Lauren Herskovic: Hooking Up
Sex, Love and Intimacy
Chip August
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Episode 79 - Lauren Herskovic: Hooking Up

You see articles about it in all the popular magazines and newspapers. Oprah and Dr. Phil are talking about it. HBO and Showtime are making TV series about it. Hooking Up. College kids having sex just to have sex. Instead of going out with guys and getting to know people, college women are exploring their sexual freedom by taking multiple partners. Meet Lauren Herskovic, Managing Editor of CollegeCandy.com, a blog for college women, by college women. Lauren writes and researches about sex and intimacy trends among young women. In this interview Lauren and I talk about the new trend in “dating” in college, which is that there isn’t any. While it is wonderful that women are finally discovering their sexual desires, it comes at a cost. What are they giving up? Is this really the best way to assert themselves? Are they losing the respect of their friends and potential mates? And do women really want no-strings-attached sex, or is that just what they think they should want? It's a no-holds-barred look at college-age women. And, as always, we end with an exercise for you to try.

Transcript

Transcript

Female Announcer: This program I brought to you be personallifemedia.com

This program is intended for mature audiences only.

[Music plays]

Chip August: Welcome to Sex, Love and intimacy, I’m your host Chip August and on today on the show we’re talking to Lauren Herskovic who is the managing editor of collegecandy.com a blog for college women. And what we’re going to be talking about is dating and relationship and sex and sexuality, love, intimacy, sexuality, all that stuff but particularly among college women. And my guest Lauren is, as I said, the managing editor of collegecandy.com where she mostly spends her time researching women’s issues, celebrity gossip and also trends on college campuses’. Lauren aspires to educate and inform college women as well as to give them a platform through which to share their opinions with other college women and other like minded women. And hopefully she’s making her audience more informed and also maybe giving a few laughs on a stressful day.

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Lauren Herskovic: Our generation has gotten really used to being able to do things without having to put ourselves out there. With the advent of the internet and things like that we can put ourselves out there without public embarrassment. I’m drunk and I’m at a bar and I meet a guy and I throw myself at him and he rejects me or we sleep together and nothing comes of it, you can blame it on the alcohol whereas if you like somebody and you pursue them and you call them on the phone and you try to get on a date with them, you can be flat out rejected and it really hurts your pride. This is almost the easier way of doing things which is unfortunate because of what the real intimacy you’re going to have with this person.

I’ve been to many colleges, with college candy we did a tour a couple of years ago and it wasn’t just where I went, it doesn’t matter if its an all girls school, if it’s a private school or if its public school. When you walk into a party or a bar there are always people making out in corner. That everything is a meat market there and I don’t know why it’s turned into this but this is just accepted and that’s just what it is. And I think everyone tells themselves I’m going to be good and pure and save myself for marriage and its not just the Greek life but in general you’ll have parties and you’ll have [??] parties and you’ll have all these things and somehow they always come back to hooking up with somebody.

I think the first worry that comes to peoples mind is probably pregnancy and then STD’s and STI’s. I think the wonderful thing about college students today in our generation is that condoms are really not even a question its just an understanding and it’s a must have and its never really a question. People are thinking to use protection against it but you know the amount of STD’s and STI’s are spreading in colleges. I think a lot of people don’t think about getting tested or they don’t want to get tested ‘cause they’re scared and then mostly things are spreading because people don’t even know they have them.

[Music Plays]

Chip: So welcome to the program Lauren.

Lauren: Thank you, it’s good to be here.

Chip: I really appreciate you taking the time to have this conversation. I think some people in my audience are in fact college women. I think some people in my audience are college men. I think a lot of my audience. We’re in our 30’s, 40’s or 50’s and some of us we don’t really know very much about, you read stories in the paper about Gen Y and Gen Z and Gen O and its kind of hard to know what the world looks like today. And I think we’re all a little curious about it and I’m hoping maybe with your particular background you can give us some insights into the world of dating and being a single person and what that’s all like today.

So I thought we might start just pretty simply here, do people still date? Its really, it’s an interesting term. I can remember in the 70’s having arguments about is this a date or is this not a date and one women that I dated, I actually ended up marrying her, who said that any appointment to meet is a date. So do people date and what is dating?

