Pol Rebaque/Staff

In The Daily Californian’s first ever fashion editorial, we show you how to stay chic in the heat. With unpredictable weather around the Berkeley campus and the larger Bay Area, layers that mix patterns, textures and bright shades will take you from balmy summer days on the Glade to dewy evenings in the Berkeley Hills. Whatever the occasion, the perfect summer look embraces tropical florals, lucite extras and printed separates. Our favorites include palm tree-printed trousers on Nazhat and a lightweight linen gown on Jahon.

Models: Jahon Amirebrahimi, Nazhat Salim

Editorial Photographer: Pol Rebaque

Editorial Director: Meadhbh McGrath

Editorial Team: Sasha Chebil, Ashley Chen, Mohana Kute, Denise Lee & Bonnie Mata Matthews

Special thanks to Sway, Mars and James Rowland Shop for providing models’ attire.

Contact Daily Cal Arts staff at arts@dailycal.org.

Bonnie Mata Matthews/Senior Staff

After picking it up recently at a flea market, Woodrow considers his leather jacket a modern and versatile staple. He is now rarely seen without it and swears that both his jacket and hat can be worn in all weather.

The Daily Cal arts staff searched the Berkeley campus for summer looks that capture the distinct individuality of our student body. As temperatures soar, tank tops can be tempting, but these trendsetters embrace any chance to express themselves.

First photo: After picking it up recently at a flea market, Woodrow considers his leather jacket a modern and versatile staple. He is now rarely seen without it and swears that both his jacket and hat can be worn in all weather.

Second photo: Angelica Garcia spices up a light summer dress with T-bar sandals and her signature hair wrap from Venice Beach.

Third photo: Ashley Morgan opts for a shorts and flatforms combo to take her from class to the dance floor.

Fourth photo: Velour enthusiast Pat Simpson ordered this track suit online because he believes it is “all-purpose attire” and ideal for shooting hoops with friends.

Meadhbh McGrath is the arts editor. Contact her at mmcgrath@dailycal.org. Check her out on Twitter at @MeadhbhMcGrath.

Bonnie Mata/Senior Staff

Each time I go, I feel more and more desperately the need to defend Paris. Friends’ fathers unimpressed by the throng of Italian students being let in by the second to Orsay, ticket lines comparable to Disneyland’s at Versailles … “Completely impossible to navigate, let alone breathe, in the hall of mirrors — Unacceptable.” My BFFL heaving from the stench of urine in the depths of the Gare du Nord, even more disturbed by my urging us to jump the metro barricade without paying. “Why wouldn’t the ticket booths work? Why don’t they accept card here?” Le Big Mac, half the size of a Big Mac for double the price. Picturesque walk to Clignacourt’s flea markets interrupted by a gypsy woman tanning her amputated legs on the sidewalk before us. First time I saw someone without a nose was in Paris. First time I saw someone smoking crack, too. Land of the chic but home to a thousand and one freakshows.

“Paris is dead,” my friend would always say as we disembarked at the Daumesnil metro stop. She would whip her blond hair and look back at me smirking as we passed her Algerian neighbors, who never left the premises of the rusty playground on the corner, just by the yellow recycling pins. They would sit and call at us. Les meufs, les meufs, venez. Their advances were always welcome, as far as we were concerned. Anything to indicate the signs of the City of Lights’ deterioration. We loved it in our twisted world. Paris might be burning, but we’re into the heat.

Le fond de l’air est frais: something I learned from an old lady claiming it was the most beautiful French saying because it can’t be translated. Demystification of Paris, I think, is what all Parisians seek. Why not make it so unappealing that nobody wants to come back? Sadly, most of these efforts are futile. Thus, I force myself to get cozy with the sight of an American family’s impromptu photo-shoot in front of a pissing SDF in Le Marais. His victory cry breaks through gray whiskers and broken teeth as he happily smashes his bottle on the ground.You can get a bottle of wine for a euro here. The average baguette is 40 centime. Vive la France, I like to say.

****

“I was generally unenthused, I’d say. Yes, well, Versailles was quite far from the center, actually. I had to take three bloody shuttle busses to get there! Surprisingly, though, they sell a mean burger at the Eiffel Tower’s restaurant … well, considering they could charge whatever they wanted for it! What’d you say?”

“I’ve never been.”

“You’ve never been to the top of the Eiffel Tower?”

“No.”

****

I try my best to not discuss Paris with other Americans. The crosscurrent of self-loathing in the acknowledgment of contributing by default to what we hate most about Paris is too grim to bear. The first time I went to the base of the Eiffel Tower, I found myself in tears. So overcome with disgust, I almost institutionalized myself with Paris Syndrome, the phenomenon common among Japanese tourists in which the discrepancy between expectation and reality upon discovering the layer of filth obscuring Paris’ pristine fictional aura sends them into fainting spells and panic attacks. The city is filled with various wellness centers dedicated to easing anxiety and allowing disappointed tourists to cope with what is effectively the momentous Crushing of Dreams.

The shock of it all is an important first step. I made sure to take my friend, Paris-virgin and guilty of preconceived illusions of grandeur, directly to the Gare du Nord upon arrival. We had come from Milan, so nothing short of a brutal introduction would do to take the aftertaste of four Prada shops in one block out of her mouth. Her bougie afterglow was almost neon. I took her down three levels almost instantaneously: bum piss, screaming migrant children, general dizziness and mild eye-watering every time the doors opened on line eight to let in the stench of rotten fish-farm and dog breath. It is necessary to understand that, if absolutely necessary, it’s possible to successfully avoid travesties like this in Paris. It’s always still possible to hide behind the city’s ornate iron balconies, distressed stone walls, jasmine trees, horseflies … Paris is still very much an untouched gem. I say this unsarcastically.

Beyond the similarly sacrosanct air of its historical milieu and its native residents, however, somewhere north of Oberkampf and west of Belleville, but all over really, the less publicized side of Paris is nothing short of inspiring. It’s Paris and it’s not. There’s a black guy in a metallic suit next to an Asian guy in a snapback next to a mother in a Lanvin turban. They’re all smoking E-cigs, but no, they’re not embarrassed, and yes, they’re all poised to mount their motorcycles and ride off to their jobs at creative tech ateliers. Out comes a baker soaked in sweat and flour: c’est pas une place de parking là! Je rigole … la ville entiere est votre piste ma chérie …

****

I met this guy who owned a record store in the Fifth. We talked for an hour in his shop. He smelled of whiskey, but his eyes were kind, and he said it was his daughter’s birthday.

“All apartment [sic] should have a vegetable jardin on the roof. With doctor and teacher [sic] and avocat all living there. Perfect community.”

“What would be the reason to leave the house, then?”

“For entertainment. For art.”

****

The second time I dragged myself, regrettably, back to the Eiffel Tower, I was again brought to tears. Instead of experiencing the daytime zoo of rabid tourists queuing to stand on one of the raised platforms on the west side, I found the place comparatively empty by night. Looking at the big old thing, I felt sorry for her: forever poised to perform, each light show a singular effort to make up for the imposing metal mess of her body during the day. No one would like Toulouse-Lautrec’s dancers in the unforgiving light of day, stripped of her jewels and feathers. The tower’s glittering sepia patterns that bounce off apartment windows and rain puddles on the ground are the reason some claim that Paris is most beautiful in the rain. It didn’t help that I was in love. I didn’t know if there were tears or raindrops on my face, trying to look pretty taking pictures while struggling with a broken umbrella while my French boyfriend rinsed his kebab breath with a three-euro bottle of wine. This is what dreams are made of. In Paris of all places. Call me romantic, but there’s not much better than falling asleep in Paris with a substantial wine-buzz and a Frenchman giving out substantial French-cunnilingus for nothing. I’m a selfish lover, I guess. But this was Paris.

