The battle for ideological dominance in our nation’s capital’s collegiate sex columns continues. Are our local campus columnists on the forefront of radical sex writing, or are they bringing back the good old days of automatically capitulating to the boner pressing against your back?

This week in college sex columns, it's all about George Washington University student newspaper The Hatchet's sex issue. Weeee! In this edition of University Sex Columns, find out why "GW is the total opposite of Afghanistan"; how college kids can delay sex by "looking at the stars"; what to do when your number one hook-up falls for an Ed Hardy guy.

* On students who abstain from sex:

Sex Tip: We don't have to take our clothes off: "When she is out on dates, senior Ogechi Ajaegbu is bubbly and enthusiastic, admired for her eager personality and kind attitude. Some of her favorite activities with prospective boyfriends, she says, include chatting, going to dinner, walking around, and looking at the stars . . . But when the evening comes to an end, she and her date say goodnight and part ways—without a kiss and without spending the night."

Life Lesson: "Sex has a procreative function, it's the greatest form of love that two people can experience," Junior Andrew Buonopane told the paper. "In our society, sex has been used to express either lesser love, temporary affectionate feelings or a means to an end, a way to just feel good."

Progressive Meter: I'm glad the Hatchet is giving some face time to students who think about and experience sex and relationship differently than many of their peers. It would have been nice, however, to hear a bit from an opposing viewpoint, particularly when the students interviewed explicitly claim that their peers are having bad sexual experiences:  "[Leticia] Tientcheu said she chose not to have sex at a younger age when her peers were getting pregnant or contracting sexually transmitted diseases—even when they attempted to protect themselves. She said she is happy not to be in the positions some of her friends have found themselves in."

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* On bad sex, from a female perspective:

Sex Tip: Veteran G.W. sex columnist Layla talks about making lemonade out of midnight boners. "I couldn't help but internally groan when I woke up to [my pseudonymous sex partner] the Energizer Bunny's erection pressed against my back," she writes. "Deciding against my better judgment, I gave him a second go-around. After all, practice does make perfect, right?"

Life Lesson: Never listen to Cosmo. "The Energizer Bunny killed the mood from the start, excitedly pouring so much lube out of the bottle that I felt like I had just gone swimming in a bed of oil, wax and sweat. And if you've never tried such ridiculous positions featured in the magazine Cosmopolitan—such as the 'Passion Pretzel' or the 'Torrid Triangle'—then keep it that way," she writes. "I didn't think people actually took the magazine seriously, but the Energizer Bunny did, wanting to show off his knowledge of every move possible, a few of which had to be fictional."

Progressive Meter: I'm sad that someone who seems as sex-positive as Layla would feel the obligation to satisfy that boner. So when talking about really terrible sex, it can also be helpful to discuss some exit strategies. Layla, who writes that she's no longer hooking up with the Bunny, almost gets there. "[E]ven though I consider myself a professional when it comes to escaping awkward situations, I struggled to make up an excuse to leave in the middle of the disastrous sex I was experiencing," she writes. "Especially before sunrise."

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* On bad sex, from a male perspective:

Sex Tip: In its Sex Issue, the Hatchet debuted a new male sex columnist who goes by the pseudonym "Mr. Jones." Jones' idea of terrible sex isn't navigating a surfeit of lube in the boudoir. Nope, Jones is more concerned about how terrible it is when one of his many casual hook-ups decides to hook up with someone else. "Last semester I was fortunate enough to be presented with a number of sexual opportunities," he writes. "Throughout my escapades it never occurred to me that the girls on my booty call list could be using me as well, that the girl I call Number One might have a list of her own."

Life Lesson: Girls you have sex with have inner lives! "I had been thinking of girls like On-Demand television—there when I wanted them and otherwise just waiting around for me to call," he says. "But that is simply not the case, as I found out all too well."

Progressive Meter: In Mr. Jones' conclusion, he writes: "In the end, when it comes to potential hook-up situations, girls have just as much control as boys. They are not sitting at home waiting for a call. . . . So do yourself a favor and talk to your potential partner. You don't have to put a ring on her finger, but you do have to communicate." I'm all about communication, but I'm not sure that just talking this out would have solved Jonesey's underlying problem here. How is that conversation going to go: "I'm having sex with tons of women, all of whom I expect to be waiting around to exclusively service my dick. I hope you understand"?

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* On G.W.'s on-campus sex resources:

Sex Tip: This item is chock-full of tips on how to take advantage of G.W.'s official resources for sexual health, sexual assault, and student counseling services. Hot tip: "[Student Health Services] annually offers testing for sexually transmitted infections in the Marvin Center and also provides testing at its offices by appointment."

Life Lesson: The more you know.

Progressive Meter: It's wonderful to make students aware of the resources available to them on campus, but I wish the Hatchet would be clearer on how students can contact these resources. I also wish the paper would take a critical eye to how G.W. could make its services better, or speak to students who have attempted to navigate these systems; this reads like a love letter to a school that could actually use a lot of work in supporting its LGBT communities and sexual assault survivors.

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* On the sex politics culture shock experienced by some of G.W.'s foreign students:

Sex Tip: Different strokes: "With scantily clad men and women on television and couples engaging in public displays of affection in plain sight, the sex culture at Western colleges and universities can challenge the beliefs of international students."

Life Lesson: "GW is the total opposite of Afghanistan," GW student Faisal Rahimi told the paper.

Progressive Meter: I love that the Hatchet is looking at sex and sexuality on campus through different cultural lenses; I just wish there were even more lenses presented here. It would have been interesting to get the perspective of some foreign students who found the sexual culture in the United Sex to actually be more repressive than what they're accustomed to, for example.

Photo via State Library and Archives of Florida.

This year, the University of Mary Washington's student newspaper, The Bullet, crowned a new sex columnist for its long-running sex column, "Sexclamations." Since taking the helm, 19-year-old freshman Erin Hill has tackled such campus-ready topics as female masturbation, representation in pornography, and pubic hair choices (an area of particular Sexist interest).

Over the past couple of months, Hill has heard from the haters ("Can you tell me how talking about masturbating is 'progress' in female journalism?"), lovers ("THIS ROCKS SO MUCH"), and one student who wrote in opposing Hill's column because her grandmother read it one time and became overwhelmed by the column's impolite subject matter. Seriously.

The detractor, Anne Elder, wrote:

My grandmother is an avid reader of the Bullet.

