‘Tis the season to be jolly, to count thy blessings, and to make itemized lists of all the things you want. I used to wish for an easy bake oven, then Justin Timberlake’s hand in marriage, then an unlimited supply of Louboutins…oh, wait, I could still definitely go for that. In addition to a shoe closet to rival Mariah Carey’s (and world peace), I also wish for a shift in our collective sexual culture. We have all the potential to be sexually liberated, but we just won’t let ourselves — as a society — be that great. My ultimate five wishes are:

1. There would be free forms of birth control.

Unplanned pregnancy is awful. Abortion is not ideal. Luckily, there is this wonderful invention called contraception that would greatly decrease the occurrence of both. The reality of the situation is that people are going to have sex because it feels amazing, not always because they want to pop out babies, and our society needs to adjust to this and make contraception as accessible as possible. The risks of unprotected sex are far too great.

2.  Rape would never happen.

Without a doubt, rape and sexual assault are some of the most traumatizing experiences a person could ever endure, and it breaks my heart that 1 in 4 women will experience one or the other during her time in college. We live in a rape culture, where women are expected to always be available for sexual consumption and our language has stripped “rape” of its meaning (you did not rape your psychology final, okay?). In lieu of rape never happening, I would be over the moon if we could stop automatically jumping to the conclusion that all women who report rape are lying, conniving bitches who were totally asking for it because our skirts were short.

3. We could all be sluts, or prudes, and it wouldn’t be up for judgment. 

I don’t care if you’re saving yourself for marriage or for the next guy who buys you a shot, and no one else should either. As long as you’re being responsible, it’s all fair game.

4. Everyone who is sexually active would get tested regularly. 

Most STDs are not a big deal. They can be cleared up with antibiotics and are not any more disgusting than a cold or flu. If we could treat our sexual health like our dental or overall physical health, there would probably a lot less disease transmission, since people would be open about their status. Gonorrhea would be the new strep throat.

5. Everyone would have sex because they want to. 

There would be no having of sex because you feel peer pressure, or you desperately need validation, or because you were really, really, really wasted and you didn’t even know what you were doing for real. Sex should be fun. If it’s not, take a step back and re-evaluate. There’s nothing wrong with abstinence or celibacy.

Basically, I just want everyone to be sex-positive. What’s on your personal sexy wishlish? More orgasms? More kink? Less bad cunnilingus? I want to know!

So we won’t beat around the bush and sugarcoat it — here are the five most common vaginal afflictions.

1. Yeast Infections

Causes: When new yeast is introduced into the vaginal area (like, say, whipped cream/chocolate during sex) or there is an imbalance of bad bacteria to good bacteria (after antibiotic usage).
Symptoms: Thick, white discharge that is similar in consistency to cottage cheese, itching, burning, vaginal soreness, pain during intercourse
Treatment: Antifungal medication, taken orally or via vaginal tablets or suppositories. There are prescription and over the counter options (like Monistat and Mycelex)
Prevention: Yeast overgrows when there’s a buildup of moisture, so wear breathable cotton undies. Avoid douches and scented pads/tampons (seriously, a vagina is a vagina. It’s not supposed to smell like roses.) Eating plain yogurt with active cultures has also been linked to avoiding yeast infections.

2. UTIs

Causes: When bacteria that normally lives around the anal area moves up to your urethra (the hole where you pee), this leads to an infection of the urinary tract. This happens from poor hygiene (wipe front to back!) and vaginal intercourse (protected or unprotected), though it’s not considered an STD.
Symptoms: It hurts to pee, you pee far more frequently than usual and only a little comes out a time, your pee is cloudy or pink (indicative of blood). If the UTI travels up your kidney, you’ll feel an intense pain close to waist on one side, possible back pain, nausea, and chills.
Treatment: You really should go see a doctor for antibiotics as soon as the symptoms appear, but if you catch a UTI at its earliest of stages, you can flush it out by drinking a ton of water and unsweetened cranberry juice
Prevention: Drink tons of water,  pee after sex, avoid scented pads/tampons, and always wipe front to back.

