A User's Guide

by BLUEBALLS

April 2009

Why a sex column? By now, the novelty of knowing that Ivy League kids have sex is wearing thin. We have “RumpusRumpus” for salacious stories and the occasionally necessary public shaming. And we’re Yalies, right? We got into a university with an acceptance rate of under 10%. Surely desire, sexual ethics, body image, gender relations and plain old insecurity are easier to figure out than cell bio or Chinese poetry. Right?

Right?

Sure doesn’t look that way on a Saturday night.

BlueBalls has a few assumptions about Yalies. That many of us are more comfortable in the library Sunday evening than in bed Saturday night. That lots of us are perfectionists, and that sex isn’t a good place to indulge our neuroses but we do it anyway. That we fear failure. That we drink to try and hide all that. That a lot of us haven’t really gotten over high school.

(BlueBalls would like to insure herself against a torrent of defensive emails by pointing out that she isn’t talking about you. She’s sure you’re a sexual dynamo. The kids in the next entryway, though? Not so much.)

And that’s OK. We’re still young, and just because we started charities or set records or invented life-saving drugs doesn’t mean that sex and relationships will come any easier. BlueBalls is here to help. Or at least to empathise. Or at least to make you feel that things could be worse.

And for a campus full of smart people where conversation about sex frequently stops at “She did WHAT?” BlueBalls thinks that we could – and shall, friends, and shall – do better. We plan to address some crucial questions: does the ‘slut’ exist and how is it identified? Why do girls go to frat parties? What is it about cunnilingus? Is pedagogy necessarily erotic? Even with my Calculus TA? Why does ‘Just tell him what you want’ remain such frequent advice given its clear uselessness? If you have answers, questions, illustrative or amusing anecdotes, send them this way.

And about those anecdotes. This blog is anonymous. Or rather, pseudonymous. This is mostly because BlueBalls expects to lean heavily on her experience and that of her friends, and is not sure that law schools, investment banks or starving orphans appreciate knowing about their admittees, associates or aid workers’ orgasms. Or their adventures with STD testing at DUH, their discovery of how to sleep two to a Yale bed or their confusion about how to be a sane feminist having casual sex. BlueBalls would like to live in a world where this doesn’t matter, but knows that she doesn’t.

Anyway, now that you’ve got your bearings, watch this space. Coming up, my sex life, your sex life, your friends’ sex lives. Enjoy.

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(For those of you who are curious, BlueBalls is a vaguely queer female Yale student in the humanities. She has a long background in sex education and sex activism, but has always gotten less sex than she feels she deserves.)

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BlueBalls would like your questions. Like my heroes, I plan on giving opinionated, vulgar, and occasionally helpful advice every so often. If you have questions (or anecdotes/opinions/criticisms), send ‘em on over to broadblueballs@gmail.com. All identifying everythings will be erased.