She reads the online edition every Thursday, looking forward to reading the happenings of her alma mater.

A few weeks ago, however, she received quite a shock when she tuned in.  She saw the first column of the new Sexclamations.

Needless to say, my inbox had an e-mail waiting from her regarding the column.

Her overall opinion was that it was “tasteless” and “some things are best kept under wraps and are more interesting if shared with select folks.”

I can’t say I disagree.

Elder went on to note that "Sex is an incredibly intimate expression of love, and that’s how it should stay," that "No one wants to know how many times a day you masturbate, how many people you’ve had sex with or what your favorite positions are," and that "If you take the passion out of sex and degrade it by putting it in print, it becomes less of an act of love and more like watching promiscuous college students get it on."

Putting aside the obvious question of why a grandmother is reading a publication for college kids and becoming offended that the content is not tailored to her sensibilities, I'd like to address Elder's complaint that sex columnists "degrade [sex] by putting it in print." According to this theory, sex isn't inherently bad—but people who admit to doing it are. Fucking is understandable as long as you deny, deny, deny, because talking about sex just about the sluttiest thing a person can do—even sluttier than doing it in the first place. This theory all but guarantees an unhealthy sexual environment. On a campus where you're shamed for opening your mouth about anything sexual, bad shit happens—students will be less likely to verbalize their consent—or lack of consent—with their partners, less likely to feel comfortable reporting a sexual assault if it occurs, and a lot more likely to silently agonize over whether their bodies, sex lives, sexual orientations, and most intimate expressions of love make them bad people.

All reasons why Erin Hill is providing a valuable service to the students of Fredericksburg, Va.'s University of Mary Washington. The proof is in the comments section: No matter what grandma thinks, students are talking about these issues. I asked Hill to talk a little bit about life as a college sex columnist:

Sexist: What sort of response have you gotten from classmates, friends, anonymous commenters, etc. since writing the column?

EH: Face to face with readers and friends, I have received nothing but praise since I became the new writer for Sexclamations. I have had several people tell me that the primary reason they pick up a copy of The Bullet is to read Sexclamations. According to upperclassmen, the column used to be less about sex and more about the relationship aspect of sex. They said that they didn’t enjoy the column in the past because it was not as interesting. Supposedly, previous articles provided commentary on lighter issues, such as the “romance and meaning of holding hands.” Everyone has applauded my efforts to be more raw, real, open, and honest. I try to not to censor myself too much. Sex is a brazen act and I feel my articles should be just as forthright.

Thank goodness I have an awesome editor who fully supports my writing. I managed to use the term “money shot” in a school newspaper- I thought that was a pretty big deal! I didn’t think my editor would allow it (originally, I used the term cumshot), but she did! It is important to remember that I don’t use vulgar language just for the sake of creating shock value, rather I use it to illustrate my point. Sometimes stronger language conveys my message in a better, more realistic fashion.

I suppose the most surprising response was from my mom. My mom fully supports the column, despite the awkwardness of reading about my perspective on porn. Out of all the compliments I receive, the best are from my mom- who simply stated in a facebook message yesterday, “Loved your article! <3”

A lot of college sex columnists use pseudonyms. What are the advantages and challenges of putting your real name out there?

EH: I think putting my name out there shows an unabashed support for women’s reproductive rights and women’s sexuality. I can’t be afraid to talk about topics like masturbation and attach my name to it if I expect and encourage other women to open a dialogue about their sexuality and exploration. I hope that my articles can make people more comfortable and knowledgeable about things related to sexual matters. I would like to lessen the taboo surrounding sexual issues. For that to happen, I must be fully confident, comfortable, and knowledgeable about sexual matters. Attaching my name to what I write is a part of achieving that goal. Perhaps some of my peers may stereotype me as the no boundaries, sex-obsessed girl or the liberal, feminist girl who writes Sexclamations. Hyperbolic labels don’t really bother me that much, as long as I’m able to convey interesting, informative ideas regarding sexual issues through my articles.

Why do you think it's important to write about stuff like representation in porn, female masturbation, and women's health?

EH: I think it is important to write about these things because it is important to talk about them. If my articles can provoke a conversation among a few girls in a college dorm about their sexual experiences, then I will consider my articles to be a success. I think it is important for people, especially young women, to have an open dialogue about sexuality. Because of conservative social norms and a prominent abstinence only message in schools, I think many women are shamed into not fully appreciating and celebrating their bodies. Personally, I don’t think sexual exploration is a bad thing; however, sexually exploring oneself and others can be a poor notion if not done safely. I hope my articles open the door to “sex positive” conversations.

What was your reaction to the letter to the editor which stated that the topics in your column are too vulgar to even be spoken about?

EH: Everyone is entitled to their own opinions. I respect Miss Elder’s comments and can understand why she might feel that way about my column; however, I was disappointed that she made false claims about my articles. She stated that I had written about “how many times a day [I] masturbate, how many people [I’ve] had sex with, or what [my] favorite positions are.” This could not be farther from the truth. In fact, I agree with Anne in that writing about such personal details would be “tasteless.” Perhaps Miss Elder misunderstood my intentions of the articles. My intentions were not to expose details of my sexual life, degrade the meaning of sex, or make crude/vulgar statements. My intentions were to creatively educate, provoke curiosity/inquiry, and encourage sexual conversation- in hopes that people become more comfortable with sex and sexuality. All in all, Miss Elder and I fundamentally disagree. I wish to promote conversation and education about sex while she wishes to keep sex a completely private, intimate institution. I’m glad we each have the freedom to express our differing perspectives in the “Viewpoints” section of The Bullet.

What do you think of the idea of writing a college sex column with the goal of pleasing students' grandmothers?

EH: The Bullet is a paper primarily read by current students and I feel the topics discussed in The Bullet should cater to that readership base. I understand that faculty, parents, and alumni read The Bullet, too. On the other hand, it is important to note that there are plenty of articles other than Sexclamations that are exclusively pertinent to current students. I don’t think it would be tremendously troublesome for the older readers to simply skip articles like Sexclamations. In general, I don’t see a major problem with skipping articles that do not appeal to you. If you don’t like it, don’t read it! It’s an elementary concept. Until I am given restrictions, I hope to continue to write a column with relatable and interesting information regarding sex and sexuality.

A new initiative from youth voting campaign Rock the Vote is encouraging young people to "hold out for health care" by refusing to have sex with people who don't support health care reform. In a strange turn of events, I'm with FOX News on this one: This sucks.

