On Friday, February 12, 2010, after 1:00 pm, the Cupcake Truck will be parked on York Street (near the Yale Rep’s back door). Considering the fact that St. Valentine’s Day is on Sunday, you may want to celebrate early by splurging on a cupcake for yourself or one that is near and dear!!!
If you are so inclined and would like to support them, the Cupcake Truckers may consider adding this spot to their regular rotation.
By Adrienne Spiegel
Giving advice on “The Do’s and Don’t of Dating in College,” as Your Royal Flyness proposed to do, is a tall order, so I went into his so-named lecture skeptical. The title itself evoked resentment. I don’t want to believe that there are universal do’s and don’ts of dating, and if there are, I certainly don’t like the idea of people listening to these rules, learning them, and incorporating them into their own dating exploits. The lecture promised to be distasteful to my idealistic (naïve?) sentiments about dating. Flyness, god bless him, did not disappoint: I walked out of LC102 as disenchanted as ever. If nothing else, however, the lecture illuminated the unfortunate consequences of accepting a seemingly innocent premise: dating is a game.
Flyness announced this premise to the audience to begin his talk. Assuming a consensus, he went on to state that people who participate in the game are players (“and that’s not a bad thing”), no one likes a cheater (laughter), and you can practice and get better at the game. As in any game worth playing, there is a strategy, and the rest of the lecture was focused on teaching this strategy. [I need to pause here and offer a quick disclaimer of heteronormativity.]
He proposed three mantras for men use while dating. If calculated interactions with women for the express purpose of getting into their pants is your cup of tea, drink up!
1. Prepare yourself. Think of yourself as a hunter. Before you go out to hunt, you need to make sure you have your supplies. These supplies don’t include spears and loincloths (though I wouldn’t have been surprised), but good breath, cologne, an outfit, a certain swagger, and a slow manner, all of which should go toward projecting a “crisp” appearance.
2. Be the exception in the way you act. What you say is important, but so is how you say it. Maintain eye contact. Don’t be too chivalrous — ah, a curveball. If you’re trying to impress a woman, don’t act too much the gentleman. No woman wants to be with a sycophant.
3. It’s all about confidence. Confidence, not money or clothes or gifts, is what is attractive.
Flyness offered some good advice. Few will contest that confidence is attractive, eye contact enticing, and looking sharp a plus. Yet his tone, and the overarching idea that dating is a game to be mastered, were disconcerting. There was something fundamental missing from his approach to dating. He told us how to put ourselves together, how to carry ourselves, how to appear engaged and ask questions our partners the right questions. But he didn’t tell us to be engaged, or to listen to their answers. I don’t doubt that approaching dating with his mindset yields success for those who are interested in it, but it seems that with this approach you’ll get out exactly what you put in. If you want to be a regular Don Juan, Flyness can show you how. But at a certain point suave lines get old, cologne smells stale, and eye contact betrays false intimacy. If love’s a game, Flyness can show you how to play. But I’ll sit this one out.
This article, posted on the Zelda Lily website, recaps the event “Developments in Safer Sex” that took place on Tuesday, February 9. The event discussed the possibility of microbicides, the use of the female condom, and the research that the Female Condom Multi-level Community Intervention at The Institute for Community Research is conducting.
Check it out here: Microbicides Still Being Tested to Deter Sexually-Transmitted Infections, Female Condom Discussions at Yale University
by Tully McLoughlin
Reverend Debra Haffner, a leader in the Unitarian Universalist community, said on Sunday afternoon that it was possible to engage in a religious life while pursuing love (sexual and emotional) that is “just and whole.” “Sexuality,” she said in the beginning of her talk, “is not what we do. It’s who we are.” And there’s something equally innate about religion, she says. We are hard-wired to be religious, just as we are built, biologically, to be sexual.
Haffner polled the room, asking whether the traditions of the ‘cradle-religion’ in which we were each raised left a positive, negative, or mixed impression of sexuality on our minds. She declared that the ‘mixed’ sort were probably students of mainstream Christian religions, the ‘negative’ were bound to be Roman Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, and some Jews, and the ‘positives’ were Unitarian Universalists, and maybe a Catholic or two with “a good priest.”
If you’ve ever felt that sex and God were in direct conflict, you’ve reached what Haffner calls a “religious impasse,” after which you’ve got three options. One: hold onto religion and deny sexuality. Two: hold onto sexuality and deny religion. Or three—which Haffner advocates—become theologians in search of your own answers.
