Someday I’d like to have a baby with someone who’s not remotely like the person I’m sleeping with now.
Via someecards
Thinking your crush of the moment might not be the man of your dreams long-term? Enjoy your Sunday anyway and use birth control. (Carefully.)
Can I have your autograph? (On my ass. After we have sex.)
This Frisky Friday we’ve channeled our inner gossip magazine to bring you some juicy tidbits from “normal” about their experiences hooking up with celebrities. Any surprises here? Stories we should include if we do a part 2?
National Tequila Day is drawing to a close and we hope you celebrated in style. Since we know what too many margaritas can lead to, we’d like to take this opportunity to share our “party-ready” birth control method filter and our Method Monday on condoms (best friend of party people everyone—especially when paired with mistake-proof birth control).
And if the festivities lead somewhere unexpected, may this Frisky Friday on rocking the walk of shame serve you well.
“Should I poke him?”
Have you been to see us over on Facebook yet? If not, now would be a great time to stop by and tell us how long you usually wait to become Facebook friends with a new love interest.
Girls (with new wave hairdos…)
STIs, virginity, confusing hookups, and a visit to the lady doctor, all in one episode? Lauren’s not the only one who’s excited about the debut of Girls. But with all the conversation the show has already sparked, does anyone else out there have this song on repeat in their heads? Not that we’re complaining…
We give the show props for realistically representing how young women use—and don’t use—birth control. But we won’t lie and say we’re not fantasizing about an episode where the characters discover the wonderful world of long-acting reversible contraception. (Fingers crossed!)
Sex On TV: Girls Gets It
HBO’s new show Girls: where even to begin. After watching the pilot and then Sunday night’s second episode with my roommate, my biggest regret is not having taken notes. The blog fodder was literally bombarding me, kamikaze style, and I don’t even know how to tackle this bad boy. But, taking a hint from the legendary Julie Andrews, I guess I’ll start at the very beginning.
Girls, birthed by writer/director Lena Dunham and reared by Judd Apatow, seeks to fill the television void of shows with realistic depictions of twenty-somethings. You know, that awkward time when you realize the career goal you’ve dreamed of since your childhood and focused your college education on is actually the last thing in life you should be doing, you’re not really making any money but working your ass off, you take turns with your friends to coordinate quarter-life crises and breakdowns, and your skin decides to retaliate for four years of mistreatment by reverting back to middle school acne. No resentment in this blogger’s writing voice at all…
Needless to say, I was pretty pumped at the idea of the show and couldn’t wait to put my judgey-pants on and watch the pilot. As a child of the Sex and the City/Gossip Girl/The Hills era, I cannot begin to express the disappointment I experienced when I realized my twenties were more likely going to resemble an episode of PBS News Hour than SATC. Therefore, watching the show, there were a few things I was refreshed by: for starters, Lena Dunham’s character Hannah. She’s awkward, unsure of herself professionally, strapped for cash, and shaped like a real woman. Not Hollywood’s version of a “real woman,” a.k.a. a perfectly coiffed size 4 with curves in all the right places. Instead, she’s frequently unkempt and sporting some curves in some of the wrong places, too. Love it. Hannah is stranded in the no-man’s-land of casually hooking up with a guy she met at a party—and even though he’s rude to her at times, they only hang out if they’re having sex, and her friends don’t like him, Hannah keeps going back to him. Degrading and embarrassing? Yup. But a realistic relationship status for many twenty-somethings? Unfortunately, yes again.
Clearly this show was going to be fair game for a blog post—I decided within the first 10 minutes—so you could only imagine the decibel level of my squeal when the girls started talking unplanned pregnancy, STDs, condoms, etc. To quote one of my favorite SNL characters, this show has EVERYTHING. An attempt to have a frank discussion about using condoms that actually sounds as awkward as they usually go down? Check. A scene inside a women’s clinic that looks more like a spa than a shameful version of a Jiffy Lube waiting room? Check. On-screen STD test? Check. They even have a 23-year-old virgin who hasn’t dedicated her life to religion! So she may use words like “totes,” cite Rent as her authoritative source on HIV/AIDS, and get her love advice from a book called Hey Ladies Bible, but her rationale behind waiting is simply that it hasn’t happened yet.