3. Bacterial Vaginosis

Causes: An imbalance of bacteria in the vaginal region. It’s considered an STD by the Center for Disease Control, but they acknowledge that anyone can get it.
Symptoms: A fishy odor, white or gray discharge, burning while peeing, and itching around the vagina. But sometimes there are no symptoms at all.
Treatment: Prescription antibiotics. Sometimes the symptoms may go away, but it is suggested that you take medication to avoid any complications.
Prevention:Condoms, limiting sex partners, proper hygiene.

4. Trichomoniasis

Vaginal issues are not unusual. If you notice something strange going on, get it checked out immediately. Millions of women have these issues, so any health care professional will know how to take care of you. The most important thing is catching these issues before they become more complicated. Leaving anything untreated will increase your chance for more and easier infections to make their way into your body. Take control of your health situation and go get checked out at least once a year, even if you don’t have any symptoms. There is nothing embarrassing about taking care of your body and your health.

There is a clear hierarchy of medical issues that basically breaks down to “things that anyone can get” and “things that only sexually active people can get.” The latter carries all sorts of connotations – dirtiness, promiscuity, and irresponsibility; ie: traits that our society generally finds embarrassing and contemptible. It makes dealing with the possibility of an STD even harder than a typical illness, especially since there’s this pervasive notion that if you got an STD, you weren’t being careful enough. You didn’t take enough precautios. You had dirty, shameful sex, and this is your punishment. So, of course, if all those ideas are floating about, you are going to want to distance yourself from STDs. Maybe you don’t get tested as often as you should because you consider yourself and your partners to be clean and respectable. Or maybe you don’t speak as openly about STDs and getting tested as you should with your partners because it is so uncomfortable. It is truly unfortunate that our society marginalizes STDs and makes them seem like something only “skanky” people are cursed with.

But let’s be real. The CDC estimates that 50 percent of Americans will contract HPV in their lifetime. Almost 20 percent of the US population between the ages of 14 and 49 have genital herpes. There are millions of people treated for chlamydia every year. So are millions upon millions of men and women of all ages, races, sexual orientations, socio-economic classes and sexual habits bound together by skankiness? Doubtful. STDs are infections and viruses, just like colds and flus. We don’t instantly judge someone who walks around flushed and with a runny nose assuming that they’re sick because they clearly never wash their hands. So why do we assume the worst in regards to STDs? Sure, some people are lax about condom usage and/or have a constant rotation of sex partners, but they could just as easily be someone who is incredibly diligent about making sex as safe as possible, and has only had one or two partners.

Our cultural dialogue regarding sex needs some serious adjustment. It relies far too much on harmful assumptions that are stifling and counterproductive. We should be treating STDs like any other semi-preventable risks, with the understanding that while we can lower our risk of contracting them, they are a normal and natural risk in life. The excessive stigma attached to STDs is rooted in our society’s rigid attitudes toward sex, and our collective tendency to police other people’s behavior through social control. But if we remove some of the humiliation associated with possibly getting an STD, it’s more likely that the rate of STD infection will go down, as people would be more open to getting tested more often and communicating more about STDs with their sexual partners.  I fail to see any value in STD shaming.

Question?! Answer: Ask Tuffy Luv.

Dear Tuffy Luv,

But this time, by the luck of the draw, I happened to get a check-up from someone that (gasp!) actually knew what they were talking about. I’m not saying you should listen to this doctor (nurse practitioner, if you want to get technical) instead of your own, but these are a few little known facts I picked up that I thought I would share.

Beware, as these tidbits may scare you away from sex for life (or at least for the night).

1. In order for your birth control to be 99.7% effective, you must take it every day within 30 minutes of the same time.
Apparently, the hormones that make you temporarily infertile only work for 24 straight hours. According to Susan (the nurse practitioner), you should be okay if you miss the time by 1 to 2 hours. If you miss more than that, however, you should use condoms for at least a week.

2. If you don’t take birth control at the same time every day, the effectiveness can be as low as 92%.
For all of you that have taken statistics, that means you have an 8% chance of getting preggers. Let me say that clearer: the chance of you having a small person come out of you in 9 months is 26 times higher if you don’t take your b.c. regularly. Noooo, thank you. (For more important facts about your pill, click here.)

