October 2009

Around this time of year, BlueBalls gets a little nostalgic. And nostalgia, as always, shall be visited upon the freshmen. Most relationship advice to frosh takes the form of knowing grins about long-distance high school relationships. (The litany: a mid-October drunken Yale fumble, a tearful recrimination over Thanksgiving break, accompanied by break-up and make-up sex, followed by the inevitable hurtful breakup over Christmas. Don’t worry, kids, your relationship will be different.)

BlueBalls’ thoughts, though, are not with those 2013 kids who have promised to call their girlfriends every night, but with their opposites. The ones who never had a lover in high school because they were too geeky, too queer, had too conservative a family or were simply working too bloody hard. Or the ones who dated, but never found someone who was as smart, as ambitious, as funny or as experienced as they would like. The ones, in short, who hope that Yale will solve all their romantic problems.

Many of these will be hoping that soon after orientation their eyes will lock across a desk in Sterling Memorial with some sweet young thing in argyle – or their hips will lock at Toad’s with an older, experienced, mostly-naked temptation – and that from there the relationship will be solid, the sex will be wonderful, and the pillow talk will be erudite. This is a bit like the mythical kid down the hall who has always wanted to be a pediatrician in Eritrea, and so takes Chem and Bio and Arabic and Italian and Development Economics and Health Policy and graduates straight into med school and a fulfilling career with Doctors Without Borders. But for most people, Yale isn’t like that.

Instead, it’s a bit more like taking, loving, and becoming disillusioned with Directed Studies, turning sophomore year to Physics, realizing that you never could stand equations, then taking up medieval French poetry and realizing that you’re not very good at it but love it enough to give up your dreams of Phi Beta Kappa. When explaining your Yale career to grad school, you’ll tell a story of a committed humanist with diverse interests who was careful to ground her main interest in a broader knowledge of the Western Canon. But while you’re in what feels like a mess, figuring out what you like and what you’re good at and what’s worth your time and what isn’t, you’ll feel like you have no idea what you’re doing. Welcome to sex and relationships at Yale.

At least in the academic realm, most Yalies believe that their willpower and their brains will let them accomplish what they want, if they can figure out what that is. Admission to Yale, however, requires no high score in empathy or sexual ability; besides, sex and relationships require that risky, unpredictable element of other people.

But BlueBalls, from behind a haze of smoke and cynicism and regret, advises you young ‘uns to have fun. Embrace the fact that you will make mistakes and get hurt and look back on your conduct and not recognise yourself: drink too much before that first date because it is not only your first dinner with that new guy but also your First Date Ever, dress up in something stupid for Freshman Screw, do something that would shock your friends from school and cause your mother to faint. Just carry condoms, take advantage of Yale’s free, confidential STI testing, and be ready to hold your friends when they get their hearts broken. And those of you in high-school relationships, bear this all in mind: you’ll need it after Christmas.

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BlueBalls would like your questions. Like her heroes, she plans on giving opinionated, vulgar, and occasionally helpful advice every so often. If you have questions (or anecdotes/opinions/criticisms), send ‘em on over to broadblueballs@gmail.com. All identifying everythings will be erased.

April 2009

Why a sex column? By now, the novelty of knowing that Ivy League kids have sex is wearing thin. We have “RumpusRumpus” for salacious stories and the occasionally necessary public shaming. And we’re Yalies, right? We got into a university with an acceptance rate of under 10%. Surely desire, sexual ethics, body image, gender relations and plain old insecurity are easier to figure out than cell bio or Chinese poetry. Right?

Right?

Sure doesn’t look that way on a Saturday night.

BlueBalls has a few assumptions about Yalies. That many of us are more comfortable in the library Sunday evening than in bed Saturday night. That lots of us are perfectionists, and that sex isn’t a good place to indulge our neuroses but we do it anyway. That we fear failure. That we drink to try and hide all that. That a lot of us haven’t really gotten over high school.

(BlueBalls would like to insure herself against a torrent of defensive emails by pointing out that she isn’t talking about you. She’s sure you’re a sexual dynamo. The kids in the next entryway, though? Not so much.)

And that’s OK. We’re still young, and just because we started charities or set records or invented life-saving drugs doesn’t mean that sex and relationships will come any easier. BlueBalls is here to help. Or at least to empathise. Or at least to make you feel that things could be worse.

And for a campus full of smart people where conversation about sex frequently stops at “She did WHAT?” BlueBalls thinks that we could – and shall, friends, and shall – do better. We plan to address some crucial questions: does the ‘slut’ exist and how is it identified? Why do girls go to frat parties? What is it about cunnilingus? Is pedagogy necessarily erotic? Even with my Calculus TA? Why does ‘Just tell him what you want’ remain such frequent advice given its clear uselessness? If you have answers, questions, illustrative or amusing anecdotes, send them this way.

And about those anecdotes. This blog is anonymous. Or rather, pseudonymous. This is mostly because BlueBalls expects to lean heavily on her experience and that of her friends, and is not sure that law schools, investment banks or starving orphans appreciate knowing about their admittees, associates or aid workers’ orgasms. Or their adventures with STD testing at DUH, their discovery of how to sleep two to a Yale bed or their confusion about how to be a sane feminist having casual sex. BlueBalls would like to live in a world where this doesn’t matter, but knows that she doesn’t.

Anyway, now that you’ve got your bearings, watch this space. Coming up, my sex life, your sex life, your friends’ sex lives. Enjoy.

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(For those of you who are curious, BlueBalls is a vaguely queer female Yale student in the humanities. She has a long background in sex education and sex activism, but has always gotten less sex than she feels she deserves.)

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BlueBalls would like your questions. Like my heroes, I plan on giving opinionated, vulgar, and occasionally helpful advice every so often. If you have questions (or anecdotes/opinions/criticisms), send ‘em on over to broadblueballs@gmail.com. All identifying everythings will be erased.