“This isn’t fucking Paris,” people like to say in London. This is true. I guess it’s some perverse justification of the hurry everyone’s in. I really never understood how Parisians could spend so many hours in cafes while seemingly still employed full time. It couldn’t be everyone’s five-week vacation all the time. My friend used to say the same thing all the time. “French people don’t like eating. They like food. They are obsessed with food. We know how to live,” she’d say, as if I hadn’t the slightest idea of what living was.

****

“Someone threw a full cup of water on me while waiting to see the Mona Lisa,” my friend from Cambridge later told me as we compared travel horror stories. “Just out of nowhere!”

“I had to seek refuge from a 70-year-old stalker at 4 a.m. in some two-star hotel after a rave one night in Italy.”

“I mean, really, how do they even let people in there with open cups of water?”

“I hate the Mona Lisa.”

How is it exactly that some saucy Italian (questionable) female has come to embody — even envisage — Paris? A lot of my recent thinking about the way in which things go viral has led me to suspect that Mona’s (Lisa’s?) mystique is a lot similar to Paris’. While arguably overrated and underwhelming, Da Vinci’s portrait nonetheless seems to possess the same enchanting quality that the city itself ceaselessly exercises over its millions of visitors per year. People hungrily rage to get there, they take the obligatory hundred photos unknowingly overexposed by the flash on the bulletproof glass, they leave, they complain about it on the way back to the hotel, they complain about it on the flight back home to Chicago, then they complain about it to their friends and neighbors, knowingly sparking a curiosity in those same friends and neighbors to see and experience the delectably tacky sight for themselves.

In order to truly appreciate this mysterious city, it is important to at least attempt to define the paradox of it being simultaneously an overwhelmingly straightforward city. While tauntingly alluring, Paris wears its heart on its sleeve at all times. It’s haughty by way of its palaces as well as its slums. By some miraculous feat, the city manages to own and love its own shortcomings as much as its grandest spectacles. Paris remains a mystery to me for the simple fact that its culture, so inseparable from its commercial identity, can avoid being irrevocably replaced by its fictional image. Holding on to its appeal like a crazed Frenchman to a frog leg, Paris stands as a testament to the resilient original aura of a work of art. It might still provoke an epileptic fit of disappointment in some, but if you approach it from its good side, Paris may prove itself to be more alive than ever before.

Contact Bonnie Mata at bmata@dailycal.org.

I flip over onto my stomach in the morning. 11 a.m. Fuck. No recollection of turning off the alarms set for 7 a.m., 8:15 a.m., 10:45 a.m. Missed morning training again. The rugby girls won’t care. I’m American; therefore, all my misbehavior is somehow excused and/or overlooked. They won’t even remember me by September — just the girl who peed on the faculty lawn and jab-cross-hooked an Oxford guy in the neck thrice at the varsity drinks reception. Yawn. Three new Tinder messages? No, I’m not interested in entering the Bone Zone, not today, thanks.

I’ve been reading a lot of Kant lately. Not pretentiously — I just can’t help it. I’ve found it’s a little too easy to lose your head in your readings, but I can’t help that either. Today seems like one of those days to forcibly cease my intellectual masturbation and take in the essence of the sublimity around me. I could really go for an aesthetic blow to the head in order to appreciate all this beauty. Shouldn’t I be concussed by now? Or comatose from perfection overdose? I couldn’t place the source of my ambivalence toward what is arguably the world’s best university. It’s the same case at UC Berkeley I guess: You lock yourself in Main Stacks, self-flagellating while sunshine and Strawberry Creek sexily call your name from above.

Walking down the cobblestone streets, I actually think that it’s not all that different here from Berkeley, really. There are homeless people here. They play guitar outside of grocery stores; they play guitar inside of trash cans as a quirky party trick. They have cats and dogs. There’s the Kip’s equivalent called Cindy’s, where you can go and cry drunkenly with your friends over Third Eye Blind and feel shitty about yourself and at least no one will judge you for wearing Sperrys in the club. Take away the menacing gothic churches and the British accents and the creepy traditions, and it’s just a university town underneath it all. There’s even a mini-Berkeley inside King’s College, where feminist cool kids and LARPers coexist in socialist, molly-induced harmony. Both schools are fucked-up utopias, both sustained autonomous bubbles in their own ways. Both schools have the same stress, the same competition and the same average number of suicides per year.

The truth is that a very strong part of me is ready to forget the past and leave Berkeley behind, never to return — retire my pajamas-to-class aesthetic in exchange for a blazer-a-day kind of life. I could trade in the smell of weed and urine on Telegraph Avenue for eucalyptus and greasy sausage rolls on King’s Parade. I could casually sip Pimm’s while playing croquet and discussing the cosmic microwave background with Stephen Hawking, all the while pretending white privilege doesn’t really exist.

The inevitable phenomenon of culture shock almost sends me running from the flat land of the straight-faced to the singing Berkeley hills. I crave refuge amongst my often overly expressive — albeit emotionally in-tune — friends. Mental health is not a thing here. The other very real truth is that I’d also just as willingly ship my ass back to the Bay at a moment’s notice. This crossroads between a suppressed longing for Cal, nostalgia for what is soon to be a closed chapter of my life, and a general ambivalence toward my experience here was putting me on edge. I couldn’t even enjoy my iced latte from Cafe Nero. Did it even matter that I couldn’t decide how I felt? It probably did, because my innate existentialism was sending me into something of a crisis on the first day of English summer. I decided to see a therapist at £60 an hour. No Tang Center here.

“Can I ask you what sparked these sudden tears, dear?”

“Oh, um, sure … I don’t really know exactly.”

“Indeed. I bet you’d love to just crawl back into the womb, wouldn’t you?”

At first I thought this woman’s Freudian diagnosis was unbecomingly far-fetched, but maybe it really was the womb I needed most at this moment. That lightless sack of jelly promised no room for free will, thus no room for error or discontent. I could be carried around all day instead of ambling aimlessly. I wouldn’t have to play favorites between Berkeley and Cambridge, wouldn’t have to choose between my American and British heritages. Best of all, I wouldn’t have to feel guilty about laying under the duvet for a couple more hours, letting the beauty of the day go to waste without needing to exert my power of subliminal judgment over objects of supreme aesthetic value. Trinity Hall would be there tomorrow. Hell, I’ll always have Dwinelle.

“Off the Beat” guest columns will be written by Daily Cal staff members until the summer semester’s regular opinion writers are selected.

Someone walked up to me once on a rainy day and said, “Hey, there. I don’t mean to be rude, but I think you forgot to put a bra on today.” It was February. I was wearing winter white, my hard nipples poking through my Polo sweater like middle fingers to the haters.

Flashback to seventh grade: C and I in the middle-school bathroom, binding our upper torsos with packing tape to give our tween twins a semblance of cleavage before homecoming. Visions of playmates danced in our heads, and shiny silicone twinkled in the whites of our eyes as we looked in the mirror, tragically satisfied with the cleavage we managed to muster up. Cut to eighth grade biology class: me sitting there, fiddling with the straps of my two push-up bras while cursing whatever recessive gene I inherited for small tits. Anyhow, I was stunted for life.

So there I stood, telling this kid off for actually starting this conversation with me — after all, it’s 2014, and I’m not dumb enough to have accidentally left my brasier on the bus stop. “#FreeTheNipple, asshole.” I smiled.

What brought me to this point — what you could consider a full 180 from my previous “Girls Next Door” affinity — is no mystery. Indeed, the change didn’t just occur like the flip of a switch or the automatic move of flinging my shirt off at my co-op’s parties. The stiff-lipped confidence of a nude camping trip and a topless photoshoot on the cliffs of Biarritz doesn’t just come out of nowhere. From my first exposure to a Spanish beach, where everyone — thin, fat, young, old — goes tetas al aire without fear of inciting lascivious outbursts from onlooking men, to those first few lovers who went so far as to call my breasts beautiful, my current bodily pride is purely the result of an ongoing education in self-love and self-respect.