3. Some STDs, especially HIV, have an incubation period of up to 6 months.
That means that even if you are negative for the disease today, you won’t be in the clear until you have another negative test 6 months from now. And that only applies if you haven’t engaged in any high-risk sexual activity. In short, make him wrap it up.

4. You can get HIV easier from oral-anal contact aka “rimming” (the grossest sex slang ever) than from any other form of oral sex.
This one was in a Safe Sex pamphlet that Susan so generously gave me. Not that I’m recommending that everybody run and try this one out, but just use that fact to put things into perspective. Or as a very handy excuse to say no if/when your partner ever puts in such a request.

5. Alcohol and drugs can weaken your immune system, making you more susceptible to infection.
Yes kids, that includes STDs and other icky things. I can also testify that being drunk makes having sex, especially enjoyable sex, just that much more difficult to maneuver. What’s more, according to my lovely pamphlet, alcohol and drugs can also impair your judgment and make you do things you may regret in the morning. Who knew?

In this day and age, it seems like every one of my friends is on the birth control pill.  However, unlike most girls, most of my friends went on the pill to have sex at the end of high school, and simply stayed on it to enter college.  And while most people know the basics of birth control, few people ever bother to read the fine print.  So here are some of the most important things that you should know (i.e. all the stuff that’s on that little packet of info you throw out every month):

1.   Being on antibiotics can make the pill less effective

This is something that most girls do not know, but is often the most common mistake that girls on the pill make.  Even if you are taking your pill at the exact same time every day, if you are on antibiotics, they are working so hard to fight viruses that they can sometimes fight the effects of the pill.  If you are taking antibiotics, but are still healthy enough to be having sex, use a backup form of birth control.

2.   You may not get your period every month

As I personally learned from being on Loestrin 24, sometimes the pill may make your period so light that it will disappear for months at a time.  While you should probably get a pregnancy test just to be on the safe side, missing your period for a month or two DOES NOT mean that you are pregnant.

3.   Missing one pill means that you should use a backup form of birth control for the next SEVEN DAYS

Even though you might think that missing a pill in the first week of your pack isn’t a big deal, everybody has a different cycle and not using an additional birth control method, like a condom, can lead to pregnancy. And the effects last longer than the 24 hours that pill was good for. To stay completely safe, use an extra form of birth control for a full week. The only time it is okay to miss a pill and not risk pregnancy is if it is one of your placebos.

4.   The pill does not protect against AIDS and other STDs

While this might be obvious to a lot of us, many people think that the pill has the same effects as a condom.  This is completely and totally wrong.  While the pill protects you against pregnancy, it offers you 0% protection against STDS, so using it doesn’t give you an excuse to have a drunken one-night stand and know that you’re protected.  You might be protected from a future child, but that doesn’t mean that you are immune to everything your sexual partner has.

5.   Generic versions are basically the same

Many people pay up to $30.00 a month for the pill, meaning that they will spend $360.00 a year on birth control.  For those people on a tight budget, ask your OB-GYN about generic versions.  While they might not look as fancy, they are just as effective, and most importantly, they will protect you against pregnancy and give you a chance to splurge on an extra pair of shoes.

6.   Heat and moisture make the pill less effective

The best place to keep your pack of pills is probably in a cool drawer away from heat and moisture.  However, this is not always practical, especially if you want to ensure you take your pill the same time every day.  My advice is to grab a little pouch lying around (I use one of my old minuscule wristlets) and keep nothing but your pills in there. And DON’T store them in the bathroom! If you are going to be outside, shove your purse under a table or in the shade.  It never hurts to be just a little bit safer.

7.   All pills are not the same

When you begin taking the pill, you might get your period once every two weeks.  You might have mood swings.  You might have an ultra-light flow. All of this is totally normal.  However, if this continues after a couple of months, there is no harm in switching to another brand.  Sometimes girls have to try out four or five pills to find the right ones for their body, so if after two or three months you are still feeling down, don’t suffer in silence.  Call your OB-GYN and learn about other options.