Lauren: Yeah, it’s a really good question and its one that you don’t really think about much when you’re in college. I do remember when I was still in school my friends and I had this discussion about the lack of dating and how none of us really had experience in dating because on a college campus it just, at least in my experiences and the experiences I’ve developed or I’ve actually watched and listened to and heard the stories through the website, it just, it doesn’t exist anymore. Instead of the formal man asks the woman out, they go out to dinner, maybe a movie, maybe a good night kiss at the end of the night. It’s turned into more of a group scene, a more casual scene and it really starts usually with some form of sexual intimacy of some sort and then develops from there. So…

Chip: Now that sounds a little backwards from certainly my youth. My experience was, it took a fair investment of time and interest to get to the sex part. You’re saying basically it’s starting there.

Lauren: Yeah. Its very interesting and its something that I never thought about or realized and I think a lot of women and men in college don’t really think about it because its just part of the lifestyle now and its just become what the dating scene is in college but Charles Blow[?] who is a New York times columnist wrote an article about it and he was asking about why its so backwards and it is very interesting, I think. People go out to a party and they’ll, or out to a bar, or out somewhere and they’ll meet someone and a lot of the time its fuelled by alcohol, but the point of the evening is to go out to find somebody. And you talk with them for a little while and eventually it goes to someone’s house and it starts, it starts there and then sometimes develops into something more and sometimes it doesn’t and I think that is what causes a lot of problems for women and men in college is because, there’s a lack of communication. People are on different pages in terms of what that night means and for some people its just I want to go out and have a good time and for some people its I want to go out and oh I really like this guy now that we spent the night and we shared this really personal intimate moment. But it’s incredibly backwards and it’s interesting this is the way it’s turned into because all the formalities have been taken out and the end result, the end goal of any relationship is where the relationships begin.

Chip: Now is this, in your opinion, is this… I don’t like to make judgments so is this maybe a manifestation of female empowerment that just somehow the women have looked around and thought well these guys, you know, they just have sex with anybody they think is interesting, they don’t seem to have any obligation, they don’t seem to have any shame about it. Maybe I as a woman aught to be able to do that also, is that what’s driving this?

Lauren: I think that’s part of it and I think that maybe that’s what some women want to convince themselves they’re doing. I know, through my personal experience when I was in college I was on this take of, everyone else is doing it, the guys get to do it, why cant we? Why can’t we dispose of men like men dispose of women which unfortunately I think stems a lot from Sex in the City. That was when it, I grew up with from high school through college, but I think ultimately what it is, and this is my personal opinion, I think that our generation has gotten really used to being able to do things without having to put ourselves out there, you know, with the advent of the internet, and things like that, we can hide behind walls, and put ourselves out there without being shamed, without the public embarrassment, and I think this kind of stems from that, where I’m drunk and I’m at a bar and I meet a guy and I throw myself at him and he rejects me or we sleep together and nothing comes of it. You can blame it on the alcohol and you never really put yourself out there, you never really loose anything of that whereas if you like somebody and you pursue them and you call them on the phone and try and get on a date with them or you try to take the more, I guess now antiquated path, dating, you can be flat out rejected and it really hurts your pride and you feel really raw and really open. This is almost the easier way of doing things which is unfortunate because of the lack of real intimacy you’re going to have with this person.

Chip: So, okay, is intimacy valued? Is that a valuable thing to have? I see enough people in their 30’s and 40’s and 50’s that I, or even 60’s, that I would describe as sort of serial polygamists. That they don’t think of themselves as being polygamists but what they do is they basically, if they like somebody then they have to like them enough  to marry them and then when that marriage wears out they move on and marry the next one. But it really just seems like there’s some need to marry because then somehow it makes the sexual feelings legitimate. This seems to turn that topsy turvy is this, what happens to intimacy in all this?  Is anybody…

Lauren: Well I think that’s a really good question. I think anyone will tell you that sleeping with somebody or having some sort of sexual relationship with someone that you truly have feelings for is better. You trust that person more, you are willing to do more with them, you feel more comfortable with them.

Chip: So that’s still the gold standard.