Haffner concludes that it is possible to be religious, moral, and sexual at the same time. There was an tone of pragmatism to her talk. Like any good orator, Haffner knew her audience—a room of smart young adults at a liberal Ivy League school. She pointed to the fact that since 1960, the number of people in the United States who have had sex before marriage has topped 90%. In the twenty-first century, sex is an integral part of our culture and our self-perception. Haffner encourages embracing a new sexual ethic focused on the quality of a relationship with another person. And she lists (drum roll) the five criteria of a “moral sexual relationship.” Here they are.
Criteria 1: It’s consensual. (“Teaching how to say yes is as important as teaching how to say no,” she said.)
Criteria 2: It’s non-exploitive. (Don’t use somebody. This means that hooking up, she claims, isn’t usually moral.)
Criteria 3: It’s honest. (Honesty is multi-layered. Everything from talking about STIs to sharing what feels good and what doesn’t is important.)
Criteria 4: It’s mutually pleasurable. (Everybody’s got a ‘personal love map.’ “Ecstacy is personal,” she says.)
(and) Criteria 5: You use protection. (40% of 20-29 year-olds don’t use contraception regularly.)
Haffner cites the Bible frequently, and calls Genesis the “Desperate Housewives of its time,” because of its sexual content. She thinks a renewed sexual morality hinges on “reclaiming” the Bible for a progressive religious response. She speaks easily and confidently, and her message is comforting—we can have sex! It’s “part of our birthright.”
To me, everything seemed a little too simple. C. S. Lewis writes in Mere Christianity, “The biological purpose of sex is children, just as the biological purpose of eating is to repair the body. Now if we eat whenever we feel inclined and just as much as we want, it is quite true most of us will eat too much: but not terrifically too much. One man may eat enough for two, but he does not eat enough for ten. The appetite goes a little beyond its biological purpose, but not enormously. But if a healthy young man indulged his sexual appetite whenever he felt inclined, and if each act produced a baby, then in ten years he might easily populate a small village. This appetite is in ludicrous and preposterous excess of its function.” Lewis concludes that marriage or chastity is the only way. Haffner, faced with the same dilemma, says that’s impractical in our world. As long as we use protection and respect our partner, the village doesn’t have to grow in size. And we can use this God-given gift as a means of expressing love for one another.
We know you were waiting all week for Thursday’s events with Pure Romance, our wonderful sponsors – but due to the snowpocalypse that has occurred we’ll be unable to make this happen. Today’s 5:30 event with Dr. Andrew Trees has suffered a similar fate.
But fear not. Snuggle up with someone special while you can – and if you’re feeling lonely learn how to change that completely at Today’s 7:00 pm presentation by Your Royal Flyness in LC 102. Tons of free giveaways for those brave enough to trek through the snow and learn this priceless dating advice.
Seniors – your singles mixer with Feb Club still stands at Hula Hanks and everyone else try out some of your dating advice at Give Some Get Some Speed Date for charity in Silliman dining hall. Click on schedule for more details.
If you still want to get your hands on some of their hot products use the promotional code LOVEYALE at www.pureromance.com through March 1st to receive 25% off your order.
Here are some audio clips from the lecture! (They’re not great, but some places are more clear than others)
Darlinda had the audience say “Cunt” and “Cock”. Here is a clip of the audience yelling, “Cock!”
This clip is of Darlinda giving some hand job and blow job tips. Hand Jobs and Blow Jobs
This is a clip of Darlinda discussing “V-Town,” or the parts of the vagina. V Town!
Darlinda explaining the clitoris and other parts of the vagina. The Clitoris & Other Sex Information
Darlinda explains the fun in sex. Laughter
A clip about stimulating the penis and vagina, and performing a hand job. Penis, Vagina, and Hand Jobs
Enjoy!
by Clayton Erwin
If you missed “Babeland’s Liptricks: Blowjobs and Going Down,” you missed the best lecture I have ever seen at Yale. Maybe it was the funky lime green dress she was wearing and the string of pink beads around her neck, or her adorably affable manner, or her graphic demonstrations of various cunnilingus techniques on her “hand vagina—regardless, Darlinda from Babeland was fucking awesome!
After an icebreaker in which the entire audience screamed “cunt” and “cock,” Darlinda led us on a very informative journey through male and female anatomy charts. It may have brought back nightmares of middle school health class, but I think it was a much-needed review of the basics. If you don’t know what’s down there, you won’t know how to use it!