Remember, the pill is one of the best things out there, but like every other form of birth control, it needs to be used responsibly to have the maximum effect.  If you have something else about the pill you want your fellow CC readers to know, comment away and share the knowledge below!

My first boyfriend was uncircumcised. At the young, inexperienced age of fourteen, I realized this only because one day while chilling on the futon in the den having a post BJ-sesh chat, he informed me that some of the girls he had been with (because as a sixteen-year-old senior, he was far more sexually experienced than my freshman self) were initially freaked out by the au natural state of his Scottish-born ween. Huh, I remember thinking. He’s not circumcised. So THAT’s what that looks like.

It’s not like I was totally ignorant. I had been reading Seventeen and YM since I was nine. I knew all about hymens and G-spots and that you couldn’t get pregnant from a boy shooting his load into the open waters of a hot tub, so I certainly knew that some gents had foreskins and some did not; I just wasn’t really sure what that meant, anatomically.

I didn’t actually fully experience the difference between the two until about ten months later when my boyfriend and I were “on a break” and I hooked up with another boy, birthed in the good old U.S. of A. and fully shorn to prove it. As we sweatily made out on the couch, I jammed my hand in to his shorts, confidently grabbed a hold of his manparts, and…proceeded to give him the rawest handjob in the history of the earth.

For those of you who are lost, allow me to explain. On an uncircumcised boy, one can give some kind of an HJ without any sort of lube at all. Granted, as I have aged I have learned that some lube is certainly preferable to none in any case, but a fluid up and down motion causing some pleasurable sensations is achievable. But on the circumcised penis? Without the pliable sheath of the foreskin acting as a kind of…sleeve or whatever*, all that an unlubed HJ will achieve is some serious chafing and sad faces all around. Aww.

Since these initial awkward adolescent escapades, I have gained a world of experience in both the skinned and not skinned camps; in fact, I’d say of all the boys I’ve been with, about 40% are uncircumcised. Which is why it surprises me that many ladies I meet are not only ignorant to the ways of the shrouded wang but downright disturbed by it. Just last summer, a friend of mine was recounting her hookup from the night before and informed me that the kid was the first uncircumcised experience she had ever had and it was, “Really weird. I don’t think I liked it.”

“Really?” I asked, surprised. “What do you mean?”

“I just kind of…creeped me out,” was her response.

Maybe I just meet penilely conservative girls, but I hear something to this effect pretty often. While I kicked off my sexual career with a UK wang where approximately 20% of males are circumcised, most ladies in the U.S. are hooking up with dudes from the U.S., where three out of four males are unsheathed. While the practice of circumcising boys has been on the decline in recent years, the pervasive notion in America is still that penises should not resemble the worms from Tremors.

So what of these turtlenecked organs? Are, they, in fact, inferior to naked ones? For years it was touted that being circumcised was more hygienic, made for a lower risk of STD contraction, and allows for greater sensation during sex. However, in 1999, the American Medical Association issued a statement saying that removal of an infant’s foreskin for any reason other than medical issues or ritualistic tradition is not necessary and not advised, and since then, the number of circumcisions performed annually has dropped by about 35%. Recent scientific studies have indicated that keeping the old skinjacket does not have any notable adverse effects on most guys, though there is some debate as to whether or not circumcision can help curb the spread of HIV in high-risk regions. However, here in Western civilization it seems that our notion that skin free is the way to be is merely a social construct.

And as for me? Well, I can’t say I’ve noticed much of a difference either way. Aside from the aforementioned HJ discrepancy, a penis is a penis is a penis as far as I’m concerned. Some are short, some long, some thick, some thin, some sheathed, some not. At the end of the day, I don’t think it matters much what it looks like; what matters is the dude attached to it and how he uses it.

*God, I hope my mother isn’t reading this.

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This year, some of your most-loved (or love-to-hate) celebs are giving up their digital life until their fans donate 1 million dollars by “buying life.” But you don’t have to be a celebrity with 5 million Twitter followers to make a difference.

As you sit in your dorm room (or lecture hall – we know you’re reading this in class!), you might be questioning what you can possibly do to make a difference – after all you are only one person. But, if everyone takes action, then collectively we can make some major strides. Even from that teeny, tiny room you call home.