Lauren: Right and I think that is obviously lasting. I think when people go home with someone or this whole like, lets start the relationship off right now with sex, obviously its purely physical and almost carnal and I think, I definitely don’t think it’s the same. I fear and obviously I don’t think many people have seen the long term effects of this and this is purely my personal opinion. I personally feel that by taking the intimacy out of sex, taking the real feelings and the real love and the connection out of it, it almost makes me worry that women who are doing this constantly and just sleeping with and hooking up with people, whatever, when they do get in a relationship I think that they’re going to be almost stunted. I think that women will forget what its like to be with someone they really like. I think its going to be a little bit scarier to be with someone that you really truly feel for because personally I know that you’re experience that you have with one person one night is very different than what you’re going to have with someone you really like. And I think a lot of people I’ve spoken to and a lot of women who write for the site have talked about how the reason they like doing this whole one night thing, or the reason that they’re willing to do this whole sex on the first date thing is because if it goes wrong or something’s bad or whatever, they’re never going to see that person again. Or they don’t have to deal with the repercussions of it and I think that’s a really scary thought. I fear that when real intimacy happens people aren’t going to know how to handle it anymore because we’re so used to just doing things this way without having to really feel for somebody or put ourselves out there.

Chip Well this is quite the picture you’re painting. I want to talk a lot more about this, but I want to pause for a moment and give a chance for us to support our sponsors. Listeners as we take this break I just want to remind you that the sponsors messages, these are people that are actually making it possible for me to put the show on the air sand o I’d really appreciate it if you listen to the messages and also I just want you to know that most of our sponsors offer some pretty god deals. So you might want to check out the Personal Life Media episode pages and just notice where you can get dollars off on or percentages off on all kinds of things, from sex toys to audio books. So it’s really worth listening to the messages and also checking out the episode pages. You’re listening to Sex, Love and Intimacy, I’m your host Chip August and we’ll be right back.

[Music plays]

Female Announcer: Listen to Just for Women, dating, relationships and sex. A weekly internet audio program from personallifemedia.com Fresh inspiration and expanded relationship options for today’s women.

[Music plays]

Chip: Welcome back, you’re listening to sex love and intimacy. I’m your host, Chip August, I’m talking to Lauren Herskovic and she’s the managing editor of collegecandy.com a blog for college women by college women and we were talking a little bit about hooking up versus intimacy and what happened to dating here. I did an interview recently with two 20 something successful women in New York and when I talked with them about this whole hooking up phenomenon they both immediately went to yeah but only sluts do that. So is there such a thing as a slut anymore? What does that mean, [xx] what does it mean exactly? Do girls get a reputation? What happened to all that?

Lauren: Girls will always have a reputation, it does not matter what happens to dating, women judge women so harshly. Especially in a college campus where things are smaller and everything spreads a lot quicker. But I think that women who call these other women sluts are doing it either out of jealousy or just out of a lack of understanding or knowing that person. I think hooking up is such a central part of college life right now and it’s because never again in your life are you going to be around that many single eligible people that you know you have something in common with, that you have common ground with, that its almost… I mean if you’re going to call people a slut I would say there’s going to be a very large percentage of women and men in college who are doing this. And I guess it really depends how you carry yourself and it really depends who is judging you but I believe from what I’ve seen that this is really common and maybe the term slut is almost on a new level because women are sleeping with each other, with men more and women are hooking up more and this whole free spirited sexual freedom has gotten so big in society in general that the term slut probably has to require a lot more and a lot crazier and a lot, I don’t know, just dirtier…

Chip: So basically you have some connection with the person then you are just hooking up but if you’re willing to have sex with pretty much just anybody as long as they just want it then you’re pretty much a slut. Is that sort of the picture maybe?

Lauren: Yeah, you’re going out in some really tight short dress every single night and just going home with just about anybody then I would consider you a slut. But people in college, I remember when I was in college I had to live with eight girls and there was rarely a weekend where there wasn’t somebody who had somebody over which is not something to be proud of but I lived, I went to a good school, I was, my friends all did really well in school, they’re all really successful now but that was just part of college. Maybe they were dating them, maybe they weren’t but that’s just how it was.

Chip: So, okay, so I’m imagining that this is not the sex life that most girls parents envisaged for them. Where do you think these attitudes come from? What’s driving this? Where are women learning to behave in this way?

Lauren: I can’t really tell you where it stems from. It’s just this understanding in college, I don’t know what it is. I’ve been to many colleges, with College Candy we did a tour a couple of years ago and I visited a lot of places and it wasn’t just where I went, it doesn’t matter if its an all girls school, if it’s a private school or if its public school. When you walk into a party or a bar there are always people making out in corners. Everything is a meat market there and I don’t know why it’s turned into this but this is just, it’s almost just accepted and that’s just what it is. And I think, and it’s not always sex. I don’t want to put that out there that everyone is just going around sleeping with everybody but even just making out or other events that don’t actually include intercourse, these things are happening and I never saw myself doing this. Everyone tells themselves I’m going to be good and pure and save myself for marriage and I don’t want to ever make out with someone I don’t know, and I don’t want to bring a random person back to my house but somehow that’s just the norm in college. Obviously not every person is doing this, but its just part of what it is and student groups and sororities and fraternities and its not just the Greek life but in general you’ll have parties and you’ll have eight[?] parties and you’ll have all these things and somehow they always come back to meeting somebody and hooking up with somebody.