Rock the Vote, an organization which works to "engage and build the political power of young people," is currently collecting signatures for the celebrity-endorsed petition to "hold out for health care."

"We pledge ourselves to the health and liberty of young Americans and to government for the people ... and to never fucking you if you are against us," the video announces. "We will vote against you, work against you, and once again, just in case you forgot, never ever, never ever, never ever, never ever fuck you."

The strategy strikes me as counter-intuitive. After all, what do Republicans hate even more than public health care? Young people having premarital sex! If I were a Republican, I would love this Rock the Vote campaign. It reads like a conservative porn script: No health care, plus a bunch of young hot chicks sexily announcing that they're not going to give it up!

But I'm not a Republican, so I find a few aspects of this Rock the Vote campaign unsettling that have nothing to do with the young people admitting to F-wording each other. First, Rock the Vote President Heather Smith told FOX News that the fucking-withholding petition aims to remind the youth of America that "they have a stake and a say" in the debate over health care. Huh. I thought young people had a stake in the health care debate because they're human beings with a civil right to engage in our country's political process. But I guess it's actually because they're hot and like to fuck. Second, the unsettling sexual stereotypes: According to Rock the Vote, women are sexy teases; men are insatiable buffoons. Finally, this line, meant to to ward off a skeezy Tea Party guy who wants to fuck our hot liberal heroine: "I'm on my period. I don't have a vagina." Would you like some transphobia with your abstinence?

Patience is a virtue, possess it if you can
Seldom found in woman, never found in man.

We often hear that "patience is a virtue." It's the second half of the sentiment largely goes unspoken: Patience is a virtue for women. What is patience, exactly? In Helper By Design, Elyse Fitzpatrick's guide to submitting to your man in the name of God, patience is defined as the "power to endure without complaint something which is disagreeable." That's right, ladies—our gender is number one in leading lives of quiet desperation.

Throughout history, this "power to endure" has proven . . . inconvenient. While patience has its perks in dealing with events that lie entirely outside of our control—war, famine, terminal illness—it becomes a bit of a bother when applied to the realm of romantic relationships. Wait to be asked on a date. Wait to be swept off your feet. Wait for sex—if not until marriage, then at least 90 days. Wait for him to bend down on one knee. Once hitched, wait on him. Then, die.

Why are women encouraged to wait around for major life events to just happen to us? Patience, my dear. These relationship milestones have been engineered and reinforced along traditional gender lines in order to test a woman's ability to shut up and sit pretty, while encouraging men of action to make all the decisions around here. But unfortunately for the patience lobby, us women have figured a few things out over the history of time. One: Our vaginas won't implode upon completion of premarital sex. Two: Our significant others can still love us without investing two paychecks worth of bling into one of our virtuous little fingers. And three: Waiting does not work. Ever.

In light of these developments, some have chosen to trash those pesky romantic milestones altogether, refusing to see virginity and weddings as indicators of our worth as women. Others have flipped the gender script they're based upon: Ask out. Initiate sex. Propose. But some just can't let go of the passivity thing, and they're going to try their hardest to make feminine patience work in the 21st century. For them, the ideal of passive patience needn't be discarded; it's just got to be re-coded and re-sold as proactive patience. Nowadays, getting men to come to you doesn't have to be a pathetic waste of time—it can be a subversive, brave, and even—yes—feminist act of empowerment!

Coincidentally, all of these people appear to be concentrated in our nation's record labels, movie studios, publishing houses, and newspapers. Behold, pop culture's vision of a feminism of patience: No need to abandon traditional marriage—just celebrate women who are strong enough to get what they want (that ring). Don't propose to your significant other—just subversively coerce him into doing it for you. Don't bother waiting around in your ivory tower for your prince to come—just make damned sure you're on the receiving end of that fairy-tale ending. Girl power!

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Exhibit A: The works of Taylor Swift.

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Hoo boy, how are we going to reconcile this one, ladies? Taylor Swift sings songs about waiting around, being a princess, and crying for her "Romeo" to rescue her from her dad, who is so mean. Then, she makes videos for these songs where she is literally waiting in an ivory tower for her prince to come:

Romeo take me somewhere we can be alone
I'll be waiting all there's left to do is run
You'll be the prince and I'll be the princess
It's a love story baby just say yes

Okay. Breathe. Despite the traditional trappings—Romeo, waiting, prince, princess—it's not hard to find a girl-power lining in this song. Swift is coaching Romeo here. She's giving him exact instructions on where to find her. She's charting out their escape route. And she's imploring him to say yes to her demands. That is, until we get to the fairy-tale ending:

Romeo save me I've been feeling so alone
I keep waiting for you but you never come
Is this in my head? I don't know what to think
He knelt to the ground and pulled out a ring

And said, marry me Juliet
You'll never have to be alone
I love you and that's all I really know
I talked to your dad, go pick out a white dress
It's a love story baby just say yes

Ooh! So close! Notice how Swift whiles away her time waiting, crying, wishing, hoping, praying, etc. while all Romeo has to do is . . . go over and talk to her dad. It's not exactly rocket science, folks. And yet, Swift expends a whole lot of emotional energy in order to goad the love of her life into performing the most basic of tasks, instead of just, like, dealing with her father herself, or realizing that her father is a dick and she's 18 so he can't tell her what to do anyway. But whatever—surely we can channel all of Swift's emotional energy into some sort of feminist reading of her work? Alyssa Rosenberg, noted critic of passivity in popular culture, sees Swift as feminist, in a way:

I am an enormous sucker for . . . Taylor Swift's "Love Story," which is an absurdly mature and lovely piece of pop songwriting. "I was a scarlet letter" spoken as a declaration of pride, devotion, and sexual desire is kind of amazing as a commercially successful act of feminist reclamation.

I don't see the phrase as a "feminist reclamation" so much as a mixed literary metaphor inserted into a song about waiting to get a ring on that finger. And "Love Story" is not Swift's sole offense: In "You Belong With Me," Swift passively spins elaborate fantasies that the boy of her dreams is dating her, and not his girlfriend. In the song, Swift is "Dreaming bout the day when you'll wake up and find / That what you're lookin' for has been here the whole time." Since Swift refuses to just ask him out or something, her solution is to aggressively strut her passivity in front of his face at every opportunity.

