Now of course they were "just friends." But they were seniors, meaning anyone moderately wealthy was on some fancy trip somewhere, and so if we had been Emily, in our final year at one of those schools where no one is not moderately wealthy, marooned in our hellishly "festive" hometowns with no one but Brian and our pent-up rage directed people with legacies of controlling cartels and excelling at winter sports, the fact that Brian had been "selfish and immature" in high school would in no way serve as any sort of deterrent to us fucking him. Nor would the fact that he was sleeping with two other girls at the time... because we have no standards.

Anyway, in other words, if we had been Emily, we would have just slept with Brian the night after the last exam, no longing glances or uncertainty-stoking makeouts necessary, and we would have never received this fantastic specimen of What Happens When Your Moderately Ridiculous High School Boyfriend Spends Three And A Half Years At A Liberal Arts College Only To Have You Refuse Him On Winter Fucking Break.

Dearest E,

First, let me apologize for this letter. Its melodramatic sentiments are perhaps unfounded given the nature of our relationship, but perhaps not. I would try to talk to you in person, but I am afraid i can never find the right words.

I have always wished to be a more patient person. Patience, like many other things in my life, comes and goes from me as she pleases. When she does decide to visit me, she is usually accompanied by her less noble companion: indifference. To not care about something, means you can be eternally patient with it. Unfortunately (for me at least) the human condition is such that "caring" about things inescapable. It's times like these I wish i was a monk.

I had a hard time falling asleep last night. You and many other thoughts of things that make me anxious would not leave my mind. That is why I am writing this even though I don't think its the best idea.

I, like you are, am unsure of what the connection we have is and where it comes from. Since it has been on my mind, I have been considering the possibilities of this connection. This is something which I am hesitant to speak of because since we both are in the dark on what it is, it could be that it is different for each of us... but whatever.

It could be that after being single for a while (though it really hasn't been that long, it just feels like it) I am starting to wish for the comfort that comes with having a girlfriend. Perhaps you have considered this idea as you split with Ryan around the same time as I did with Michelle... But if this were true, then our connection would be false, so I don't think thats it.

You know all to well that lately, I have been in the company of many different girls. There is a theory about men who seek out many women. It says that these men fit neatly into two different groups: those who seek out many women in the hope of finding one woman in all of them, and those that seek the knowledge that comes with being so close with so many. I don't really know where i stand, probably because I am too young and haven't really been with that many women. Lets say I am somewhere in the middle.

This may seem like a digression, but here is my point: You are different. I do not consider you a part of my quest for either knowledge or the woman in all women. When I am alone with you, all other girls disappear from my mind. I can't tell you what a relief that is for me. Maybe thats what my pull towards you is, my relief from the "quest".

But still, I am not sure that it is entirely it.

There was a time that we were in love. Does something as deep and complex as love ever really disappear completely? What is love?...Don't get freaked out, this isn't a declaration of love for you. Though i am sure that i love you in some way or another... I suppose that like all human emotions, love has different levels. Which one we are on (if any) and what that means i do not know. But I do know that I would like to be on it with you for the little time that we have to be with each other.

And so I have told you what I want. That wasn't so bad.

...

I have a feeling that you like Jeff way more then you let on. You complain all the time about how he doesn't pay attention to you, and that means one thing: that you seek his attention.

I feel that you are keeping me on the metaphorical leash, intentionally or otherwise. Why else would you look at me the way you do?

You know that I could care less about you and other guys. Be with as many as you like as long as you kiss me like you did the other night! For me, being with different girls reaffirms the possibilities of life. Everyone is different after all... But I think this idea is something of an impossibility for you. You're quest is unknown to me, but I can't imagine that it involves being with many different men. (BTW I believe that being with one person is also reaffirming in a different way. You are good to think the way you do, it makes you shine.)

And so it is time for you to decide what you want... for once. (ha!)

To clarify: I cherish your friendship. I think you are an incredible girl, unlike any I've ever met. No matter what happens i will still love you as a friend, but i think it is about time we cut out the games and be honest with one another. If you think it better to be friends, then stop being so provocative around me. I am losing sleep after all.

I can only hope that you realize that I am, unquestionably, the best choice.

Let me know what you think. And again, I am sorry about the serious tone of this letter. I take comfort in knowing that you know I am not so serious a person.

Submissions? Email crap@jezebel.com, and please visit Crap The Blog for our forthcoming reviews of three new works of chick lit that revolve around how the internet has totally laid waste to this whole stupid "love" concept.

The just-launched site SexReally is paid for by the non-partisan National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy, and presumably intended as a slightly older companion site to the Campaign's excellent StayTeen.