Chip: Lets take hooking up for a moment here. I do presentations and some work with teens teaching sex ed. Not teaching the biology, although I can teach the biology but the schools do a pretty good job of biology. More about attitude and stuff and one of the questions teenagers ask me all the time, 14, 15, 16, 17 year olds ask me, we have lively conversations about what is sex. What is, so when you say hooking up I assume that covers a wide range of sexual activities of which one of them is intercourse.

Lauren: I think it varies wildly among everybody but when I, usually on the website when most of my writers refer to hooking up its everything except intercourse.

Chip: Got it, okay. So I want to be a little graphic here, not for prurience but just to be clear. So if you and I are on a college campus and we’re dating and I go down on you, or you go down on me, did we have sex?

Lauren: No.

Chip: Wow.

Lauren: I know and that’s what’s crazy. It’s very interesting that you said that because, I don’t know why, my mother and I were talking about this one but…

Chip: Well my kids talk to me about this stuff but I don’t know about your mother.

Lauren: Yeah, we try to draw the line somewhere and this is usually way past the line. But oral sex is sex according to teachers..

Chip: It’s sex, by definition. Yeah.

Lauren : Yeah, by definition. I don’t consider that sex I consider that something prior to sex that…

Chip: Is that in the same realm as making out?

Lauren: Yeah I mean making out, I guess you’re calling something hooking up, my range is making out to oral sex.

Chip: Okay

Lauren: And everything in-between. I think obviously there’s different levels and there’s different definitions but sex is for me is actual intercourse, I don’t consider anything else to be that.

Chip: Okay so let me just follow this analogy a little farther. So you and I meet on a college campus, we’re both college age, we decide we have the hots for each other, I bring you off using my hands, you bring me off using my, using your hands. Did we have sex?

Lauren: No.

Chip: Wow, okay. So even though I came. I can cum in your hand, I can cum on your body, I can cum in your mouth, that’s not sex.

Lauren: No.

Chip: Wow. Wow. So sex is pretty much intercourse, so pretty much penises in vagina.

Lauren: Yes.

Chip: And so I’m imagining penises, its not penises in any orifice, its not, so what happens with like kinky stuff? What happens to like anal play and what happens to all those sorta, I mean I did actually talk to one college co-ed who said to me well I want to be a virgin when I get married so I only let men in my anus and was like…

Lauren: I know I think that is the craziest thing ever thought.. It’s not something that I really consider asking ‘cause its not something that I’m personally attracted too.

Chip: I’m not trying to embarrass you here, I’m just trying to make sense of it.

Lauren: Yeah I think I would say at that point they had sex because I think, I don’t know. I think oral sex is not sex but I think other orifices I would consider that sex. If their going to do anal or vaginal, I would consider them both to be pretty straight forward intercourse.

Chip: I have this fantasy that the reason this generation doesn’t really think that oral sex is sex for instance is because when they were little kids Bill Clinton was saying I didn’t have sex with her.

Lauren: No, I think its just, I think we’ve always been told and I could be wrong, its hard for me to remember ninth grade like that but, I was always under the impression that sex was penetration and it was vaginal penetration. I don’t know why. There’s a scary thought if you think about all these kids are doing it younger and younger and younger. I personally just never considered that sex, I considered myself a virgin until I actually have full blown intercourse. And I’m pretty sure most people would agree with that.

Chip: Wow. Well I’m imagining its because of the confusion between, I think you’re exactly right that what you learn in ninth grade biology is reproductive biology which we short hand as sex and I guess some people must just get it in their head that if it isn’t reproductive biology then it isn’t sex. And of course, having orgasms in somebody’s mouth or in somebody’s hand, there’s no reproductive quality to it so I guess that must be the deciding factor here.

Lauren: Yeah but I think its across the board, if you ask anybody when they lost their virginity they’re not going to say the first time they performed oral sex. Or the first time that they had oral sex performed on them. I think the reason we consider loosing your virginity to be actual intercourse is because it is something you’re both doing together as opposed to one to the other.