But let's be fair—while Swift's princess persona is a bit dull, Swift herself has been spending her pre-wedding days writing and recording hit crossover records. That's something, Ann Powers argues for the Los Angeles Times:

the authority these fledgling artists claim is a great sign of feminism's ripple effects. Swift might play a princess in many of her songs—in fact, the best parts of "Fearless" meditate on the princess myth and how reality subverts it—but in the studio she's her own boss, writing and producing those fairy tales.

This is the Sarah Palin theory of feminism. If she's a woman, and she does stuff, it's feminist—even if that stuff is writing songs about waiting around for boys do stuff to you. These women don't deserve our ire, but they don't deserve a cookie, either. Swift should be celebrated as a promising entertainer who writes catchy tunes I like to listen to on the radio. Feminist? Not so much.

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Exhibit B: The cautionary tale.

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If "Anna", the central character in the upcoming rom-com Leap Year, is a "princess," it is in the urban dictionary sense of the word: She is a beautiful, well-heeled control freak with a serious thirst for a solitaire diamond. Anna wants to propose to her boyfriend, but she can't, because girls can't propose to boys. So our determined young heroine finds a patience loop-hole: Propose to her boyfriend on a day that only comes around once every four years, because it is socially acceptable to do so, in Ireland, on that day alone (?). Anna hops on a plane to secure the man of her dreams on her own terms.

But ho ho, no, not so fast, independent woman. You've still got to wait—for your plane to get re-routed, your car to get blocked by a sea of cows, your ass to fall down a muddy hill, and a charming and handsome Irishman to accompany you on your hilarious misadventures. In fact, our heroine has to wait juuuuust long enough for her boyfriend to realize that he, in fact, wants to propose to her—and for the charming and handsome Irishman to begin to aggressively court her also.

Moral of the story: There's nothing more irresistible than a woman who desperately needs to get married as soon as possible . . . as long as she doesn't end up doing the proposing. That would be pathetic.

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Exhibit C: Team Bella

Bella Swan, the heroine of the Twilight series, gets a lot of flack for being a passive lump of femininity with no defining characteristics besides her tasty blood. (Rosenberg has penned an exquisitely written anti-Bella screed). By series end, that blood will catapult her into vampire royalty, making her a—you guessed it!—princess. But in New Moon, the second installment in the Twilight series, Bella actually takes on a ton of pretty sweet hobbies.

She fixes up old motorcycles! She jumps off cliffs! She goes on joyrides with dumpy bikers! She sees movies with her friends! She uses e-mail! Okay—so our expectations for Bella's extracurricular activities are pretty low. She actually spends the better part of New Moon staring out of a window, watching the seasons change as she "endures without complaint something which is disagreeable"—bad vampire break-up. But the motorcycle thing is pretty rad, right? Too bad she only does the more interesting stuff to prove how vulnerable and suicidal she is in an attempt to coerce her ex-boyfriend to come back and save her from herself.

Bella's empowerment of desperation presents the most difficult form of patience to re-cast as a new feminism. But let's give it a try—if we can't give up the wedding shit, and we can't give up the princess shit, and we can't give up the patience shit, then we have got to find some way to justify this to ourselves. Sady Doyle, in a brilliant turn, points out that Bella is passive in the way that men in porn are: They're faceless, save for one sizable talent (tasty blood = big penis), and somehow they've got tons of perky, tanned blondes servicing them for no apparent reason. This is exactly what happens to Bella—she does nothing, she is nothing, and hot guys fight over her. (Nevermind that one other thing Bella doesn't do: Sex before marriage). No, it's not feminist. But at least women aren't alone in this peculiar set-up. Plus, it helps religious ladies get off, apparently, so proceeds go toward a good cause.

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Exhibit D: Feminist v. Princess

Last year, the Washington Post published Rachel Beckman's "One Ring Circus," a story about the years Beckman spent waiting, wishing, agonizing and flat-out fantasizing that her boyfriend Eli would propose to her. Beckman is more attached to the romantic relationship milestones than most—she began imagining Eli's proposal after their first kiss. A few years down the road, she had formed an "Engagement Watch Team" among her coworkers to chart Eli's every move. The obsession was not all white taffeta and seating arrangements; the anticipation of the proposal haunted her. One Valentine's Day, Beckman "carefully checked every dish of food for a diamond ring so that I didn't accidentally swallow it and become one of those proposals-gone-bad stories in the bridal magazines." When Beckman, then in her early 2o's, realized Eli wasn't popping the question that moment, she wept.

Unsurprisingly, the diamond fever left Beckman with some personal conflicts:

I felt like engagement was the one off-limits topic. I didn't want to pressure him or spoil the big, elaborate surprise proposal (that he hadn't even started planning). I was caught in a Catch-22. I could be hands-off and leave it all to him (feminist Rachel says no), or I could be hands-on and get what I want (princess Rachel says no).

I don't doubt that Beckman has been largely influenced by the feminist movement. But the distinction between the "princess" who waits patiently for her boyfriend to propose to her and the "feminist" who actively coerces her boyfriend into proposing sets up a bit of a false dichotomy. The main difference appears to be that the princess waits around for her prince to ride up on his horse, while the feminist pressures her boyfriend to man up and play his assigned role.

A desire to get married is not necessarily an anti-feminist one. The problem is when the decision to wed is left exclusively to the man, leaving the woman to waste years of emotional energy as she waits patiently for him to do so.  The whole point of the milestone is to set up a relationship based on feminine patience and masculine decision-making. Beckman's "feminist" solution is to micromanage the process—to talk openly about her desire to get married, open up negotiations as to the time frame, and instruct Eli on the perfect ring. In doing so, Beckman converts her private agony into proactive patience, but she can't go so far as to pop the question herself—in order to fulfill her lifelong engagement fantasy, she must submit to Eli's better judgment.

Beckman may see this subversive engagement planning as a feminist development, but really, women have always coped with a lack of institutional power by working behind the scenes. I appreciate Beckman's essay, because it's good to remember that achieving patience takes more than switching on your feminine tractor beams and waiting for your prince to come. Getting what you want while seemingly doing nothing is work. Even in 1964, Burt Bacharach knew that just waiting around and being a woman wasn't going to cut it. You have to strut your patience. You have to work your waiting.

