites out there is astounding…and nearly impossible to navigate. Which ones are good? Which ones are bad? Which ones will flash giant naked men on our screen? (Editor’s Note: Those are my favorite!) Which ones talk about all the stuff I want to hear?

That’s why we are here.

There are so many great college blogs out there and we want to share them with you. Because, after all, we college kids gotta stick together. So, here are a few of our favorites for today: Read More »