It's a fine idea to set up a site for 20-somethings that deals with topics in sexuality free from the stale moralizing of adolescent sex ed, a site that could serve as a forum for discussion of, say, the rising numbers of women in their twenties who use withdrawal as a contraceptive, why that might be, and what the risks and benefits are, or the difficulties posed by the fact that 20-something women are the least likely age cohort to have health insurance, or the fact that while teen pregnancy has decreased in recent years, the rate of unplanned pregnancies among women aged 20-29 is actually growing. What beggars belief is that anyone, let alone a non-profit group of sexuality educators, would think that Laura Sessions Stepp — a woman whose nuanced theory of human sexuality begins and ends with "Don't put out unless you're in a relationship, ladies!" — could do any such topics justice.

The first podcast for SexReally is titled "Starting a Relationship With Sex: Running the Bases Backwards," which should be a clue to lead blogger and podcast producer Sessions Stepp's position on the issue at hand — as if anyone should need the hint since the former Washington Post reporter's various condemnatory anecdotes about young women and sex were collected between hard covers in 2007's Unhooked: How Young Women Pursue Sex, Delay Love and Lose at Both. (In her book, Sessions Stepp advises against relationship-free sex, and encourages kitchen fun for singletons instead. "Bake cookies, brownies, muffins. Ask your girlfriends for assistance. Guys will do anything for homemade baked goods." Girls, if you only can make enough cookies, you too can snag a man!)

Among her many other eminent qualifications for talking to young women in a balanced way about sex, Sessions Stepp is a true believer of the oxytocin junk science, a chief proponent of the late-90s teen oral sex moral panic — her reporting was flatly contradicted by actual statistics about young people's rates of oral sex — and it took her until 2006 to figure out what a "wingman" was. She also originated the term "gray rape."

So it's really no surprise that in her inaugural podcast, Sessions Stepp, in a stilted, motherly voice, marvels at the fact that grown adults no longer find the "bases" metaphor meaningful or informative. Her own all-caps transcript of the segment reads:

WE'VE ALL HEARD THE BASEBALL METAPHORS FOR SEX, LIKE "MADE IT TO SECOND," OR "HIT A HOME RUN." YEARS AGO, AS A GIRL RAN THE BASES, SHE ANTICIPATED A CERTAIN PROGRESSION IN THE RELATIONSHIP. (AT LEAST, SOME GIRLS DID.) GUYS MIGHT TRY TO SKIP A BASE OR TWO AND IT WAS UP TO HER TO FOIL THEIR OFTEN-CLUMSY ATTEMPTS.

WELL, THAT SCENARIO IS NOT SO COMMON ANYMORE… THESE DAYS, SEX FREQUENTLY HAPPENS BEFORE ANYTHING RESEMBLING A RELATIONSHIP. IS THIS A GOOD THING? A BAD THING?

I'll give you one guess!

Sessions Stepp talks to "Amanda", a woman from Los Angeles who, on her second date with a dude, and without — "No, no, no, no. Definitely, not!" — boyfriending him or taking any sensible precautions against oxytocin at all, had sex. The little minx invited him over for a movie and then within the hour they were doing the dirty! The fact that Amanda and her partner saw no harm in this reckless act — in fact, they subsequently did decide to date, and are, shockingly, still together — clearly marks them as either dangerously delusional or extraordinarily lucky, because as everyone Laura Sessions Stepp knows, every single hook-up makes the Baby Jesus cry irrevocably corrodes your own capacity for future love and happiness. As she explains:

SOME YOUNG WOMEN, LIKE AMANDA, ARE LUCKY. THEIR HOOKUP BUDDIES BECOME THEIR HONEYS. BUT IT DOESN'T ALWAYS WORK OUT THAT WAY...ONE PROBLEM WITH TAKING OFF FROM HOME BASE IS THIS: IF YOU START TO FEEL ATTACHED, YOU MAY NOT KNOW YOUR PARTNER WELL ENOUGH TO TELL HIM THAT. YOU'RE AFRAID YOU'LL SCARE HIM AWAY IF YOU BRING UP THAT DREADED WORD "FEELINGS". SO YOU SAY NOTHING…. WHICH CAN MAKE YOU FEEL…JUST BAD — ABOUT YOURSELF, YOUR PARTNER AND EVEN THE SEX.

Of course, even the college sophomore Sessions Stepp finds who had a disappointing hook-up experience — she grew to resent the guy following her realization that she felt more strongly about him than he did about her — still prefaced her criticisms with the phrase, "As much as I don't regret having sex with him..."

