How to Get in The Sex Column

Welcome back, bitches. Flip through today’s Sun and notice the abundance of columns related to sex. Following Cornell’s sex-starved Winter Break it looks like coeds are ready to go Spring Break crazy a little early, packing Collegetown bars and slutting it up for the tide of mixers hitting the frat scene. I can’t help you get laid (unless you are an attractive female, in which case: let’s talk), but I can help you attain at least one of your goals this semester (the one just below “4.0 GPA” and above “not taking Basics Level 2”). Here’s some rock-solid advice on how you — yes, you! — can make it into this beloved little rag known as the sex column. Time to make Mom and Dad proud.

Our eyes meet. I offer the slightest of smirks as I lean in and her face comes closer. Seconds feel like minutes. The once-infinite space between our lips has shrunk to nothingness. And then it happens. She gives me the cheek and I kiss it with a look of incredulity. I chuckle and raise an eyebrow as she scampers away from the car, shoeless, back to her house.

Maybe you were thinking this was that momentous first kiss — that super-special moment that sends you to that second star on the right and straight on ‘til morning, that moment that teen movies and Cosmo will have you believe can tell you everything about your relationship, what kind of person your partner is, what the weather is going to be on Tuesday (snow), etc. Nah, the first kiss just tells you how good of a kisser your kiss-ee is, but this was not that kiss anyway.

This was the, “I got out of bed at 9:30 in the morning on a Sunday to drive you home after you stayed the night” kiss goodbye. Is saying goodbye really going to be more awkward than any of the contortionist antics from the night before? Whatever, who cares if your breath is bad? It’s just a quick kiss on the lips. Didn’t you kiss 15 random people at midnight on New Year’s after you vomed Jack and Cokes?

Figuring out how to say goodbye the morning-after can be like wearing an extra small turtleneck (an actual turtleneck, not foreskin, Jess): uncomfortable. Did we not just have sex? I mean, I was even going to ask you for road head on the trek back to your house, but we can just fist bump instead.

See, things were different back in the day (when there were only white presidents and female sex columnists). There used to be rules for this. After George Washington got his nut (George Washington Carver pun!), the common cultural practice of the day was to solemnly retire to one’s separate bed without so much as a simple “nighty night” (or “natti-natti” as the Swedes say), write a letter to your wife professing your love for her and how you wish the weather would not be so snowy on Tuesday, and then repeat the process again a year later. You expected this every time. There were no cogs in the machine. You stuck to the standard. No room for awkward! Except Thomas Jefferson. He had mad awkward daddy drama with at least one of his slaves. That’s why he’s on fake money $2 bills.

Nowadays there is no formula. Of course an awkward morning is worth an excellent night, but why so serious? Let’s aim to limit the awkward head nods with sexual partners on Ho Plaza, the “I really need to be productive tomorrow, so I’m going to go sleep in my own bed” exits at 2:30 in the morning, the goodbye kiss on the cheek or the lack of any form of romantic goodbye gesture (“Peace out, bro!”), the forwarding of e-mails detailing your torrid, graphic love affair over the entire Johnson School list-serv, beating it in front of her because she won’t, cheating on your girl Mad Men-style and the peeing on someone or in someone’s bed as they sleep. From experience, buy an apology cake for them afterwards, they will appreciate this. Just tell the person at Wegman’s that it is not spelled “peeeing,” because they’ll still charge you full price when they mess up. True story.

But let’s keep the awkward lines of hilarity and ridiculous actions that give us something to talk about with our friends the next day:

Your partner shouting “This is better than cheese” (which is probably the pinnacle of compliments. I love cheese. Shout-out to cheese. Cheese did not need a how-to to get in the sex column). The attempts at performing positions that require one or more parties involved to be a Division 1 gymnast. Ejaculating EVERYWHERE. Falling out of the bed (or breaking the bed and the set of drawers underneath). Fucking and punching (my obligatory Californication reference). The stopping mid-thrust to put on the wig from your Halloween costume “just because.”

Let’s keep these gems of awkwardness. Especially when you’re having sex with someone for the first time, how out-of-the-ordinary is the sex going to be? Standard missionary, maybe some girl-on-top and one orgasm, collectively. How is anyone going to remember such a mundane experience without an intermission for juggling or a hilariously awkward remark? So the moral of the story is this … if you want to be in the sex column it’s not about how good you are. There’s only so good (enthusiasm, compatibility, cool maneuvers, have a grilled cheese [the new cigarette!] ready for post-coitol consumption) or so bad (starfish) you could be, so what I really have to see is just how awkward you are. Or maybe I’m confusing awkward with memorable.

Having said all this, I’m reluctant to see what happens with the next girl I bring back to my dungeon on Catherine. Either way, girls, just keep it awkwardly PG. We wouldn’t want to do anything too intimate or inappropriate considering we are having sex. So think: cheek kiss, cheek kiss, cheek kiss. Because for the girl who this was about, I guess I’ve already made it sufficiently awwwkkkwaarrddd ….

Stayed tuned for more in-depth and fail-safe methods for getting into the sex column in Part Two of this series entitled: How to Get in the Sex Column ... part two of this exciting two-part series!

Jeff K. is a senior in the College of Engineering. He may be reached, for sexual encounters or otherwise, at jeffk@cornellsun.com [4]. Come Inside appears alternate Thursdays this semester.