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"Wishin' and Hopin,'" a ditty made popular by Dusty Springfield, instructed women to stop their traditional wishin', hopin', thinkin', prayin', plannin', and dreamin', and instead, get off their asses and do stuff: like "the things he likes to do" and wearing "your hair just for him." As the song demonstrates, aggressively pursuing what you want isn't always an act of female empowerment.

Photo via George Eastman House

Last week, we examined the Christian Side-Hug, an advanced chastity maintenance mechanism which allows people to hug one other without the fear of primary or secondary sex characteristics accidentally touching. The side-hug has been around since Mary wasn't full-frontaling Joseph, but Christian groups have only recently turned to aggressively marketing the move to youth in their own language ("rap").

But beware: The side-hug can come at you from many angles! A collection of various interpretations of the side-hug phenomenon, from faithful commenters and trollers alike, after the jump.

The fire hazard side-hug:

This side-hug thing seems like it’s acknowledging the (welcome or unwelcome) titillation that can come with a girl-boy hug (or girl-girl in some circumstances… I guess). As much as it seems silly, it also seems smarter. If you’re teaching the kids not to get burned, not playing with fire is a good idea. Not playing with matches is probably a good idea too?

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Totally agreed, but you don’t take it far enough! They also shouldn’t stand in the sun or eat hot food either.

The sexual harassment side-hug:

I’ve been side-hugging for years.

There’s a technique where if you approach a lady from the left side, you can furtively cop a feel of the right one if done correctly.

The safe sex side hug:

Perhaps Amanda Hess should also blog about “atheist” or non-religious institutions like our public school systems banning hugs all together…

1. Abstinence-y Track: "Virginity (Vees Up)" by Cindy St.Vil

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Plot: Cindy wants to wait until marriage, so she's ecstatic when her guy gets down on one knee—she gets to get it on soon! But not too soon, gentlemen—Cindy breaks it off with her beau when he tries to pressure her into some post-engagement action.

Relevant Lyrics:

No sex before marriage, because Jesus said it
There ain't nothing to debate if Jesus said it.
If she walk out on a date, don't even sweat it.
If he don't wanna wait, then leave, forget it.

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2. Abstinence-y Track "That Kind of Girl" and "I Don't Want It" by DC Talk.

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Plot: In this epic live medley, the men of DC Talk present themselves as perfectly chaste—their dream woman is "virtuous in every way"—but make sure to drop hints that they're still hot-blooded males. "I don't want your sex," they declare. "For now." (Okay, there's not much of a plot here. But what they lack in storyline they make up for in those outfits).

Relevant Lyrics:

I don't want it
Yo I don't want it
Yo I don't want your sex (for now)
Sex!
I don't want it
I don't want it want it
I don't want it 'til we take the vow

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3. Abstinence-y Track: "My Body" by Trin-I-Tee 5:7

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Plot: Guy in car tries to get fresh. Cheek-kissing? Leg touching? Close dancing? You have got to be kidding her! Trin-I-Tee smacks him down, lyrically.

Relevant Lyrics:

Who do you think I am? I don't play these games
Not goin' out like that, let me explain
Tryin' to save myself, don't pressure me
My spirit leads me to celibacy

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4. Abstinence-y Track: "Ain't No Safe Way" by Michael Sweet

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Plot: A straight-laced Christian boy is nearly led to sin by a hot chick at a drive-in theater. Luckily, the very sight of a condom sends him into a frenzy of disgust, accompanied by Michael Sweet's devilishly chaste guitar licks.

Relevant Lyrics:

Ain't no safe way anymore
You got people with one, two, three and four
Abstinence rules, playin' is for fools
The one who abstains is the one who's cool
There's no safe way

—

Abstinence-y Track: "Virginity" by TG4

Plot: The girls of TG4 are in a sex education class. They end up teaching their classmates a thing or two about not getting educated in that subject.

Relevant Lyrics:

Can't imagine what it feels like
My friends say it's alright
But then they go and do it all night
But I prefer the married life.

Know any other epic abstinence tracks? File your own additions to the chastity playlist in the comments.

Photo by George Eastman House

Attention, Christian kids: If you like not having sex, not speaking the Lord's name in vain, and not being gay, then you'll love the newest trend in policing typical adolescent behaviors in the name of God. It's called the The Christian Side-Hug, and it's here to help the devout avoid the temptation of full frontal hugging. Don't worry—it's cool, because they made a "rap" song about it.

According to Stuff Christians Like, there's no "exact scripture reference" banning normal hugging. But the Side-Hug does significantly lower the "risk of two crotches touching," which has got to be in the Bible somewhere. Here's how you do it:

Instead of face to face, you go side to side, putting your arm around the person and your hip against their’s. Still having a hard time mastering it? Pretend you’re taking a photo and you’re both looking at the camera together. The side hug, or A frame as it is also called, is safe for the whole family, friendly and above all holy.

The Christian Side-Hug strikes me as almost skeezily chaste—I'd much rather have a brief normal embrace with a stranger than a hip-tap from a person who I know sexualizes even the most mundane forms of human contact. But the Side-Hug itself is slightly less offensive than the medium being used to promote it: An appropriated version of "rap music" performed by a bunch of white youth pastors who think that mixing in some  gang-ish hand signals, tying on a bandana, and securing some fake bling will bring the youth to God.

The Christian Side-Hug rap comes courtesy of the Encounter Generation Conference, an annual Christian youth gathering which hopes to "bring the power, authenticity, and relevance of Jesus Christ to their culture." I'm afraid that this potent combination of absurd chastity and mock hip-hop will be more likely to bring the power of a school-yard beat-down to these kids' faces.

It is a simple formula for both comedy and political commentary:

Take a public figure (Sarah Palin) who holds disagreeable views (abstinence-only education). Zero in on an aspect of her personal life counter to those views (her own teen daughter, Bristol Palin, becoming pregnant). Reveal the comedic irony and/or hypocrisy of the public/private contrast. Repeat ad nauseam on blogs, 24-hour news channels, and late night talk shows.

We should all beware this construction. Though very easy to pull off—and often journalistically and comedically sound—it is a trap. And it will render us all hypocrites. Three lessons from history, after the jump.

SARAH PALIN

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DISAGREEABLE VIEW: Too many to count, but in this case, it's the abstinence thing.

HYPOCRITICAL MOVE: When Palin's 17-year-old daughter Bristol became pregnant months before Palin rose to political fame as John McCain's running mate in the 2008 presidential election, political commentators and comedians held up Bristol's pregnancy as evidence that abstinence is futile—even under the roof of your state's no-sex-before-marriage Governor.