Learning to love my body, furthermore, is the product of a perpetual disassociation with grotesquely unrealistic images of female beauty that shaped my teenage self. The process also involves learning to understand that no one’s body is a cause for shame and that negative self-talk is a cultural bad habit that has got to be kicked immediately. Even more toxic than the media’s obsession with “not suitable or safe for work” tits and asses and the media’s nonstop objectification of the female form is its systematic masking of certain anatomical danger zones, the nipple being one of two highly triggering areas.

Our culture hides and stigmatizes the female nipple to a pathological extent, and my issue with the vagina must be looked over for now. But by current Instagram standards, the female nipple — right up there with the erect penis — is considered pornographic content subject to account deletion if reported by another user — rest in peace, @badgalriri. As if the only thing keeping me from licking my phone is that exposed areola, not all the other flesh on display.

I want to make it clear that I’m not taking issue with bras as such. I’m not here to deny their very useful value as sag-and-back savers, their godsent support at the gym or their masterful ability to seduce. My credo is beyond the noble bra burning of our ’70s sisters. What I take issue with is the conversion of the bra as a physical necessity for some into the social imperative for all. The bra has become a fatal crutch of femininity to the extent that the female nipple has become stigmatized as indecent and, even more, a reason to be ashamed of our bodies. It has gone beyond being a functional tool or a sexy supplement to being a gendered institution as well as an enforced measure of normative femininity.

Not only must we always strive for a bigger, perkier rack, but it is socially unacceptable to even leave the house without an artificial augmentation of our lady humps. It is for this reason that I have cause to proclaim to everyone across the gender spectrum the necessity of freeing the nipple. I want to bring in the reign of cleavage normcore and take out the hideous practice of large-scale body shaming. As my 3-year-old brother would say so matter-of-factly, “Everybody has nipples.” Despite the impossibility of such an idyllic simplicity of separating the gendered body from its political significance, freeing the nipple on a wider social scale is a powerful first step in freeing ourselves from similar patriarchal tyranny.

Boni Mata writes the weekly Sex on Tuesday column. You can contact her at sex@dailycal.org.

There I was, going HAM on bae’s D — “Wait, what’d you just say?” I choked as I looked up from the carnage.

“Stick it in my butt.”

That was the first time someone asked me to even acknowledge his asshole during sex, let alone stick my finger where the sun doesn’t shine. A pretty decent fan of regular old digital penetration, I was, naturally, into it. Since then, I’ve begun asking for consent from subsequent partners to do the same thing to them, but whether they granted it or turned it down for whatever reason, I was surely making headway in the realm of breaking the ass taboo.

I soon discovered that the fortunate deterioration of this taboo is often attributed to us millennials. Not only is our generation way more inclined to touch, lick, grab and smack “dat ass” — with consent, goddamn you — but we’re also way more comfortable talking about it. Go us. The term “rimjob,” still vaguely LOL, is no longer reserved only for middle-school toilet talk. It’s now pretty kosher to whisper “eat my ass” into someone’s ear without seeming like kind of a pervert — thanks, Nicki Minaj.

So what can account for such a renaissance of a practice once commonly considered “deviant” or “shitty”? Why this insistence of the ass as the “new,” trendy source of sexual pleasure? As if a large part of the LGBT community hasn’t been having better sex than any of you heterosexuals for aeons. Much like how any cultural phenomenon or practice previously marginalized by normative society gets inevitably dragged into the mainstream, the recent obsessions with the ass and anus are no exception.

This allegedly youth-driven anal fixation is a phenomenon that is undeniably linked to a wider cultural obsession with the butt — the big butt, more specifically. While the glorification of the ass is mainly centered on women in the media — for better or worse — its repercussions transcend sex and gender. The butt is, in effect, being given more attention than it knows what to do with, and it’s only natural for this overflow to seep into the cracks, so to speak. The correlation between our pop-cultural obsession — mainstream porn included — with everything “ass” and a rise in reported ass eating, finger banging, penile banging, etc. is no coincidence.

U.S. Vogue, similarly to the New York Times, recently received scorn for its article on the “Dawn of the Butt,” claiming that it’s now not only socially acceptable but also “trendy” to embrace our fat asses, thanks to the likes of J-Lo, Iggy, Bey and Nicki, among other sex-positive divas. You can now be decidedly middle-class and do squats — but not too many — and even eat pizza! We’re finally allowed to simultaneously wear Balmain and have cellulite. Sounds great on paper — but only when ignoring the obvious difficulty of appropriating a body part for a fashion statement.

I’ve been constantly reminded of my fat ass since it sprung up on my 5-foot-3 frame at 15. Am I now supposed to feel validated that my butt is socially acceptable thanks to pop music? Does a butthole snap count as a #belfie? Has Anna Wintour even heard of the “Thong Song?” Even more astonishing is that mainstream America has decided to ignore the fact that the hip-hop and Latino music game has been celebrating the badonk since even before people bragged about eating pussy.

Despite the problematic nature of media’s official stamp of approval on the popularized, gentrified ass craze, the sheer face time of the bubble butt is undeniably making waves on our screens and in our bedrooms. Such overexposure — yes, inherently objectifying, but we should all just get over it — of all the “big, fat-ass bitches in the motherfucking club” can’t be all that bad. Whether “Anaconda” gives you a raging headache or a raging boner, Nicki Minaj and her fellow female icons do deserve some credit for their promotion of sex-positive empowerment and a reappropriation of the feminine slut complex. Without claiming that these women are in any way representative of a realistic or unaugmented body, at least the mainstream booty “trend” — if we must call it that — aims to decriminalize curves and break the ass taboo in general.

Beyond mere toleration, our obsession with “butt stuff” has just about knocked the pussy off the pedestal to make way for a rarer gem. This isn’t just about women’s bodies. While butt injections and implants have been popular among women for some time now — I see you, Kim Kardashian — according to the American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery, men are also now artificially enhancing their derriere. The struggle is very real for us all, it seems, but this doesn’t have to be entirely negative.

“Anytime anyone goes near my butt, I cum instantly,” my heterosexual friend mentioned to me once. While this might be a bit much, his reaction makes sense to me. Whether our society has turned the asshole into a sexual powder keg begging for attention or it’s precisely this anal taboo that entices and intrigues, the phenomenon goes deeper than J-Lo’s twerking in Spandex and weird red sunglasses. Despite all else, it’s a trend that utilizes its mainstream notoriety to inspire further boundary pushing behind closed doors, regardless of gender, which I’m personally down with. After all, there’s a reason why Khia wants her pussy and her crack licked — get it right.

Boni Mata writes the weekly Sex on Tuesday column. You can contact her at sex@dailycal.org or follow her on Twitter: @yungEwaste.

Clarification(s):
A previous version of this column may have implied that Lil’ Kim was the artist of “My Neck, My Back.” In fact, Khia wrote and recorded the song.

My reactions to the three reported cases of sexual assault on campus two weekends ago are conflicting. On the one, more obvious hand, anger and empathy congeal within me to form a general, tepid disgust at the prevalence of crimes such as these. On the other hand, I feel a morbid sense of relief that sexual assault survivors are growing less likely to let these cases go unreported. Of course, I’m not naive enough to pretend that rape is a rarity in our party culture, whether at a frat house or not.

It’s about time that sexual assault lost its shock value and became a dominant discourse on this campus. The stigma surrounding victims must be abolished in favor of a more comprehensive support system that utilizes our new survivor resource specialist and provides a full criminal investigation for anyone who requests it. We desperately need a paradigm shift from our current culture of fear and sexual oppression to one of safe and effective communication.

In addition to providing more resources for survivor justice and well-being, the new sexual assault law SB 967 will finally enforce an affirmative sexual consent policy for all universities in California. Beyond just “yes means yes,” the new rules for consent stipulate that voluntary, conscious affirmation must be gained every step of the way — this is not signified by silence or ambiguous moaning that might be construed as pleasure. Consent can be revoked at any moment, and any prior sexual activity in no way guarantees a follow-up. Something to write home about: If you fuck someone who is too intoxicated to give conscious consent, it’s rape.