Then, we got to the good stuff—oral sex. Darlinda began by explaining female masturbation and going down techniques. In lieu of the real deal, she showed us how to make a vagina out of a hand, and two audience volunteers helped demonstrate on stage. For those of us (like myself) who have never made the epic journey to V-town, this was a very interesting and much needed lesson. Darlinda then moved on to jacking off and giving blowjobs. Using a remarkably lifelike silicone penis, she showed us many techniques—including putting a condom on with your mouth, the “cat lick,” the “endless vagina,” and “the doorknob.” At the end of the tutorial, one audience member eagerly volunteered to demonstrate deep throating. Even Darlinda seemed impressed!
Probably the most important message I took home from “Babeland’s Liptricks” is that sex should comfortable and uninhibited in addition to being exciting. Before beginning her presentation, Darlinda explained the Bill of Rights published in Babeland’s new book, Moregasm: Babeland’s Guide to Mind-Blowing Sex. Among the points listed were remembering that you are sexy, loving yourself first, communicating with your partner, and laughing. I think that it’s easy to forget these things, especially in an age of commercialized sex and hook-up culture. So, everyone should work harder to have sex that is more like Darlinda’s presentation—comfortable, experimental, fun, and amply lubricated.
Sex Week is a great chance to bring sex out into the open. For one week, students get to share thoughts and ideas about sex that are usually left unsaid, and discuss them honestly, unreservedly, and open-mindedly. But what about when the week ends? The sex scene at Yale will of course continue, but will all the issues that have been raised just be shoved back under the carpet?
Sex at Yale, a new initiative on campus, won’t let that happen. A coalition of almost a hundred students already, led by Professor Melanie Boyd of the department of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, the initiative seeks to promote ways for individuals to have thoughtful, pleasurable, consensual, and empowered sex at Yale. Its first project is a web site, featuring a collection of student essays that share personal sexual experiences. At the same time, essays will offer strategies and tips for creatively and successfully navigating Yale’s sexual culture. The essays will deliberately include very diverse perspectives; the goal is to explode the notion that there is a monolithic “hookup” culture at Yale, and show the wide range of sexual practices (including abstinence) that successfully exist on Yale’s campus.
The initiative will also work with existing on-campus groups to promote sexual safety. It will highlight existing resources for physical and emotional sexual health, including resources for preventing and responding to harassment and assault. It will especially seek to support the freshman orientation rape prevention and sexual safety programs, but without exacerbating female fear or sexual shame.
Finally, the site will seek to help individual students become more articulate not only about sexual safety and consent, but also about mutual respect and desire. After all, the initiative’s members argue, it is not enough to have sex that others consent to have with us; sex should always be truly desired by both parties. As Prof. Melanie Boyd put it: “Yale students are creative, smart, resourceful—pretty desirable. No one should be having sex they don’t want, or in ways they don’t want it, or with people they don’t desire. And everyone should have a reasonable shot at having the kind of sex lives—active, sedate, celibate, monogamous, etc— that they do want!”
Want to know more about how to get involved? Contact Mihan Lee at mihan.lee@yale.edu.
Nothing says love like sweets and safe sex…
…except sweets and safe sex for a good cause! Community Health Educators is
selling cupcakes and condoms to raise money for our health education
workshops. The money will be used to make health resource cards for New
Haven students.
If you’d like to send a cupcake and condom to someone (or preferably
multiple people) on Valentine’s Day, come to Commons during lunch on
Wednesday, Thursday, or Friday, or email your favorite Community Health
Educator.
For $2 you can have the recipient pick up their gift, or for $3 we’ll
deliver it to their room.
Have a safe V-day
Unfortunately for those who were unable to get in (there are a bunch of us), photographs were not allowed to be taken at the extremely successful SWAY Fetish Fashion Show at the Ezra Stiles Dining Hall on Saturday night. With proceeds going to AIDS Walk New Haven, the event not only sold out, but was oversold! While we have yet to see leaked pictures from the show, some photographs posted from the fittings are on the event’s facebook page. Some of these are posted so you can be reminded of the sexiness you witnessed, or get a taste of what you missed!
Sex Week at Yale is a campus-wide interdisciplinary sex education program designed to pique students’ interest and spark dialogue through creative, interactive, and innovative programming. SWAY is at the cutting-edge of college-aged Sex Education. We aim to push students to think about sex, love, intimacy, and relationships in ways they never have before with a week full of guest lectures, panel discussions, hands on workshops, parties, presentations, and student productions.
This is a completely student-organized event. We’d be nowhere without the enthusiasm of our guests and the generosity of our sponsors.