IT'S A TRAP! The revelation came at the height of election season fervor, and liberal commentators ate Bristol's sexual activity up with a spoon. The term "knocked up" became par for the course. When the baby's father, Levi Johnston, told Tyra Banks that he and Bristol had practiced safe sex, Tyra et. al dismissed him as a liar. The late-night comedy cycle feasted on the Bristol-is-a-slut jokes. Even Palin family cheerleader Greta Van Susteren asked Bristol if she had been "lazy."

We forgot that even the most responsible of 17-year-old condom users don't put it on right every time. We forgot that condoms break. And we forgot that, when you're the governor's daughter in the small town of Wasilla, requesting birth control from your family doctor, seeking Plan B at a local pharmacy, or even buying condoms—anywhere—could cause such a shit-storm for you, your boyfriend, and your family, that it would have been hard to mount the courage to even approach the counter.

At some point, we forgot about why Bristol having sex was funny to begin with. The insane glee that we all derived from a teenage girl having sex before marriage became counter-intuitive—and downright creepy. We had crossed the hypocrisy bridge. We were no longer making a point about how young women should be free to choose to be sexually active. We no longer joked to show how bogus abstinence was. We joked to show that Bristol Palin was slutty, and that was enough to make it funny.

—

CARRIE PREJEAN

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DISAGREEABLE VIEW: During the Q-and-A section of  the 2009 Miss USA pageant, Miss USA California Carrie Prejean described her views on same-sex marriage this way:

"I think it's great that americans are able to choose one or the other. We live in a land where you can choose same-sex marriage or opposite marriage, and in my country, and my family, I think that I believe that marriage should be a man or a woman. No offense to anyone out there, but that was how I was raised, and that's how I think it should be. Between a man and a woman. Thank you."

HYPOCRITICAL MOVE: After rising to blogosphere infamy—with the help of question-asker Perez Hilton's videoblog declaring her a "bitch"—Prejean's past modeling career caught up to her. When topless photos of the 21-year-old Prejean surfaced on the Web, Prejean was accused of both violating her pageant contract and preaching inconsistent moral views. Who is she to preach good Christian values when she's flaunting her assets for cash?

IT'S A TRAP! Wait a second—since when did we start caring about women upholding the contractual obligations of beauty pageants? Pageants are among the most sexist and anti-feminist of American traditions. They encourage patriarchal views about the traditional roles women and men should hold in society. And guess what—gays don't have a place there.

But the patriarchy is also responsible for one of the most damaging of all hypocrisy constructions: the virgin-whore dichotomy. Shaming Carrie Prejean—a woman we've elevated through beauty pageants—for taking topless modeling photos is a very short leap for shaming gays and lesbians for expressing their sexuality. That's why this whole thing was hypocritical in the first place—but perhaps we're all too distracted by Carrie Prejean's boobs to remember. We may keep posting them in the interest of "revealing hypocrisy." But we all know the real reason they're on the Web: It's not hypocrisy anymore; it's hotness.

—

LARRY CRAIG

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DISAGREEABLE VIEW: As a Republican Senator from Idaho, Craig often championed conservative moral values. William Saletan got specific in 2007, pointing out that Craig "helped to enact the military's 'don't ask, don't tell' policy," revealing his "anti-gay hypocrisy."

HYPOCRITICAL MOVE: In June of 2007, Craig was arrested for soliciting sex from a male undercover cop in the Minneapolis airport:

According to the report filed by the officer who arrested Craig at the Minneapolis airport in June, Craig stood outside the officer's bathroom stall for two minutes, repeatedly looked at the officer "through the crack in the door," sat in the stall next to the officer, tapped his foot, and gradually "moved his right foot so that it touched the side of my left foot … within my stall area." Craig proceeded to "swipe his hand under the stall divider for a few seconds" three times, palm up, using the hand farthest from that side of Craig's stall. Most of these gestures, the officer explained, were known pickup signals in a room known (and hence under surveillance for) public sex. When the officer took Craig outside and told him so, Craig claimed he had been reaching down with his hand to retrieve a piece of paper from the floor. The officer wrote that no such paper had been on the floor.

IT'S A TRAP! I'll admit it—this is rich, fertile ground for the hypocrisy construction. Craig blows Palin and Prejean out of the water with this Perfect 10 hypocritical move: enacting anti-gay policies in law, and being gay in private. Jokes at Craig's expense were easy, valid, and very popular.

Conservatives, when not denying that any of this happened, joined in the shit-throwing. After all, this is the stuff homophobes' nightmares are made of—strange gay men attempting to have sex with them while they're taking care of business in a public restroom. For them, Craig reinforced the idea that homosexuals are sick and disgusting individuals just waiting to pounce on your unsuspecting bare penis. In other words, gays can pose a very real threat to their heterosexuality, and Craig proved it.

And yet, those who railed against Craig's institutionalized homophobia were the ones who took the most immense joy in the gay jokes. So—again—reveling in jokes about Larry Craig being gay began to lose their hypocritical anchor. On some level, the hypocritical construction allows people with pro-gay political views to indulge in some homophobic ribbing of their own. They see a rare window where making fun of gay sex is politically acceptable, and they sieze it. It's the same tale with Sarah Palin: People who support progressive sexual health policies, like comprehensive sex education, sieze the opportunity to make jokes about sluts. It's the same tale with Carrie Prejean: People who rail against patriarchal values, like "opposite marriage" and beauty pageants, sieze the opportunity to make sexist jokes.

So, let's all try not to descend too deeply into the hypocrisy construction's rabbit hole. Fall too far, and we become ripe for ironic commentary ourselves.

Abstinence-Only Funding Not Dead if Congress Plays "Hide-the-Salami" Again

Norris then proceeds to shower her analysis with a slew of sex puns. Count 'em (emphasis mine):

ONE. "the real test of wills comes in the Congressional conference committee on the federal budget where one Democratic member has a penchant for playing “hide the salami” with funding for the controversial chaste-until-marriage program."

TWO. "As we’ve reported previously, the labyrinthine budgeting process Congress has been giving it away big time — to the tune of now more than $1.3 billion for abstinence-only programs in the past 10 years."

THREE. "We’ve long-documented the fancy footsteps of Rep. David Obey (D-WI), chair of the powerful House Appropriations Committee, who slipped additional funding into a 2007 report prepared by the conference committee."