While our university has far surpassed others with its sexual violence policy, rape culture still undeniably exists. You’ve likely heard this same lecture from my Sex on Tuesday predecessors or various other sources, so why can’t we seem to shake these hideous human rights violations for good?

While some of us could recite verbatim the new consent policy with a sock shoved in our mouths, the larger part of our student body still seems unversed in it’s formal definitions. Despite recent events, I don’t want to criminalize frat culture as the main perpetrator of sexual assault, nor do I want to attach this stigma to the entire Greek system: The reality of sexual assault extends to all corners of our campus community. Despite the fact that most sexual crimes are committed against women, I also want to avoid conceptualizing our consent laws on such explicitly gendered terms. Regardless of your gender identity, your sexual orientation or your sexual fetishes — even regardless of your lofty spot on the attractiveness scale — absolutely no one is exempt from asking first.

It’s crucial to understand that no abstract governmental campaign is going to carry forward this discourse on sexual safety without a serious effort on all our parts. Education need not necessarily come from above; communicating to your friends, housemates or sexual partners what it means to give and get consent could in fact be more powerful than any pamphlet you find at the Tang Center.

The fight against sexual violence needs to happen on both a systematic and individual level. Even if you’ve never been forced to carry out a sexual act you weren’t comfortable with, chances are you know what it feels like to utter “yes” against your will in a situation of peer pressure or emotional manipulation. Magnify that feeling exponentially, and maybe you’ll understand how it feels to be sexually violated. If you can manage that, stretch your imagination even further to comprehend the intersectional nature of injustice and sexual oppression that accompanies an act of sexual violence for certain variously oppressed individuals.

Ethical reasoning aside, I believe asking for consent should be prompted by far more than a fear of legislative punishment or a criminal proceeding being brought on your ass. Yes, it’s illegal to have sexual intercourse with someone who does not give you an unambiguous, resounding, “YES!” — but it’s way better to focus on the emotional, interpersonal rewards of effective communication than solely on its legal repercussions. Consent is fucking hot. It’s about time everybody realized that and jumped on the bandwagon — or else.

When it comes down to it, no one is going to police you behind closed doors, nor is anyone standing around handing out gold stars for lawful behavior. The fact of the matter is that safe and consistent consent practices ensure that any sexual encounter — whether with your boo or a total rando, whether highly intimate or of the “no kissing” variety — will be way better, period. No one wants to bone someone that doesn’t want them back: If we did, we’d all just be fucking watermelons and blow-up dolls for the rest of our lives.

Call me crazy, but I was raised to think sex should be a fun and positive experience for everyone involved. Sex might be mainly about physical pleasure, but it’s also about getting pleasure from giving it to someone else. It’s about not assuming that everyone is into what you’re into or that just because you’re both wasted that you don’t have to ask first. So, please, don’t email me complaining that consent makes you look unsexy or insecure. Actually, it just makes you look like the opposite of an asshole.

Boni Mata writes the weekly Sex on Tuesday column. You can contact her at sex@dailycal.org or follow her on Twitter: @yungEwaste.

Correction(s):
A previous version of this column stated that the university changed its sexual violence policy largely due to complaints brought forward by UC Berkeley students about the mishandling of sexual assault cases. In fact, the change came in response to the federal Violence Against Women Reauthorization Act.

A previous version of this column also stated that three cases of sexual assault on campus were reported this weekend. In fact, they were reported two weekends ago.

This one goes out to all of those female-bodied individuals up in the club — or the classroom; it’s whatever. You may or may not own a vagina if you’re reading this right now, but chances are, you probably appreciate the mighty power of the pussy. For the next few minutes, I want this column to be a space of self-reflection and of exploration and celebration of the beautiful diversities of the cunt. You are now entering the female flex zone.

This week, I asked 100 college-age women some pretty intimate questions about their genitalia, and the answers were, well, intimate. While admitting that my results privilege those who are already willing to share such personal details, the variety of responses prove that ease in discussion doesn’t necessarily equal self-confidence or genital “adoration.” Rather, they were indicative of a true diversity in the look, scent and general self-reception of what someone referred to as her “beef in my taco … haha.”

Despite the countless ways our society has shamed us and made our bodies taboo, the vagina — clit, vulva, canal, etc. — is perhaps the singularly most important outlet for gaining feminist “Cliteracy” in addition to a deeper self-knowledge and contentment, IMO. Need I remind anyone that the clitoris is the only organ in the body whose sole function is physical pleasure? There are 8,000 nerves in just the tip of the clitoris alone, not to mention those of the other 9 centimeters of subcutaneous “female penis.”

As is crucial in breaking down any taboo, discussion of the vagina should start with looking at its informal aliases. Along with radical originals such as sex organ, down there and you know, notable titles for people’s privates include pussay, the lady, coochie, cunt, oven, vagazzle, poon, goodies, Carmen Sandiego, kitty, vajayjay, vulva, kiwi, clit+, Baby V, the Matrix, the cave, Virgin Mary and pelvis hole number one. In terms of appearance, people were generally pleased with the “normalcy” of their individual anatomies: Most were quick to assert a standard of uniform uniqueness or difference-as-normal.

I was pleasantly surprised that nearly half of my respondents considered their labia asymmetrical, despite a self-consciousness that this was “abnormal.” This isn’t just particular to my findings: Many feminist blogs are dedicated to normalizing differences in labial or vulvular appearance, proving that an aesthetic uniformity when it comes to vaginas is impossible — and unnecessary — to establish.

Queer folk, on the whole, tended to be more confident in the appearance of their “other lips” as well as generally “very comfortable” with showing their genitalia to a partner. 90 percent of those who identified solely as lesbian held their vaginas in “adoration.” This is pretty significant in terms of vaginal self-image, especially compared to 40-percent adoration on a wider LGBT scale and 35 percent among heterosexually identifying individuals.

Regardless of the apparent correlation between queerness and vaginal confidence, questions about menstruation and period sex divided the crowd significantly. Heterosexual women tended to “prefer” menstrual sex, whereas most others held an “only when necessary” policy. Across all identities and sexualities, though, people tended to hate their periods — unless you’re the empowered erotic artist who paints with her own blood, in which case I envy and salute you.

Apart from various menstruation issues, most vaginal qualms expressed to me were related to orgasms, smell and pubic hair. A lot of gals were damn proud of their untouched bush, while others lamented the facts that ingrown hairs are “ruining [their] life” and that their pubes grow back like mutant crabgrass. In terms of hair trends, the classics “full bush” and “bald eagle” were the top contenders for pube popularity, with “landing strip” and the “reverse Brazilian” — think the opposite of a mullet — close behind.

A lot of vagina owners feared they could be smelled from miles away or that their vaginal scent was some omnipresent entity. While some insisted their pussy juice smells like marketable “eau de moi” or “church wafers,” for one person, others described themselves as a straight-up fish market. On the whole, there was a general trend of favorable scent descriptors among those with a positive self-image.

Perhaps the biggest correlation to vaginal “adoration,” however, was frequency of sex or masturbation. Without claiming causation, it’s easy to imagine why any intimate attention down there — whether you’re in a long-term relationship or as single as my roommate — seems inextricably linked to a deeper knowledge of oneself. This phenomenon could also be closely tied to orgasm; those who complained about the difficulty or impossibility of “vaginal” orgasm also expressed some self-consciousness of or frustration with their genitalia.

While I can’t make claims on the intricacies of anyone’s individual vagina, some universal advice I will give is that continual exploration and self-love are the easiest ways to find peace with what nature gave you. No matter how many times someone compared my two lips to a tulip, I was personally only ever able to understand my vagina after I stopped considering it an estranged part of my body.