Chip: Okay, I don’t want to follow it too much further. I’m starting to get images now, I don’t know, let’s move on.  

So now you said an interesting thing, you’ve actually talked to your mother about some of these things. Are kids hiding this behavior from their parents are they, is this behavior parents are aware of? Is this encouraged?

Lauren: I think its one of those things. At least in my family it’s kind of like, if you’re doing it, that’s fine, we just don’t want to know about it. Even down to the website I write for my parents try not to read it because they don’t want to change the way they view me. They don’t really want to know what happens in college because if I turned out okay and obviously I have a job, I’ve got a life together. I just I think maybe people do talk about with their parents but when you tell your parents you’re dating somebody you’re not going to tell them that how you met was I got wasted in a bar then we made out in a corner and then I dragged him home with me and I didn’t even know his last name at that moment. And then the next morning he left. Its not something that you’re particularly proud of and I think that’s really interesting to think about because if you went on a date with a guy… Now I’m older and I’m actually dating people and not sleeping with them or hooking up with them the first night I meet them. I have no problem telling my parents that I went on a date with someone or that I slept with somebody new but I would never tell them about my life in college and how things were there. And that forces you to think oh if I can’t tell my parents about this, there’s obviously something wrong with my behavior. But we never really think about it because everyone’s doing it.

Chip: So its widespread behavior with a fair amount of peer pressure to continue the behavior but it’s also behavior that has a fair amount of shame attached to it.

Lauren: I think so and I think people aren’t going to acknowledge the shame and I think that we hide behind a lot of things. I’m not saying that I’m ashamed of what I did or that I regret what I did but you tell people oh well female empowerment, I’m all over this, I want to be sexually inhibited or uninhibited just like all the guys are. Or I need sex, because we’ve been taught lately that sex is great and everyone should have sex and all these things. Or you tell yourself I’m single and I’m going to enjoy it but what it comes down to is this behavior is kind of backwards and well, it’s hiding behind a number of excuses because we don’t really pay attention to the fact that this is probably not the best way to go about meeting somebody.

Chip: Wow. So you just, am I… I’m a goggle here. But I want to take a break here for a moment, so listeners we’re going to continue this conversation and do stay tuned because Lauren has a exercise, something you can try at home that kind of comes out of her thinking about all of these things but right now we want to take a short break and as we go to break I just want to remind you that one of the ways that you can help me grow my program, is that if you hear stuff that you’re interested in or things that you enjoy listening to, would you please send a link of my show to people that you think might enjoy it and that way we can reach more and more and more people. I think the things we talk about here are at the essence of life. We’re talking about love and intimacy and sexuality and these are topics that I think everybody might be interested in. So please feel free to send a link and help me grow my audience.

Also if you happen to visit the episode pages you’ll notice that there is a link there for a survey and if you would just take five minutes and fill out my anonymous listener survey, I’ll understand better who is listening to the show and so will my sponsors and it will create some sponsor confidence, which will help me sell a little more advertising which will help me continue to do the show. So if you’ll go to survey.personallifemedia.com or just go to personallifemedia.com and look for the survey link. Its fast, it’s easy and it will really help me out. So thank you very much. As I say, we’ll be right back and do come back because Lauren’s got an exercise for us.

[Music plays]

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Chip: Welcome back to Sex, Love and Intimacy. I’m your host Chip August, I’m talking to Lauren Herskovic and she’s the editor of collegecandy.com and we’ve been talking about the sort of the sexual morays[sp] on campuses today. We’ve been talking about mostly college women and how they behave and maybe why they behave and kind of what the norm is these days. And what I’m hearing is that there’s a lot of hooking up and there’s a lot of sex that’s just kind of a celebration of I can be a sexual being, I need and want sex and doesn’t really have much to do with intimacy or relationship. And it just makes me, as a parent, start to worry about sexually transmitted conditions and diseases. So is that a conversation, are you hearing that STI’s, sexually transmitted infections are a conversation on campuses. Are these people worried about getting herpes or chlamydia or gonorrhea or syphilis or any of the other 25 sexually transmitted infections?

Lauren: I think the first worry that comes to peoples mind is probably pregnancy and then followed after by STD’s and STI’s. I think it’s defiantly an issue that’s something we think about. And the wonderful thing about college students today in our generation is that condoms are really not even a question it’s just an understanding and it’s a must have and its, obviously this does not apply to everybody and I know there’s a lot of guys who will gripe about it, but it’s never really a question. So even if you’re not going to have the conversation with your partner before you start having sex, at least people are thinking to use protection against it.