Girls has come under fire for a number of reasons, and I’m not going to deny that it has its flaws. However, what it does well, it does very well. Sex, dating, hooking up, and birth control can all be incredibly awkward and uncomfortable, but they’re all part, possibly a prevalent part, of a twenty-something’s life. Accurately portraying how all that good stuff REALLY goes down is a point in my book. But what really stole my heart? Watching Hannah struggle to tuck her shirt into her hiked up skirt, wearing ugly gray tights. That may or may not have happened in my own bedroom this morning…
Image from HBO.
*****
Lauren Mann works in The National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy’s Entertainment Media department. She’s been blogging about sex, love and relationships among twenty-somethings since she first joined the Campaign as an intern in 2009. Check out her personal blog at whatjewtalkingbout.tumblr.com.
Sex on TV: Undercover Lovers
As long as I’ve been watching TV (basically since I was in utero), the nerd always eventually landed the girl of his dreams. Taking it on back to the days of The O.C., we had Seth, a comic book geek with a Jew-fro and a passion for two things: the band Rooney and Summer Roberts. Summer, mastering all three necessary ‘p’s—pretty, popular, and pint-sized—saw Seth as an untouchable in the caste system where she was God. And what happens? She gives in to her forbidden crush and starts hooking up with Seth in secret. She’s too mortified to admit to anyone that they’re together, and he’s too enthralled to be getting some from his dream girl on the reg to say otherwise. That is, until their relationship is discovered—and they end up realizing they’re perfect for one another, regardless of social order.
But let’s be honest here, show of hands, who here would kick Adam Brody out of their bed? Take Hollywood’s version of “the underdog” both on the big and small screens—eg. Penn Badgley on Gossip Girl, Zack Gilford on Friday Night Lights, Joseph Gordon-Levitt in 500 Days of Summer, and Jesse Eisenberg in every movie he’s ever been in. I wouldn’t hide my relationship with any of them. Still, the storyline rings vaguely familiar to most of us: an unexplained attraction to someone outside your candidate bubble. A bubble dictated by a social circle or self-declared type, in which leaving said bubble will result in excommunication, social suicide, internal bleeding, and probably death. In all actuality, a departure from the norm would probably only warrant the raising of an eyebrow or two, but the consequences seem so much more serious in the moment. So you’re faced with two options: shun your rising desire, publically bash the object of your lust just to cover yourself, and drown your closeted feelings in films featuring the above storylines that will only cut deeper into your tormented soul. Or, start hooking up on the down low.
So there I am watching New Girl—specifically Schmidt and CeeCee, who are sleeping together but keeping it secret by sneaking around (check out the clip above to see for yourself). After all, she has a reputation to maintain and he uses hair chutney. We feigned surprise over their coupling (but she’s a model! And he has driving moccasins!), but in the end, we can’t really be too grossed out. How often does the underdog get the hot girl? Uh, try every time. It’s a basic Hollywood formula: (circle one in each category) Mathlete/Video Gamer/Undisclosed Social Reject But Very Quiet Guy + Hot/Popular/Talented/Charitable Girl + Prom/Impending College Departure/Big Football Game/High School Cafeteria at lunch = Underdog Will Somehow Get The Girl And We’ll Fall Asleep Dreaming Of Our Very Own Loser To Publically Declare His Love And Live Happily-Ever-Through-The-Credits. Schmidt and CeeCee will probably follow in the same vein, demolishing their societal differences like the Berlin Wall, announcing to viewers that their love can survive in the open, even if he calls his car a Manbulance.