The realization that I couldn’t wait around for someone to give me the orgasm of my dreams coincided with the revelation that every vagina is special and imperfectly beautiful. Without ignoring its shortcomings and periodic inconveniences, I can safely say that after many years of neglect and misunderstanding, I am now madly in love with my pussy.

Boni Mata writes the weekly Sex on Tuesday column. You can contact her at sex@dailycal.org or follow her on Twitter: @yungEwaste.

I spent a large portion of my youth with a pretty severe penis envy: I was obsessed with the idea that having a dick would make life so much easier, not to mention way more fun. I wanted to piss on shit with no regard for authority, to whip out my wang in the middle of a middle-school assembly like the psychotic kids I looked up to — I wanted to brag about my big balls in the locker room and woo the ladies with low-resolution dick pics from my Motorola RAZR.

I eventually got over this anatomical shortcoming as I embraced my female body, but coming into my own as a woman did not turn me into a male-bashing pussy licker — not entirely, at least. While the glass ceiling is still a very present reality, and while skyscrapers and Fourth-of-July hot dogs still continually conjure images of monumentally oppressive cocks, it would be erroneous to claim that all penises are equally granted this superincumbent phallic authority.

Yes, I hate the patriarchy, but I’m not going to deny that I also love dick — sue me. After I gave women a chance to talk about their vaginas as both a source of pride and insecurity, I wanted to do the same for the penis holders among us. It turns out that owning a cock does not guarantee inherent and everlasting self-confidence — news that would have shook my adolescent self to its core. Almost everybody who participated, in fact, said that their penis could be bigger or that “big-dick porn” contributed to an often unfavorable self-image. Only about half of my respondents, similar to those of the vagina survey, felt positively about their family jewels. The other half fell somewhere between ambivalence and frustration, showing there’s a potential for insecurity and body shaming regardless of sex or gender.

Much like characterizing the female sex organ, it’s extremely difficult to define what it means to have an “average” or “normal” dick. Contrary to standardized dick doodles in the Dwinelle bathrooms or elsewhere, penises are massively varied — whether in terms of ball size, shaft length, girth, erection angles, color, texture, freckles, pubes or whatever else. While I’ve encountered quite a few dicks in my day, I’m still astonished by the variety of penile units around me at every nude party, beach, etc. From “girthy as a motherfucker” to “California shaped” to “pirate curvature,” the imagery with which people painted their man meat was outrageously diverse.

Whether described as a “grub worm in a turtleneck” or “the disgruntled cousin of my arms,” most descriptors were endearing and generally approbatory. With the obvious inability to publish all the results of my survey, a quick summary is as follows: A lot of people had dicks that hang to the left (never right), a good percentage had differently sized balls, most people “manscape” their bushes and 99 percent of people are not “showers” but “growers.” Moreover, in my survey, a roaring 70 percent of people “love” giving head, 77 percent of heterosexual or bisexual people regularly partake in period sex (cool) and an unsurprising 73 percent deemed condoms a “necessary evil,” claiming they caused decreased sensitivity and, at worst, instances of erectile dysfunction.

Of the 40 percent of people who reported regularly watching porn, almost all of them complained that doing so contributed to their insecurity and preoccupation with penis size — despite understanding that the average porn dick is marginally larger than that of most normal humans. Whether favoring the “Most Viewed” tab on PornHub or some legit fetishes — MILF, hazing, “pregnant and hairy,” Gay4Pay, “Boni’s Facebook,” BDSM, alien gangbang — porn mainly proved to be a double-edged sword for people as a serious source of both arousal and bodily insecurity.

Despite the widespread desire to have a bigger cock, however, my findings indicated a strong tendency for people to overestimate the size of their penis. Of the 112 people who responded to my survey, only eight reported their penis to be smaller than average. Six out of this eight-person minority expressed negative feelings toward their penis, indicating that media and porn’s psychological repercussions affect women, men and everyone in between.

Perhaps the biggest insecurity for a lot people was a fear of being unable to perform properly during sex. Whether they worried about irregular or unpredictable erections, premature ejaculation or ball sweat, a great deal of anxiety centered on moments of sexual intimacy. While one dude feared he wouldn’t be able to induce vaginal orgasm because of his “shortness,” another felt he was constantly about to tear open someone’s asshole with his “enormity.” There are issues on both ends of the spectrum, so it seems, and even people with reportedly large dicks cited room for improvement in the size department.

For the record, folks, size really doesn’t matter. It’s how you work with what you’ve got that makes you a good lover. In fact, some of the worst experiences I’ve had have been with men with larger-than-average packages. You can’t jackhammer your way to the top, unfortunately, and surely, people are not that impressed with having the shit banged out of them. It’s time we retired that party trick once and for all and realized that having a huge penis is neither a prerequisite nor a foolproof measure of great sex.

While having a monster cock might make for a great pornstar, ramming the cervix isn’t always the goal. Concentrating so fixedly on penis size is both a superficial and unproductive diversion from what matters far more: Stuff such as foreplay, symbiotic communication, selflessness or even emotional connection can enrich the sexual experience far beyond how you measure up to James Deen.

Boni Mata writes the weekly Sex on Tuesday column. You can contact her at sex@dailycal.org or follow her on Twitter: @yungEwaste.

Mr. Nice Guy: “You are quite a distraction and a very sexy woman.”

London Gent: “Send pics.”

Adult: “I am impotent so I cannot have sex. But I am looking for a strong woman to use and control me.”

Poetic Desire: “Send pics.”

Ten minutes after creating a profile on SeekingArrangement.com, my inbox began to flood with messages from potential suitors in the greater London area. Millionaires suddenly wanted to wine and dine me, fly me to the Maldives, lick peanut butter out of my belly button while I flogged them over the back — all the while being good philanthropists by putting a poor girl through Cambridge.

What brought me to this site, one of the most notorious meeting places for wannabe sugar babies and parents seeking a “mutually beneficial relationship,” was more of a curiosity than a serious financial need. Still, with my vaguely presentable appearance, slightly above-incomprehensible conversation skills and charming alias “Normal Girl,” you could say I made for the perfect sugar baby. After reading that Cambridge University — where I was studying at the time — had the highest number of female “sugar” participants out of all UK schools, I needed to get in on this.

Sugar babies everywhere were boasting lavish vacations, a life free of debt, Fendi bags — even chinchilla fur! Needless to say, I let my fear of missing out get the better of me and signed my ass up. Yes, I felt morally questionable in stipulating my “financial expectations” (substantial to high) as well as for planning get-togethers with faceless internet randoms. My main concern in entering this mystical “sugarbowl” was the fear of being kidnapped and held for ransom by a pseudomillionaire based in Geneva with a vendetta against female 20-somethings.

Needless to say, the whole process was creepy as shit. Countless “winks” from Viagra-using retirees coincided with incoming video calls from Qatar and Bedford. For every seemingly decent human with modest intentions, there were five lecherous perverts to compensate. Of course, I agreed to be seen with the first bloke who offered me £500 for dinner in Mayfair.

It was both of our first times, and he spent the majority of the meal shaking and stammering with discomfort. He eventually warmed up after sake shots — my idea — to reveal that he was married with two daughters about my age. To my further chagrin, he ended with an offer to go back to his hotel for “sexual games.” I kindly refused, but I couldn’t help feeling deeply saddened by the whole experience — not to mention relieved at having avoided what could have been my first foray into prostitution. On the Tube ride home, I sobbed into a handful of cash that, by his standards, I didn’t deserve.

While the mental picture of a man’s wife and kids and the dangerously thin ethical lines I was straddling were more than a deterrent for future sugar-dating, I didn’t want to give up that easily. I figured there must be a reason (not just) women everywhere are subjecting themselves to what would seem like glorified prostitution. Just two years ago, in fact, UC Berkeley had one of the fastest-growing sugar-baby populations among U.S. universities. According to Seeking Arrangement, the site’s increasing popularity is mainly attributed to the ever-rising tuition rates of universities worldwide.