Chip: Wow.

Lauren: But you know the amount of STD’s and STI’s are spreading in colleges. A lot of times people don’t know, they’re not getting tested as frequently as they should be. I think a lot of people don’t think about getting tested or they don’t want to get tested ‘cause they’re scared and then mostly things are spreading because people don’t even know they have them. But it’s definitely a conversation I would not say when you’re drunk and you bring somebody home from the bar that you’re going to ask them how recently they’ve been tested and even if the answer comes out, if anyone’s even going to think about it or care because we aren’t making these decision all the time in the right mind. So.

Chip: So this whole, you mentioned getting drunk a couple of times here and I do think a lot of adults have a picture of college campuses of being sort of this hot bed of drunkenness. Some amount of drugs, but a whole lot of alcohol and that maybe this is all behavior that is fuelled that wouldn’t happen if people would just stay sober. Is alcohol kind of fuelling all this?

Lauren: I think it is. I think alcohol gives people a sense of confidence, you kind of throw your inhibitions out the window and again it all stems from this fear of rejection. If you’re drunk and you’re hitting up somebody and you’re just dancing with somebody and it turns into something, no ones really putting themselves out there and no one will really ultimately get rejected and be upset about it. I think, I don’t think people are going to stop having sex in college because alcohol is out. I just know that, anybody knows, who’s had a couple too many drinks or even has just a couple that you immediately start feeling a little better about yourself and you feel a little more willing to put yourself out there and maybe you feel a little more willing, your desire to bring somebody home or to have a little sexual excitement is peaked with the alcohol.

Chip: Now when I went to college which was a million years ago in the middle of the century[?] you could, there was no college dorm you could walk into that didn’t reek of marijuana. I mean that was just the reality of it and everybody knew where to get drugs and everybody knew who to ask, maybe not everybody but it felt like drugs were pretty freely available. Drugs, probably not heroin, probably not drugs that people took IV, but certainly marijuana, certainly hallucinogens, certainly cocaine and its various derivatives. Pretty much if you knew anybody who went to any parties, you knew somebody who could get you a joint or could get you a snort of cocaine or could get you.. is it still that way? Is it still sort of also a place where people are getting high all the time?

Lauren: I think it depends on the school, it depends on the social group you’re talking about but I’m pretty sure that if you want somehing on a college campus you can get it. And you can find someone who can get it for you. I wasn’t really into that college and I don’t really know much about it but I do know that it was very prevalent at my campus and which was interesting because I was there for over four years and I never even knew that half these things existed..

Chip: Wow.

Lauren: ..because it wasn’t…

Chip: Wasn’t in your circle.

Lauren: Yeah, wasn’t in my circle but do you want cocaine, or you want pot, or you want prescription drugs are very big right now and if you want that there is somebody who’s going to have it and you’re going to find it.

Chip: Well it’s all such a picture of the decadent wanton days of the end of the Roman Empire or the end of…

Lauren: You know it’s sad because its really, I’m not going to say that alcohol is harmless because obviously people get really [xx] get really sick, they can die, things like that but, I would say that because you’re looking at a college campus alcohol is definitely going to be the number one quote unquote drug that people are using there. And I don’t want to paint this picture where college campus is this horrible place and you shouldn’t trust your children there. We’ve all gone to college, all of our parents have gone through it and they’ve probably done worse things on their campuses than we’re doing now. And its time to grow and to learn and we kind of have to let everybody do that. I just think that we just need to pay attention and the reason I wanted to bring this story to light is because if we stop to think about it for a minute, like I stopped to think about it recently and you realize okay this is happening and its such the norm on my campus but it’s not something I need to take a part in and I think there are a lot of things we can do if you think about it and you realize that maybe we can bring dating back to what it used to be. Maybe we can start…

Chip: How, how would we do that? If you could add one or two or three things that you, what would be the top one or two or three things that you think college campuses could do to begin to encourage people to at least be more mindful about their sexuality?