AND MY PERSONAL FAVORITE: "Obey, a fierce proponent of “just say no to sex education,” repeatedly crossed sword with reproductive health advocates in 2007 when he first attempted to boost funding for the Community-Based Abstinence Education (CBAE) program to $141 million, a 25 percent increase over last year."

Being a Republican means believing that teenagers today will have less sex than they did when you were a teenager if you just spend enough money telling them abstinenance is good.

Headline via Mike Riggs via commenter.

Kate Tsubata is not your typical abstinence advocate. She wants you to choose one person to have sex with for the rest of your life, but her fidelity to the movement’s traditions ends there. She refuses to draft no-sex pledges, forge promise rings, stage purity balls, or cite scripture. She doesn’t care if the sex you’re not having is straight or gay. She likes sex, actually, as long as you only do it with one person ever—no wedding required. The stakes are lower, too. In Tsubata’s abstinence movement, sex won’t lead you down a road of eternal damnation—all it will do is kill you.

As the leader of the Washington AIDS International Teens group—or, the T-shirt-perfect “WAIT”—Tsubata, her three children, and a team of youth activists teach young adults to abstain from sex solely to stop the spread of AIDS. The encouragement comes via performance: a teen-friendly program of beat-boxing, break-dancing, and sober Powerpoint presentation in the name of waiting for “the one.” In steering a middle course between the anti-AIDS and anti-sex sets, Tsubata may be ensuring that her cause never, ever gets any money.

WAIT’s prevention strategy of lifetime fidelity to one person is too idealistic for most AIDS activists, who prefer to tout the benefits of lifetime fidelity to the condom. WAIT has also proven too practical for the abstinent, whose AIDS work is often colored by moral prescriptions against fornication, homosexuality, and other at-risk sins. The division between the groups has blocked a possible solution to the AIDS crisis. Forget daddy-daughter dances and abstinence-themed jewelry; these days, only an incurable epidemic that threatens to wipe out entire populations may succeed in convincing teens to keep their legs crossed.

The latest ravages of this incurable epidemic have jolted people into action. Within days of the release of striking new AIDS figures placing D.C.’s AIDS epidemic on par with West Africa’s, WAIT fielded dozens of requests for WAIT performances, in which a vanload of teens channel unused sexual energy into back-flips, one-armed headstands, repurposed  hip-hop songs, and other chaste stunts. Then, an hour-long Powerpoint presentation details HIV’s causes—intravenous drug use, sex, and in very rare occasions, deep kissing; and effects—rare bulbous skin cancers, tuberculosis, or simply wasting away. Only at the final slides does WAIT arrive at its recommendation: Better not to do it.

Tsubata, who also serves as co-director of the Washington AIDS International Foundation, WAIT’s parent group, knows it’s a radical conclusion in a city where an e-mail to condoms@dc.gov can bring a shipment of 1,000 government-funded “Durex Enhanced Pleasure” rubbers. But she says that rough times have benefited WAIT’s unorthodox abstinence approach. “Everyone is just so desperate for something to work, for something to help people, that I think they’re ready to try anything,” she says.

Everyone, that is, except the D.C. government, which has denied WAIT’s repeated requests for funding since the program started up in 2002. In that time, WAIT has staged at least 120 performances a year in 20 states and 15 countries, and been rejected for a dozen federal and local grants. Tsubata, who works closely with more generously funded locals like Planned Parenthood and Metro Teen AIDS, says the renewed interest in the AIDS crisis will only reinforce the AIDS cash status-quo. “Since I have never received a penny of it, it doesn’t matter to me,” says Tsubata. “But the lack of funds is not from lack of trying.”

Tsubata is quick to insist that she doesn’t need government cash to be effective, but the numbers are dire enough to test even the most committed of charity workers. In 2007, the Washington AIDS International Foundation collected $225,975 in donations from individuals and corporations like Wal-Mart, and zero from government sources. That doesn’t leave a lot of money to support its skeleton staff: In 2007, Tsubata raked in $18,480 from her work with the group; her eldest daughter, Lan Lee, collected only $569 for her efforts. Compare those numbers to two of D.C.’s more readily classified youth nonprofits: Metro Teen AIDS, which takes a comprehensive prevention approach, received $968,015 in government funds in 2007; the Best Friends Foundation, an uber-abstinent education initiative, received $1,520,759. The highest-paid workers in those groups made $59,129 and $96,750, respectively.

The problem is a funding strategy based on a strictly segregated sex-ed cash flow. The D.C. government will cough up cash for comprehensive HIV prevention. It will allocate federal funds for right-wing abstinence. But it rarely funds anything in between. The D.C. Department of Health does cite “abstinence” under in its HIV prevention strategy as “the only absolute fail-safe way for preventing HIV infection”—it’s just listed second to “condoms.” D.C.’s HIV/AIDS Administration allocates more than $70 million each year to local AIDS workers, and all must satisfy the District’s full approach. “The District believes in a comprehensive sexual health approach for young people, which does include abstinence,” says Michael Kharfen, the bureau chief for “capacity building and community outreach” in the HIV/AIDS Administration. Though WAIT’s program is comprehensive enough to include advocating for widespread testing, access to antiretroviral drugs, and condom use between HIV-positive lifetime partners, the group is not comprehensive enough for the D.C. government. “The HIV/AIDS groups that we partner with provide an array of services, including HIV and STD testing, contraceptives, working with youth,” says Kharfen. “Many also include abstinence in their approach. But none of them are exclusively abstinence-only.”

Abstinence-based AIDS groups are instead forced to compete for the small amount of federal funds allocated to “abstinence education” in Title V of the Social Security Act. The District receives “less than a million dollars” from that pot, Kharfen says, which is then distributed to groups based on a host of traditional abstinence criteria—almost all of which WAIT fails to satisfy. Federal abstinence criteria focus on preventing “out-of-wedlock pregnancy”; that “a mutually faithful monogamous relationship in context of marriage is the expected standard of human sexual activity”; and that “sexual activity outside of the context of marriage is likely to have harmful psychological and physical effects.” The federal funding, in other words, is dedicated to supporting the abstinence movement’s reputation as an impractical, preachy, and partisan expenditure.