In light of ongoing scrutiny of the legitimacy and legality of sugar-dating practices, similar sites have attempted to market themselves to college co-eds as a means of financial independence: Having a sugar parent should supplement higher education and what is already a promising future. Unlike prostitution, the site claims, being a sugar baby is not a profession but a relationship “minus the proverbial noose of traditional dating.” This explanation seems fine on the legal front, but the reality is that being financially supported can indeed be a career goal for some.

Like any online dating site, the potential for legitimate chemistry is high. I won’t deny that sugar-dating facilitates what may already be the main goal of traditional dating for many people — its pragmatism perhaps being the main appeal. Coming from my own experience, though, I feel that there is something deeply wrong with entering any relationship on the pretense of commercial exchange.

Once potential daddies found out I was “not looking for sex,” I was instantly ignored. One person even scolded me, as “trying to make something off limits in a relationship only causes friction.” Thanks, “Rich&Bored.” After a while, I ended up finding a sugar daddy who seemingly fit the bill, so to speak. Tall, dark, French, Stanford: We went for ice cream at the St. Pancras Hotel. He must be a serial killer, I thought, too sexy to be normal. Actually, he was just married.

When I finally left England, I decided to put my sugar-daddy game to rest. While as exciting and glamorous as ever, I felt incredibly overwhelmed. Levying cash for company is a risky business, and it’s obviously not for everyone. So if you do decide to venture into the bizarre world of “sugar,” I highly suggest you do so out of curiosity over necessity. Being in a place of financial vulnerability is incredibly dangerous without knowing your limits, and no amount of money is worth compromising your personal integrity.

Boni Mata writes the weekly Sex on Tuesday column. You can contact her at sex@dailycal.org or follow her on Twitter: @yungEwaste.

From having a grown man scream-cry to me, “I’m attractive, goddamn it!” while throwing his shoe at my roommate, to getting the “Why don’t you love me?” talk, the span of my love life could be characterized by a few too many amorous disasters. I’d like to imagine I’m not the only one who’s all too familiar with the trauma of thirty texts in a row from an emotional masochist who needs “Not Interested!” hung on a billboard with flashing lights.

I wouldn’t say that I have a tendency to attract the maniacally-romantic type, but there could indeed be a certain chain of events that lead normal, self-respecting adults to throw their dignity to the wind in a last-ditch effort to get a second date. I won’t sit here analyzing my various player strategies in the game of “love,” I’ll just leave that for people who’ve dated me to figure out. Regardless of whether it’s been my fault or otherwise, what I can say is that some of my most failed exploits can be chalked up to my inability to communicate effectively.

These days, communication is so highly facilitated to the point where it’s possible and even desirable to sustain a serious relationship over the phone or online. Contacting current and future partners is just a drunk text away, for better or worse. And with such open access to increased communication with potential boos and baes comes the inherent difficulty of navigating when is too little and when is far, far too much. There’s something about contemporary “pick up” strategies that have come about in the advent of Tinder and other dating apps that encourages a no-holds-barred policy when it comes to putting on the charm. Hold up, what charm? “Hey girl, you look like you’d be fun to fuck.”

I used to think that all that was missing in the dating game was some old fashioned chivalry. If only the cyber pornoscape hadn’t polluted the minds of millennials into thinking that people want to be treated like hoes and tricks. But after the seventh “Hey! How are you?” with no response, the “nice guy” shit just doesn’t work either. It turns out that “chivalry” as a seductive mode has the potential to be equally as horrific as the ridiculously common misconception that women need their egos “broken” within the first interaction.

In straddling the spectrum between outright neglect and stage-five clinger, the most essential component missing from most failed encounters in the game of “love” is a certain level of self-awareness. In the adult world, we call this tact. Finding an appropriate balance here can be tricky: it’s easy to default to an attitude of pseudo-nihilism in an effort to not appear too eager, often causing your love-object to seek validation elsewhere. Similarly, being a little too DTF can cause someone who would otherwise gladly have sex with you to search for a rarer unicorn. They call seduction an art for a reason, don’t you know.

Being on the other side of things can be equally as traumatic: receiving that fateful one-word reply, “yep” or “nice.” can crush an ego as swiftly as Miley’s wrecking ball. Personally, I’ve never been able to push myself on people. If I sense even a semblance of disinterest or apathy from my pursuant, my fear of being annoying will generally lead me to stop contacting them. Some people — and this continues to shock me — need rejection in writing. There comes a time when refusing to respond simply isn’t enough. Even my go-to phrase, “please stop” fails me now and then, and the only option left is being honest and upfront with someone.

“I’m not going to beg you to go out with me again, but ‘nice’? Christ that has to be the worst thing a girl’s ever said to me.”

“Right, ok ur not that nice just didn’t wanna tell you you’re super boring.”

“I thought the point of a first date was to prove I’m not a serial killer?”

“I’m sorry.”

“I think I wore too much J.Crew.”

I admit that I’m wont to dole out the cold shoulder at times. The appeal of silence — almost comparable to the age old RBD (Report-Block-Delete) — is that it allows you to cease all communication while avoiding unnecessary confrontation. But instead of freezing out the fat, if I may be so bold, it’s not uncommon that the unwanted clingers-on turn overheated and fired up like never before.

“Est-ce que je mérite d’être ignoré, mon amour?” In my days before I knew how to break things off effectively, shit really began to hit the fan: “Please just tell me what’s wrong with me!” It took me far too long to realize that the only effective way of cutting unwanted ties is doing so swiftly and sans anaesthetic. I’ve let flings, texting and sexting affairs, even relationships drag on far too long for fear of hurting people’s feelings. Knowing how to communicate, though, is not a strictly defensive skill. And while true that much of this unreal behavior could have been avoided with a fuller disclosure about my feelings, it’s also the responsibility of pursuers and seducers everywhere to know when to chill the fuck out.

Boni Mata writes the weekly Sex on Tuesday column. You can contact her at sex@dailycal.org or follow her on Twitter: @yungEwaste.

Sex is one of those things that no matter how much of it you’re having, you could always be having more. Whether virgins or in long-term relationships, it seems like everyone around me (including myself) these days has a compulsive need to hump something. Thanks to modern technology, though, all people with a flip phone — your grandmother included — have unlimited access to sex in their very pockets. Sexting is a phenomenon that’s probably not new to anyone. We’ve been doing it since high school and continue to do so generally without fear of how pictures or texts could resurface to later mar our future presidential campaigns. But is tech-facilitated sex even good? Is web or text sex anywhere near comparable to the classic IRL fuck?

“Wyd :-)”

“Nm. In the library. So bored kill me now.”

“What are you wearing? :-)”

“Um like leggings and a Drake shirt.”

“Really want you right now.”

….

“Do you want me? Hello?”

….

“Wish I could be under that desk kissing your inner thigh…”

“Oh, yeah, that’d be nice. If only, haha!”

“I’d slowly massage your legs, tugging at your panties with my mouth, then moving my tongue closer to your wet pussy.”

….

“Are you there?”

“There’s a time and a place for everything,” I say like a broken record. And I’m not going to claim I don’t enjoy sexting every now and then. There’s something about the agony of not actually being able to touch anyone but yourself that is oddly satisfying in a masochistic way — but doing it all the time?

A couple of my friends recently told me that, more often than not, during those times when we’re on the couch watching “Real Housewives of New Jersey” or “Gilmore Girls,” they’re also sexting their boyfriends. “It appeases them, since we can’t be together that often.” But are they actually into it? “Not really — he just loves it.” Torturous as that may sound, sexting and cybersex of any kind can be “hella” fun with the right person under the right circumstances. Chances are, if you’re not vibing the moment, the sexting is going to turn out pretty shitty. Unlike texting, it’s nearly impossible during a webcam session to feign sexual enthusiasm. This might be a plus, because any sexual act, virtual or not, needs to be consensual.