Lauren: Well I think more, I think more discussions like this on the campus. A lot of schools are so afraid of their reputation getting ruined by bringing a lot of the dark things to light that they don’t want to ever bring it up or talk about it but just allowing an open dialogue about let’s talk about what dating is like here, are you happy with the way things are going and have your actions turned into what you wanted? Because I went through four years of college doing these things and I found my first relationship but the second half of my senior year. So obviously what I was doing wasn’t working. And I think reminding women, this is just something you can do, not even by university but just people reminding women that if you don’t sleep with someone on the first date, A if he’s not interested in you because of that then clearly he’s not worth it and B a lot of the times if you don’t sleep with someone or hook up with someone on the first date it doesn’t necessarily mean that she’s written you off and its over either.

Dating didn’t always work this way and our parents are married and a lot of people before us have gotten married and got into serious relationships, so it is possible to go to a party and to meet somebody and maybe you’re at a party and you are drinking but that doesn’t mean you have to go home with this person or bring this person home with you. You can start something and you can get a phone number and you can set the tone start this relationship in the way it used to be started as opposed to the way that we’ve all come to expect it to be. And I think another thing to do is just not be, we have to, our generation has to stop being so lazy and stop being so fearful of rejection because let me tell you, when you get out of college you’re going to be rejected from a lot of things.

[Laughs]

Lauren: A lot of times.

Chip: You don’t get most of the jobs you apply for and you don’t, you don’t actually..

Lauren: You don’t get the apartments that you want, you don’t get the money that you want and you don’t get the guys that you want. I mean, you’re going to get rejected in life and unfortunately I wasn’t really prepared for the real world because I’d gotten so used to this lifestyle in college where there’s always a way to get around something that you don’t interest you in a way that you feel more comfortable doing. And we just have to, we can’t hide behind our instant messenger, we can’t hide behind alcohol, we, there’s got to be other ways to go about these things and you have to just muster up the courage and do it and if you get rejected, fine. If it sucks, fine. In a week you’ll be over it and you’ll still have your dignity and you won’t have risked sexual transmitted diseases, pregnancy, all these things for someone that you don’t know.

Chip: Well Lauren, you have been a terrific guest and we’re kind of running out of time here. Just a couple of things, one, if people are interested in College Candy just say a little bit about the blog and where to find it and all that kind of stuff.

Lauren: Well collegecandy.com is a blog that was started by the co-ed media group and its for women, its by women and basically we have 40 or 50 and growing college women who are writing for the site and we’re pretty proud of it because unlike a lot of other places out there that give advice to college students, they’re coming from adults who haven’t been in college for what, many, many years, and so we’ve got girls who are living it now. Who are sharing their stories, who are sharing their advice and at the same time it’s a great place to learn and to be, just to understand what’s going on at college and what’s going on in the world but we also seek to entertain you so if you happen to have your laptop in class and the lecture is three hours long and you want to kill yourself, this is a good site to go and to get some entertainment, some fun stories. We talk about sex, we talk about fashion, pretty much anything a college girl would need.

Chip: Got it, thanks. Now as I said I like to leave my listeners with something they can try at home and you seem to feel like you have an idea or two. Is there and exercise or something people can do to improve the love, intimacy and sexuality in our lives?

Lauren: All I can say is, intimacy it really truly is a lot better when you’re with somebody that you love and you care about so the only thing I can recommend is to really, you know I don’t agree, I fully agree with doing what you want and I do believe that women should have the right and the ability to go out and do what they want sexually with whomever they want, it’s their life and their body but I do think that there is something to be said about saving these moments for someone who is truly special. So really when you’re out there and you’re trying to get on a date with someone, you’re trying to build a relationship with someone hold back on the whole sex thing and the whole hooking up thing and really just wait because it really will be so much better when you are with someone that you truly care about.

Chip: And I’d love to add something for everyone who is being sexual. If this is a person you want to be sexual with, I want to encourage you, next time you’re going to be sexual, ask this person if they will stop and just look into your eyes and you look into their eyes for a minimum of two minutes before you move forward. Because if you can’t look into each other’s eyes for two minutes, just looking into each others eyes and breathing, probably you shouldn’t be sharing your bodies with each other. And if you do stop and look into each others eyes, you’re going to take that whole sexual experience just to a somewhat deeper more intimate place. So I encourage you, just the power of pausing for two minutes to just look in each others eyes.

Alright we’re coming to the end of the show here so I want to thank you again for being a guest. You where very very informative, thank you.

Lauren: You’re welcome, thanks for having me.

Chip: And listeners thank you for listening in, this brings us to the end of another episode of Sex, Love and Intimacy. I’m your host Chip August and I hope you will join me again next time.

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