Print out and put a poster on your door
I’m sure a lot of people walk by your room each day and chances are if there’s something different up on your door, they might take a second to stop and think about what the poster means, and maybe even generate a conversation with you about the topic.

Do your research
Read up on World AIDS Day. The best protection is knowledge. Spread what you know by talking to friends, or the random person who stops by your room after seeing your poster.

Test your knowledge
AVERT has lots of games and quizzes for World AIDS Day. Try one out and pass it along to your friends.

Wear a red ribbon
You can pick one up from your local MAC store. If you pick up a Viva Glam product while you are there, every cent of the selling price will go towards the MAC AIDS Fund.

Practice safe sex
If you’re going to have sex, don’t do it until you’ve had a conversation with your partner about safe sex. If you’re unsure about their sexual history, or they don’t want to talk about it, don’t do it. Once you’ve had a talk about HIV and STDs then make sure you use a always use a condom.

Get tested
If you’re having sex, go get tested. If you don’t know where to go, text your zipcode to “KNOWIT” (566948) to find a testing centre near you.

Get connected
If you’re reading this, chances are you’re connected online. Tweet about it using #WAD2010, post a statistic as your status on Facebook, or post a picture on the Facing AIDS flickr page. Use your connection to spread awareness.

Go to an event
I know this time of year is really busy, but if you have time, check out a World AIDS Day event in your area. Grab your friends and get out there. What else is there to do on a Wednesday night anyway?

There are a lot of decisions to be made in a long-term relationship — whose friends to hang out with more often, if and when to cohabit, whose place to crash at more often, and what you’d both like the future to look like. Once sex enters the relationship – whether if it’s on the first date or on the first night of marriage, there comes a whole new set of decisions to make.

For most couples, I think it’s fair to say that the go-to contraceptive plan usually involves condoms and some form of birth control (we were always told that two methods are better than one). Once that decision has been made and acted upon, the following months of getting-to-know-each other getting it on are usually passion-filled and use enough latex to make David Suzuki’s earth-loving head explode.

But regardless of what we’ve been taught, and regardless of how much we know we should be using condoms every single time no matter what, there does typically come a time in which the “should we go bareback” conversation will inevitably arise. Don’t get me wrong, I’m a huge proponent of safe sex, and I would never suggest going condomless outside of an LTR or without a backup form of birth control, but let’s be real here – it feels better and it’s just so much more convenient.

Yeah, I went there.

That said, there are some major issues to think about before you can even consider ditching the ‘domers.

Condoms are the only thing that protect against STIs. If you’re seriously considering removing condoms from your sex life (or at the very least, not making them an every-single-time necessity), you and your partner should consider being screened for any detectable infections. Yeah, that’s right, the detectable ones. Not all STIs can be screened for. Herpes, for example, can only be detected during an outbreak, and many other infections show no symptoms. Going condomless is a risk, and before doing so you need to seriously consider the repercussions.

Birth control, birth control, birth control. Unless you are hoping to start a family, going without a condom and not using another form of BC shouldn’t be an option. Acquire a form of birth control you feel comfortable with and can reliably take when you’re supposed to. Remember, taking that pill at the same time every day can be the difference between a pregnancy and a fetus-free uterus. Women’s Health has a great page that details the success/failure rates of different forms of birth control, which is a great place to start if you’re looking for a contraceptive that’s right for you.

Plan ahead. Even if you take your pill every day, or pull out right on time, or hell, even if you’re still using condoms, sometimes accidents happen. And by accidents I mean pregnancy. I think having sex with anyone needs to be prefaced with the conversation of what would be done if such an accident were to happen – and when you completely remove the semen-vagina barrier, that conversation becomes even more crucial. Are you and your partner on the same page as to what would happen in the case of an unplanned pregnancy? Do you know where to go to procure an abortion, or who to talk to about adoption? What would your life look like if you had a child now? All important things to figure out.

Like any other risky behavior, there’s a way to go about condom-free sex in a responsible way. It’s a personal choice, since the consequences are going to have to be dealt with by you and your partner. But what do you think — is going condomless worth it?