Orchestrating a successful cybersex scenario necessitates a large amount of both self-confidence and comfort with the participating partner. If you find that you’re the least bit self-conscious during moments of intimacy, this feeling can be largely exacerbated when real-time fucking turns into a screen-mediated staring contest. It’s often difficult to engage in cybersex without projecting porn aesthetics onto the scene or comparing your “O face” to an actress who gets paid to act sexy.

Sex is inevitably a performative act: From moaning to dirty talk to faking orgasms (I see you, ladies), hallmarks of mainstream porn have taught us that sex must always be a sort of theatrical exploit. The actual experience of female pleasure is often both incongruous and placed secondary to the outward expression of performative “pleasure.” And the online and on-screen nature of cybersex makes it so that all performative elements already present during ordinary fucking are maximized tenfold. This becomes even more exaggerated when laptop lighting and the webcam’s unforgiving attitude toward your double chin suddenly take precedence over the multisensory experience of in-person sex.

In my own effort to unlearn what bad porn has taught me, I still find it difficult to entirely lose myself in front of a screen. On the upside, though, web sex can inspire a closer connection via increased communication and its prerequisite “dirrrty” talk. The benefit of mutual masturbation can also make it easier to plan your orgasms together.

A recent article in The Atlantic titled “Why Kids Sext” looks into the sweeping phenomenon amongst teens that is the sending, acquiring and distributing (without consent) of nude photos. To explain what is partly a means of “social currency” for both senders and recipients, the article claims that a lot of the reasoning behind sexting among teens is, firstly, the problem of physical proximity and parental control and, secondly, the fact that it’s a way to virtually experiment with sexuality without necessarily acting it out.

For us “adults,” sexting and cybersex could also very well be a means of overcoming physical distance from a partner. In college, though, proximity to various partners isn’t really a problem outside of a long-distance relationship. The prospect of pussy is just a room away, in some cases. Despite it occasionally being a necessity, the fun part about sexting is that its combination of intimacy and naughtiness is a huge turn-on. The still somewhat forbidden nature of having text sex during a meeting is super hot, and there’s always an element of danger involved in not knowing whether that tit pic just uploaded to the Cloud or whether there’s enough time to take a screenshot of a one-second Snapchat. But really — what is the Cloud?

Boni Mata writes the weekly Sex on Tuesday column. You can contact her at sex@dailycal.org or follow her on Twitter: @yungEwaste.

Since its conception, the Pill has become a powerful symbol in the campaign for women’s rights. Stanford professor and so-called “father” of the Pill, Carl Djerassi, claims that if it weren’t for oral contraception for women, there might never have been the sexual revolution of the ’60s and ’70s. Women would never have been able to enter and alter the workplace to such an extent and organize their lives in a logical way with the added stress of a screaming Baby Bjorn strapped to their torsos.

But amid all of this freedom — all of this talk surrounding the reclamation of female bodies and the reconfiguration of lives separate from biological need — comes a dangerous rhetoric about responsibility and accountability when it comes to unwanted pregnancy. For better or worse, the female body has been perceived throughout history as the site of conception, birth and child rearing. As soon as women were allowed to control their own contraceptive methods, men everywhere began shedding their latex shackles in unison, victoriously calling out, “Oh, but I thought you were on the Pill.”

It’s a good day for the patriarchy when such a “breakthrough” in bioscience and social politics turns into a means of subjugation, making people slaves to a daily pill and subject to hormonal manipulation in the name of women’s rights. You know institutionalized sexism is real when pharmaceutical companies engineer and administer innumerable variations of the same bullshit in an effort to stamp out pregnancy at the site of conception.

In Djerassi’s charming account of how the Pill allows us to put ourselves into “another person’s position” — a woman’s — it’s impossible for him to truly understand all the adverse effects that come with such a seemingly positive innovation. Beyond the Pill, the ever-booming contraceptive industry now offers enough oral and intrauterine options to make you vomit (not just from the hormones). Not only are the options bleak, but the pressure to use some form or another of contraception is at an all-time high with recent government subsidies and the prevalence of abortion-clinic deserts across the country.

I hope I’m not alone in saying that almost every birth control method available to me, if not invasive or undesirable, is laughably absurd. A plastic ring that slips out during long runs or intercourse? At least NuvaRing doubles as a cock ring. Nor am I entirely convinced of the appeal of a piece of copper shoved through your cervix, promising up to 10 years of hellishly bloody periods. There doesn’t seem to be a single contraceptive option at this point in modern medicine that doesn’t turn the female body into a warzone of estrogen, androgens, blood clots and risks of toxic shock, high blood pressure, anxiety, depression and heart disease.

Meanwhile, men have been sporting condoms since they were sporting loin cloths and powdered wigs, complaining all the while. “I got a girl — I ain’t never got no fuckin’ condoms. If she caught me, then that bitch would be pissed off.” No kidding, A$AP Ferg, but it’s this mentality that gets women stuck with unwanted and often irremediable pregnancies in the first place. It takes two to make a baby, shocking as it is. But all the attention on plugging up, spaying and sterilizing the female body has stopped an area of research that could have revolutionized the birth control game decades ago and minimized the need for and debate over abortions in the United States.

A quick search of “male birth control” will show a whopping five options available to the penis-holding crowd: the condom (still the only way to prevent STIs), vasectomy, withdrawal, outercourse (LOL) and abstinence (no thanks). Note that the pull-out method is too unreliable, and abstinence is just a joke. The drastic difference between the permanency of a full-blown vasectomy and the highly erratic, sporadic use of condoms has sadly been the case for most of modern history. If only there were a long-lasting but not permanent middle ground.

Enter Vasalgel: a nonhormonal, polymer contraceptive gel for men made to be injected into the vas deferens of the penis — similar to a vasectomy but happily reversible. The Parsemus Foundation, founders of Vasalgel, modeled its product after a similar gel already going 15 years strong in India. The lack of invested interest in Vasalgel from the medical industry speaks volumes; that the product’s expected 2017 release date is so far off isn’t at all surprising, considering the current market for women’s birth control.

While Vasalgel has gotten a lot of media attention as of late for its paradigm-shifting potential in how we think about and approach pregnancy prevention at the sperm source, the future of male birth control still looks bleak. With that said, the prospect of shifting our discourse on contraception from female to male bodies is an enticing one. The promise of an affordable, reversible, no-fuss, no-condom contraception for men makes me horny just thinking about it. 2017 is a long way away, frustratingly, but we should start to think immediately about changing the current rhetoric to “protect” or “defend” women’s bodies against unwanted pregnancy and instead begin to see it as a mutual effort in the name of free fornication for all.

Boni Mata writes the weekly Sex on Tuesday column. You can contact her at sex@dailycal.org or follow her on Twitter: @yungEwaste.

The first time someone told me they wanted to drink my period blood from a chalice, I suddenly grew extremely close to proposing marriage on the spot. Maybe it’s the teenage girl in me talking, but there’s something about the surge in vampire films that has given blood sucking and hunting a renewed social capital in the depraved sex lives of our generation of perverts.

Vampires, of course, aren’t a new thing. There’s been a new version of Dracula every decade since Bela Lugosi, culminating in Jonathan Rhys Meyers’ creepily hot performance in the NBC series no one watched. Blood sucking is perhaps at its finest when David Bowie and Catherine Deneuve make out with slashed-up, oozing necks in “The Hunger.” Since then, the vampire trend has exploded to a ludicrous degree, with “Buffy,” “True Blood” and “The Vampire Diaries” making red waves of bloodlust only to be outshined by the pungent musk of the Twilight saga. In a large part of pop culture, in other words, blood has become the substance everyone wants in his or her fangs and veins. Blood isn’t something to be shunned but rather to be sought out and fawned over: Its scent alone causes visceral reactions of the best kind. While admitting that the media’s vampire obsession might be nothing more than a passing trend in camp and kitsch, anything that encourages the unabashed indulgence in human carnage can’t be all bad.