Tsubata puts it more delicately: “The abstinence people who get funding have to teach all of these things we’re not interested in teaching,” she says. “Sometimes people will even scold us after a performance and say, ‘Your presentation was great, but I wish you had talked about the Bible. I wish you had some message from scripture,’” says Tsubata, who says WAIT entertained only a brief flirtation with fundamental funders. “I walked out on a meeting with a person high up in the Bush government because he basically said, ‘If you go and help Planned Parenthood, and you work with these other organizations that aren’t pro-abstinence, you’re making them look good. We’re not going to do anything for you unless you come over onto our side,” says Tsubata. Other WAIT rejections have been more subtle. Tsubata remembers receiving one returned grant application that scored WAIT highly in all categories—scores that were then crossed out and downgraded in order to give the grant to another group. But Tsubata insists WAIT has “never, ever, ever considered changing our message to get a grant,” invoking a very non-abstinent word to describe what that move would make her.

To Tsubata, ideology—and the government funding that follows it—has little to do with on-the-ground success. “Frankly, there’s a lot less division among those who work with AIDS than people might like to think,” says Tsubata. “We know abstinence is good. We know sexual integrity is good. We know condoms are necessary. Why do we get into these stupid little territory fights and worry about who’s right and who’s wrong? Who cares about the damn funding?”

Photos by Darrow Montgomery

In a city dominated by the safe sex doctrine, abstinence advocates receive seven guaranteed days annual during the second week of March to spread their message—Abstinence Awareness Week.

The forum focused not only on disease prevention, but holistic living achieved through a sex-free lifestyle.

District resident Arnetta McKenzie brought her son, Jason Neely, to the youth forum.

"I'm here because I have a 12-year-old-son," she said pointing to Jason, sitting next to her. "He needs to hear this."

McKenzie hoped that the abstinent teenagers speaking and performing would serve as better role models for him than media personalities.

But the educational fun couldn't last forever: One day after Abstinence Awareness Week concluded, the D.C. government released its report pegging the local AIDS rate at 3 percent.

The Washington Post's editorial board published a piece today arguing that "Pope Benedict XVI Is Wrong on Condoms." An understatement, sure, but I was still glad to see our newspaper of record take God's gift to Africa down a notch. Until I got, oh, four sentences in:

In a perfect world, people would abstain from having sex until they were married or would be monogamous in committed relationships.

Now, at long last, we know what a perfect world would look like!

Nobody would have sex until they were married, except for the gays, who would never have sex ever (except while in Massachusetts and Connecticut). We would all be virgins until we caved and got married too young so we could have sex finally, only to figure out that we didn't really like our spouses enough to spend all eternity with them (and also that the sex was bad). We wouldn't get divorced, because divorce is also un-perfect. Our children would suffer, because even while married we wouldn't be allowed to use contraception.

Take heart, sinners: Everyone who is currently having premarital sex is doing his or her part to make our world a little less perfect. Those of you who are unmarried but are "monogamous in committed relationships" are less unperfect, as long as that committed relationship is your first and it ends in a marriage which ends in death.

Thanks for showing us the way, Washington Post editorial board, secret agents of the Papacy!

Photo by roblisameehan

Bristol Palin appeared on Greta Van Susteren's show last night, and Van Susteren actually asked her if she was "lazy about or not interested in" contraception. Palin replied, "I don't want to get into detail about that," which probably means, "The condom broke, and you can't buy emergency contraception from the Wasilla pharmacist if you're the teenage daughter of the Alaskan governor who doesn't even support emergency contraception for victims of rape, or yeah, maybe I'm just fucking lazy, Greta."

She also says abstinence doesn't work, which is pretty awesome.

The full transcript after the jump.

GRETA VAN SUSTEREN: "I don't want to pry too personally, but i mean, obviously contraception is an issue here. Is that something you're just uh, lazy about or not interested in, or do you have a philosophical or religious opposition to it, or?"

BRISTOL PALIN: "No, I don't want to get into detail about that, but i think abstinence is like, like the—I don't know how to put it—like, the main—everybody should be abstinent or whatever but it's not realistic at all."

GVS: "Why?"

BP: "Because—I don't want to get into detail about it."

GVS: "Well, without you being personal, just big picture, not an essay about you."

BP: "Because it's more accepted now."

Little girls who recently pledged their abstinence until marriage: I've got bad news and I've got good news. The bad news is that some study just came out saying those pledges don't work. As it turns out, girls who pledge to stay chaste—even those who ensure their virginity through collectible tween-sized silvercrafts or ornate pre-prom daddy-daughter purity balls—are having sex anyway (that's the good news).

Conservatives are up in arms about the implications this study has on the sex lives of you girls—oh no, they're totally doing it, and not to have babies! But what of the deeper psychological compulsion this study has exposed in daddies and daughters alike: The need to pledge?

Sure, I've pledged. I've pledged plenty. And some of those pledges I've even kept! In high school, I put on a pair of Beer Goggles and pledged not to drink and drive to Prom in hopes of winning a raffle for a $100 Fashion Square mall gift certificate. These are the best types of pledges—ones with time limits and cash prizes.

For the most part, though, pledges will expire—usually when your life changes, rendering them irrelevant. Some pledges still last a long time: when I was in the fifth grade, I pledged never to do drugs, and I kept that pledge until I became an adult (now-ironic D.A.R.E. sweatshirt still fits!) Other pledges expire with gym memberships, or the consumption of simple carbohydrates, or when you stop being so hard on yourself, or, you know, when your wife divorces you.

So listen up, little girls: These long-term, lifelong, idealistic pledges made in adolescence (or, let's face it, throughout adulthood) aren't a promise—they're a gamble. Whether or not you break a pledge has less to do with saying the words or signing the contract, and more to do with the weird, crazy, messed-up, tragic, wonderful shit that's going to happen to you in your lifetime that you have no possible control over or way of predicting.

And yet, pledging is really kind of a fun activity, and you don't want to feel left out when your youth group/classroom/siblings all promise never to have sex/drugs/multiple marriages ever and you have to twiddle your thumbs acting like a self-important jerk who knows so much more about life than everybody else. So instead of pledging, why not make something of your superior life knowledge, and place bets against your friend's pledges for large sums of money? If Peggy has sex, you get to pawn her chastity ring; if Bobby snorts coke, you win the miniature telescope that represents the future career he's throwing away; whatever. That way, you can encourage your friends to keep their promises to themselves, while you have sex and experiment with drugs when it feels right for you. Plus, you can use the money you earned from Peggy and Bobby's broken promises to buy weed! Everybody wins!

Photo by SassyPanda.