Statements like Sessions Stepp's play host to a whole set of nested assumptions, most of which are dated and restrictive. (Some of which are just dated. Who under the age of 40 calls their [in]significant other their "honey"?) In the system of sexuality that Sessions Stepp seems to favor — the slow, steady, codified "running of the bases" within a relationship — women are always the sexual gatekeepers. This stance neatly sidesteps any notion of men's responsibility for, well, anything. In Sessions Stepp's view, women trade sex begrudgingly in return for access to the socially-protected role of "girlfriend" and the supposed privileges that come with it. Women who enjoy having sex with casual partners, who don't feel the need to explore their serious, long-term prospects with every guy they date, or to only date guys with whom they feel they might have serious, long-term prospects, women who initiate sex and claim to like it, are just fooling themselves. Worse — they're actually hurting themselves. Because nobody can make an easy transition from having a lot of casual sex at one point in her life in one set of circumstances, to enjoying a more serious relationship at a different point in her life and under a different set of circumstances. It's just not possible! It's because of oxytocin, or something.

Strangest of all is the belief that underlies this and all the rest of Laura Sessions Stepp's work. She argues against casual sex — at least for women — so assiduously on the grounds that it hurts us. That it diminishes our self-esteem and numbs us to real love. But since when is a relationship any prophylactic against heartbreak? No hook-up, no cumulative accounting of a lifetime of hook-ups, will ever hurt as much as a break-up with a partner you love more than anything in this world. Young women know this about relationships. That's probably one reason why we sometimes prefer not to engage in them.

More stories about birth control costs, abortion access, finding a doctor willing to fit you with an IUD even if you haven't had kids, and finagling decent care in our under-insured society would be a lot more welcome — and more useful — than just more of the moralistic same from the likes of Laura Sessions Stepp.

SexReally [SexReally]
StayTeen [StayTeen]
National Campaign To Prevent Teen Pregnancy [NCPT]
The Challenge in Helping Young Adults Better Manage Their Reproductive Lives [Guttmacher Institute]
Does Withdrawal Deserve Another Look? [Guttmacher Institute]
A Disconnect On Hooking Up [NY Times]
Moral Panic Comes 'Unhooked' [Campus Progress]
PERCEPTION THAT TEENS FREQUENTLY SUBSTITUTE ORAL SEX FOR INTERCOURSE A MYTH [Guttmacher Institute]
A Bud For The Ladies [WaPo]

Earlier: Cosmo Wonders: Is It Rape If You Had Too Many Jaeger Shots To Remember?

Hymowitz actually quotes me from once upon a time, when I said:

I've gone through phases in my life where I bounce between serial monogramy, Very Serious Relationships and extremely casual sex. I've slept next to guys on the first date, had sex on the first date, allowed no more than a cheek kiss, dispensed with the date-concept all together after kissing the guy on the way to his car, fucked a couple of close friends and, more rarely, slept with a guy I didn't care if I ever saw again.

She responds, rhetorically:

Okay, wonders the ordinary guy with only middling psychic powers [who walked into a bar and met me], which is it tonight?

In fact, young men face a bewildering multiplicity of female expectations and desire. Some women are comfortable asking, “What’s your name again?” when they look across the pillow in the morning.

Well, my response is: does it matter tonight? Should a guy treat me differently based on the multiplicity of expectations I might or might not have... or is he treating me based on the expectations that he has about me and about (maybe) what he wants? Maybe — and I know this might be terribly shocking to men — if you respectfully walk up to me and try talking to me without staring at my tits and trying to get me into bed, you'll find out without having to try that hard what kind of woman I am, and what I am looking for. And maybe what I'm looking for in a guy is based on the guy. Whoa, weird concept, I know, but maybe wanting to get into a relationship, or not, or to have sex with, or not, has to do with the person and not the penis — and maybe I'm looking for someone, regardless, that wants to be with me and not just another vagina-owner.

This thing is, all these guys that Hymowitz quotes are really, really angry (and shallow) at some girl or group of girls who hurt them.

Here’s Jeff from Middleburg, Florida: “I am not going to hitch my wagon to a woman . . . who is more into her abs, thighs, triceps, and plastic surgery. A woman who seems to have forgotten that she did graduate high school and that it’s time to act accordingly.” Jeff, meet another of my respondents, Alex: “Maybe we turn to video games not because we are trying to run away from the responsibilities of a ‘grown-up life’ but because they are a better companion than some disease-ridden bar tramp who is only after money and a free ride.” Care for one more? This is from Dean in California: “Men are finally waking up to the ever-present fact that traditional marriage, or a committed relationship, with its accompanying socially imposed requirements of being wallets with legs for women, is an empty and meaningless drudgery.”