Whether you’re a fan or not, blood is having a renaissance, and with that comes the intersection of the reign of the pussy and all of its monthly blood-dripping majesty. Either that, or the previously squirmy and squeamish among us have finally realized that nothing need stand in the way of more sex. In my previous genitalia and sex surveys, I found that the jury was still out on the question of period sex for most parties. Among those who have sex with women, 35 percent said they partake in menstrual sex “all the time.” Among menstruating women, one fifth claimed they were averse to the act of menstrual fucking, while most others claimed it depended on the partner’s “gross-out” tolerance. But is a bleeding vagina merely an obstacle to overcome for the sake of crippling horniness — or can the dripping, red pussy become something to lust after and put on the pedestal beside its prepubescent, porny cousin?

“So, what are you thoughts on period sex?”

“That’s, like, a fetish, right?”

“Not exactly.”

There could very well indeed be a fetishistic element to the phenomenon of period sex. Coagulated blood isn’t necessarily on everyone’s menu, just like some weirdos prefer their steaks well done rather than rare. I’m a vegetarian, but I’m wont to make exceptions for the uncensored, X-rated human body on occasion. New York magazine’s “Blood Hounds” coins the term to refer to those who are “obsessed” with period sex or, more generally, men who actively seek it out and prefer it to more vanilla sex styles. The article mentions a “hardcore connoisseurship” that involves embracing the most intimate product of female biology: uterine bloodshed. This type of sex isn’t for the faint of heart, mind you. Many women I talked to referenced a certain bodily shame or insecurity with having their menstrual fluid on full display during intimacy of this sort. Fear of grossing out a partner could lead to a less-than-favorable experience in the red-soaked sack, so it’s important to make sure both parties are down for the cause before engaging in this high-reward albeit high-risk activity.

“I’m just not into period sex.”

“Why’s that?”

“I feel like the blood is toxic to my dick.”

In speaking candidly to various people about menstrual sex, I never thought I’d need to debunk assumptions such as these. While a woman on her period is more susceptible to STIs and other blood-borne or bacterial infections because of a dilated cervix — which is why it’s important to not skimp on protection, especially because pregnancy is still possible at this time — having period sex is otherwise a perfectly healthy activity for both partners. Comments such as “It’s just nasty” don’t progress efforts to reverse common conceptions that the bleeding vagina is a “dirty” or “toxic” space — one worthy of scorn or neglect for about 20 percent of the year.

“What would you say to the fact that a lot of women are significantly hornier on their period?” Eyebrows were raised. “Tell me more,” they say. Not only do women often turn into cats in the heat while menstruating, but heightened sensitivity and blood flow to the pelvis can significantly increase pleasure during sex. Though the all-natural, all-woman goo seeping from those pussy lips can serve as added lubrication, if either partner is put off by blood in a characteristically anti-vampiric way, period sex can be rendered significantly less “gross” via diaphragms, Soft Cups or a diva cup.

“I vant to drink your blood,” Dracula whispers in my ear as he runs his fangs lightly across my neck. He can smell the blood between my legs and knows he’s going to be fed soon. I might be scared of the prospect of this type of sex, but my partner’s thirst turns me on. Period sex doesn’t have to be a messy blood bath for it to be hot, but there’s something incredibly appealing in the carnal embrace of the bleeding body. Of course, there’s nothing wrong with being averse to the prospect of menstrual sex, but it’s high time we stopped thinking of it as a “dirty” or “toxic” act. Period.

Thank you to the Occupy Wheeler movement for providing a space to discuss these issues.

Boni Mata writes the weekly Sex on Tuesday column. You can contact her at sex@dailycal.org or follow her on Twitter: @yungEwaste.

“So you’re telling me this happens a lot here?”

“Oh, yes. I had a maths professor at the Sorbonne who would pick the brightest girl every term to be his pet. They all knew this. They would sit in the front of class and ask for attention. Of course, all would be jealous of the girl who was ultimately chosen.”

“Isn’t that a little fucked up?”

“It is very common here in France.”

As disturbed as I was, the image of this phenomenon incepted itself into my mind in the most insidious way. I’d heard of girls in high school fucking older men and bragging about it. I’d done my fair share of flirting with science teachers in middle school when I first uncovered my sexuality but still found teenage boys nasty. I’d had enough schoolgirl fantasies during second period to make a feature-length porno. Same thing in college: didn’t hear a word my professor said in my Shakespeare seminar, drooled through English classes without learning a thing. I wanted to fuck my sociology GSI with every fiber in my nether regions. I knew I was — how do you say — a “sapiosexual” from an early age, but the power-play of a student-teacher relationship became particularly appealing to me as well.

Are you a sub?”

“I’m like a sub-sub-dom, I guess.”

“Hot.”

In her seminal essay, “Feminist Accused of Sexual Harassment,” prominent professor and feminist Jane Gallop offers an explanation of the sexual harassment charges brought upon her by two female students. She argues that current conduct codes existing in U.S. universities enforce a policy of silence and restriction that thwart all potentially meaningful sexuality between students and teachers. In attempting to justify her own sexual relationships with students, though, Gallop ignores the ultimately protective function of such policies.

The inherent power dynamics involved with any master-apprentice relationship are such that some erotic advances may only be accepted out of intimidation or fear of negative consequences to grades. People can hardly handle sex with peers, let alone with authority figures, so this impediment to “natural sexuality” is an obvious side effect of larger security measures against sexual harassment. In many ways, Gallop embodies a characteristically French sexuality that is unfortunately and impossibly lost in translation in the United States.

Her notion of the eroticism of education, however, is a fascinating one and is an arguably universal phenomenon. While navigating positions of power and dom-sub dynamics can be tricky, a sexual relationship between consenting adults can be incredibly fruitful when teaching and learning are also involved.

When my professor walked in on the first day of class in all his statuesque glory, wearing a half-buttoned Oxford shirt and chalk-covered slacks, I nearly dropped my pants on the spot. “Love at first sight,” I claimed — I’m that type. Flash forward four months:

“Being with you is a gift,” he said as he stroked the hair that fell down my naked back. I lay on my stomach as we both looked out onto the street at the unfortunate passers-by who weren’t lovers like us. “You’re perfect.”

I knew it was in the cards for me when our knees touched during office hours. I asked him about Hegel, he got up to close the door — not all the way, but ajar. “Go on.” He walked me home after our second meeting. By the third, I was dreaming about him. I’d come to class far past Berkeley time, visibly sulking, “Sorry.” He’d send emails, “I appreciate how your mind works.” I’d reply, “I need to see you outside of class.” Never once did I feel sexual pressure on his part; every one of our intimate encounters, I initiated.

I’d had one too many glasses of wine the night I fell into his lap. He drove me home, we kissed on my sofa, went back to his later on. I never expected that a one-night stand with my professor would turn into something so spectacular. “Our bodies were made for each other,” he’d tell me. We could talk for hours and never sleep. We’d talk about love and death and literature, and it was beautiful. Our secret bore so much wrong from the outside but was so perfect from our perspective.

Yes, he was in charge of my grades, but we both knew I’d have gotten an A regardless. What started out as a typical teacher fetish turned into one of the deeper relationships I’ve ever sustained with a person. The age difference didn’t pose a problem for us beyond Twitter and Bruce Springsteen. I found that the power dynamic I was initially attracted to quickly dissolved in favor of a deeper understanding of him; I grew attracted to other things, and we grew connected on a level beyond a student-teacher relationship.

We could discuss the same topics as in class but without the nagging sexual tension that existed previously. “Making love” allowed us to integrate the erotic and the didactic into a single force that hit me like a ton of bricks. “I miss you,” I wrote him when I eventually left the country. It was fleeting, but it might have been love.

Boni Mata writes the weekly Sex on Tuesday column. You can contact her at sex@dailycal.org or follow her on Twitter: @yungEwaste.