But I’ll put it out there: I’m Lauren and I’ve crushed on a guy outside my “social caste” (in full disclosure, I’d say I fall somewhere between local backyard wrestling champion and ‘Elite’ Yelp reviewer). And instead of quelling my desire in fear of social retaliation, I started hooking up with him in secret. Few of my friends knew and I preferred it that way. I won’t lie, feeling socially superior to him was part of the attraction. But the majority, much like CeeCee feels towards Schmidt, was general attraction, even if I couldn’t explain it, excellent chemistry, and the fact that his nonsense made me laugh. Except Hollywood never addresses the fine print: sometimes there are very real consequences to spending your days with the blinds down, playing video games. Sometimes a social outcast is an outcast for a reason: because they’re socially awkward. Sometimes they’re too busy to sweep you off your feet in front of your entire school at prom because there’s a Magic: The Gathering convention the same weekend. So did I feel bad about keeping him on the down low? Yeah, I did. But did I feel a lot better when HE dumped ME for a girl he met in a MMPORPG chat room? You bet your ass I did.
*****
Lauren Mann works in The National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy’s Entertainment Media department. She’s been blogging about sex, love and relationships among twenty-somethings since she first joined the Campaign as an intern in 2009. Check out her personal blog at whatjewtalkingbout.tumblr.com.
We worked with Funny or Die on a short video series! It’s called “After Last Night,” there are 3 parts, the first is above, and you can see the other two on funnyordie.com.
PS—this series may or may not feature plastic wrap, dry-humping, irreverent humor, and a very awkward hug. (Just sayin’.)
Dear Med Student, Does That Line Ever Work?
Originally published on SexReally.com on December 11, 2009.
This week Stefanie’s Crazy Stories will be brought to you by the fabulous Lauren Mann. Why, might you ask? Because this is her crazy story and I don’t think I would do it justice. Have no fear, I will be back next week with hijinx, shenanigans, and antics of all shapes and sizes.
*****
One of the incentives I used to persuade my mother to let me move into an off-campus apartment this year was the fact that many med school students call my building home. I reasoned with her that her dream of having me marry a nice Jewish doctor could be more attainable if I surrounded myself with doctors-in-training. While there were other reasons it made sense for me to get an apartment, I’m pretty certain that was the factor that tipped the scales.
As I moved in, I was slightly disappointed at the small turn-out of students eagerly awaiting my arrival. However, I rationalized, they must be in the library, studying and watching old Grey’s Anatomy and ER reruns, honing their skills, or whatever med students do. My roommate is a Public Health major and spends a considerable amount of time at the med school library and she assured me that they partied just as hard as they studied. I was giddy with excitement when she told me we were going to meet some of her medical-library buddies that night.
Well, they were not exactly the same caliber of “hotness” as indicated in popular medical shows, but they were pretty cute. They were only a few years older than us but seemed light years ahead of the guys in our class. The real clincher was the idea that remained in the back of my mind: these guys got themselves into med school. They can’t be too brainless.
We had a great time. My roommate had been engaging recently in some hot and heavy eye-flirting with one of the guys over the cubicle walls at the library and was excited to finally meet up with him in a social setting. They quickly got acquainted with each other’s anatomy on the dance floor. One of this guy’s friends was sending me some serious flirtatious glances, so I joined him at the bar. He was a perfect gentleman; he bought me a drink and we chatted for a few minutes about school, music, and other common small talk topics. My roommate shot me a look from across the dance floor that I easily translated to “How great is this?!” and I nodded, smiled back and returned to my conversation.
Perhaps I’d spoken too soon. My new friend downed the rest of his drink in one gulp and turned to me as he placed his empty glass down.
“So, are we going to go home together tonight? I just want to know in advance. I’m really busy and need to prioritize, you know?”
No, mother, I did not go home with him, though the way he presented that offer, how could anyone have resisted? And for your information, those doctors-to-be that you pray will finally marry me are bigger douches than their undergraduate counterparts. At least a college guy will put a little time and effort into getting in my pants and then feign understanding when I instead give him my number, tell him to call me and depart. Med school guys have books to read and cadavers to explore. They don’t have time for courtship of any kind and I guess I’m just not “wham, bam, thank you ma’am” enough for them.
You can keep your stethoscopes, med students; I’ll move on to the law school.
*****
Lauren Mann works in The National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy’s Entertainment Media department. She’s been blogging about sex, love and relationships among twenty-somethings since she first joined the Campaign as an intern in 2009. Check out her personal blog at whatjewtalkingbout.tumblr.com.