So, you went out with a shallow girl who only wanted a husband to pay her bills? Great. I went out with, this year alone: a guy who tried dating me to get me to vote for Obama; one who asked me out so that we could "get to know one another better" and took me to a loud dance club; a guy that called me up on the day of our second date to tell me that he knew I was going to fall for him and thus he didn't want to go after all; a guy who asked me to pay for everything when he asked me out; a guy who got annoyed at me for picking up the check when I asked him out; and on and on and on. You know what I have learned from that? That men are all different. Sort of like — gasp! — women.

Oh, and let's not get started on the whole bullshit "nice guys don't get the girl" that all these guys re-hash. Well, yeah, sure, if The Girl is the head cheerleader (and she always is) — but were they ever asking out the girl who was President of Students Against Drunk Driving and the German club (i.e., dorky, awkward me)? Some of them were, sure, but I'll be damned if most of them aren't happily married to truly pleasant women who they adore. My photo albums from high school to this day are a virtual pantheon of sweet, dorky guys who asked me out or who I asked out, most of whom were actually as nice as they look and none of whom were bad boys.

I dated two legitimately bad dudes in my life — the first one, in high school, I dumped rather ungraciously on our second date for grabbing my ass, and the second one more recently who I dumped, equally ungraciously, after about a month of jealous fits. One of the supposedly nice ones tells Hymowitz:

According to a “Recovering Nice Guy” writing on Craigslist, the female preference for jerks and “assholes,” as they’re also widely known, lies behind women’s age-old lament, “What happened to all the nice guys?” His answer: “You did. You ignored the nice guy. You used him for emotional intimacy without reciprocating, in kind, with physical intimacy.”

Oh, so, the only reason you were ever nice to a girl, the only reason you ever got close to a girl, was to fuck her? Don't worry, dude, you were never a nice guy. You probably didn't get fucked more because when you were holding a girl crying she caught you feeling up her boob. By comparison, at least a bad boy doesn't lie about his intentions or caring about your feelings.

So, look, the problem is that there are no rules, and there is no one end game any more. Great. I'm glad there's not. I don't mind paying for dinner, or going to see a hockey movie on Valentine's Day, or calling first or opening my own fucking doors — and I don't mind being paid for, or getting roses or being called or having a door opened for me — and I am damn glad that I don't have to hang up my dating spurs at 31 and call myself a spinster and start knitting booties for my younger sister's eventual children. And, yes, it's more difficult because in the absence of rules and regulations, in the dearth of universal social expectations and proscribed life paths, no one knows what anyone else is really looking for in a two minute interaction. But this is solved by actually not expecting things from people you don't know, and by treating women as individuals worth more than the sexual pleasure they might or might not eventually afford you. And it doesn't help to bitch about how all women are shallow, money-hungry harpies who you're just going to game the way they've gamed you. Maybe you've been gamed because as a shallow, money- and pussy-obsessed prick who isn't interested in getting to know a person, you missed out on more than just being played.

Love in the Time of Darwinism [City Journal]

Related: Recruiting for the Church of Obama: A Dating Story [Glamocracy]

Earlier: There's Casual Sex, And Then There's Casual Sex

As Clark-Flory describes it, her casual sex partners were people with whom she had relationships — short ones, perhaps, with men she didn't call her boyfriend or intend to bring home to her family — but what she's describing is casual relationship sex. Most of the pundits with whom she's disagreeing aren't hyping up the sexual behavior of serial monogamists like her (though, since she's not in it for the Ring, they'd probably still oppose her lifestyle), they're trying to slut-shame and ring-bait the women who aren't even in it for tomorrow morning.

I've gone through phases in my life where I bounce between serial monogramy, Very Serious Relationships and extremely casual sex. I've slept next to guys on the first date, had sex on the first date, allowed no more than a cheek kiss, dispensed with the date-concept all together after kissing the guy on the way to his car, fucked a couple of close friends and, more rarely, slept with a guy I didn't care if I ever saw again. Are any of these the reason I'm not in a relationship? Probably not. I'm mostly not in a relationship right now because I haven't met someone that care to be that involved with. And, at this age, if some guy doesn't care for my behavior or my past, well, that's all on him. If you want to date someone who would read (and agree) with a book like Sexless in the City or Unhooked: How Young Women Pursue Sex, Delay Love and Lose at Both, you and your blue balls shouldn't be buying me that drink.

Clark-Flory, on the other hand, well, she sounds like a fun person to have a drink with. Actually, that might be why I'm single — I'd rather have a drink or 5 with a cool person than sit around picking at a nice dinner with the marriage-minded guy my mom would like who bores me to tears. Call me crazy.

In Defense of Casual Sex [Salon]