"He wasn't...gainfully employed...legally?" says Brittany Lynch of her Bad Boy™ boyfriend. Ooookay then!

And in true Bad Boy™ fashion, he didn't make Lynch feel good about herself. "He intimidated me, and put me in a position where I almost felt lower, in some way, and for some reason, it was attractive to me," says Lynch. "I wanted to keep fighting to get to his level. He didn't treat me badly, but he wasn't overly kind." So she dumped him and moved on.

Sessions Stepp also talks to self-identified Nice Guy™ Jorge, who "pretends" to be a Bad Guy™ as a matter of strategy. "I just stopped being nice...from what I see, women like spice to a guy. They don't like overly nice guys. I know guys who are an asshole because they think that's the only approach to really get women." Jorge lives in New York, ladies. (Of course he does.) Watch out for him!

Stephen in Mason, Georgia, lies about his sexual conquests to his friends. "I tried once to have a one-night stand, but it just wasn't for me," he reports. The woman involved mocked him. Asked why he thinks women prefer Bad Boys™, he replies: "I dunno, that's a really good question...maybe they like the challenge?"

Sessions Stepp mentions two studies recently covered in the New Scientist, whose results she characterizes as "The message to guys: Be nice. But not too nice."

But, even leaving aside for a minute the question of whether these Nice Guy™/Bad Boy™ categories are actually as monolithically well-defined as Sessions Stepp (and rom coms, and chick lit, and magazines) would have it, is this actually a correct analysis of the scientific data? It would appear not.

One of the studies mentioned by the New Scientist was a survey of 200 college students — overwhelmingly, people under the age of 22 — that found that higher numbers of partners and higher numbers of brief relationships were reported by men who also were identified as "narcissistic," "deceitful," and "Machiavellian." This does not mean that women "prefer" these guys, or that they have more sex — merely that these "deceitful" young assholes claim to have more partners. And sex researchers know that studies of sexual behavior that rely on self-reported numbers are flawed. Researchers have long attributed the impossible disparity between men's claimed number of partners and women's claimed number of partners to the fact that study subjects often offer socially-desirable answers, as opposed to correct ones, and note that this disparity is so ingrained as to actually constitute a kind of "self-fulfilling prophecy." So these guys, who admit they lie more than the average population, may be lying about all the sex they're having. It's entirely possible that we've created the cultural trope of the Bad Boy™ out of nothing more than string and glue.

Strangely, the more Nice Guys™ adopt Bad Guy™ mannerisms to get ahead, and the more Bad Guys™ try it on by pretending to be Nice™, the more we stubbornly refuse to attribute these facts to a flaw in the system of categorization.

So how about this for sex advice: People are different. Find one you like, and bone him or her. Use protection. Repeat as necessary.

Friends [XKCD]
Why Nice Guys Finish Last [SexReally]
Bad Guys Really Do Get The Most Girls [New Scientist]
The Myth, The Math, The Sex [NYTimes]

Earlier: Is It Too Soon To Call SexReally The Worst Sex Website Ever?
Is There A Worse Dude To Do Than The Reformed Nice Guy?

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?

Interestingly, MacDonald doesn't fully parse the 20-25% statistic (Side note: It's been twenty years: Doesn't a new study seem to be in order? And does 20-25% sound like an over or under-estimation?) but instead descends into a Laura Sessions Stepp-like rant against drunk sluts. "In all these drunken couplings, there may be some deplorable instances of forced and truly non-consensual sex. But most campus 'rape' cases exist in the gray area of seeming cooperation and tacit consent, which is why they are almost never prosecuted criminally." Ah yes, the old "gray rape" defense! MacDonald ends on an even more damning note: "Young iconoclasts can take up another discredited idea: College is for learning. Fighting male dominance or catering to the libidinal impulses released in the 1960s are sorry substitutes for the pursuit of knowledge." If only young women were at the library studying on Saturday nights, MacDonald seems to be saying, then this rape nonsense wouldn't be such a problem!

[Image via The Daily Dose Book Nook.]

What Campus Rape Crisis? Promiscuity And Hype Have Created A Phony Epidemic At Colleges. [Los Angeles Times]

Earlier: Cosmopolitan's Date Rape Panel: There Are No Shades Of "Gray" When Vomit Is Involved
'Cosmo' Wonders: Is It Rape If You Had Too Many Jaeger Shots To Remember It Anyway?

Laura Sessions Stepp was the first to speak at any length, and she basically rehashed the article she had written in Cosmo peppered with some of her usual anti-hook-up propaganda. Blah, blah, women should be dating and not just having casual sex, blah, blah, there wouldn't be so much assault if they had real relationships.

Two of the three men on the panel, Neal Irvin, the National Director of Men Can Stop Rape and anti-violence activist Joe Samalin, focused their commentary on the need to educate men. "The way we socialize men to think about sexuality is the reason they're confused about gray rape," said Irwin. "We're taught that men are the seekers, women are the gatekeepers." An interesting point, but neither Irvin nor Samalin gave concrete examples on how to help educate or socialize the men in question.

Linda Fairstein, the former chief prosecutor in the Manhattan D.A.'s Sex Crimes Unit, was the only commentator who said anything remotely useful in terms of defining gray rape. "There is no such thing as gray rape in the criminal justice system," Fairstein explained. If a woman is blackout drunk — ie she is actively engaging in behavior but not creating new memories — rape will be nearly impossible to prosecute. "I would never have said yes when I was sober," Fairstein said, "will not stand up in court."

"Men are responsible," Fairstein continued. "They shouldn't be having sex with wasted women. Vomit should probably be a red flag... But teaching responsibility to young women is just as important. You don't have to drink eight drinks. You don't have to get blotto."

After the panel, Samalin suggested to me that men should refuse to have sex with any woman who has been drinking. "Even if you've been dating for three years," he said solemnly. Because that's a realistic expectation! Samalin's attitude was my issue with the whole experience. Every panel member vigorously agreed that when a woman says no, a man should listen, regardless of how quietly she says it or how intoxicated she might be. But the messier issues — what if she says no, but then consents later, or what if she says no while she's taking off her panties — were either not addressed or glossed over completely. Incidentally, I learned that in Maryland and North Carolina, once penetration has begun, a woman cannot rescind her consent. Duke sorority sisters, please take note.

I tried to ask Cosmo EIC Kate White what she thought about the gray rape discussion but when I told her I was from Jezebel, she muttered something about needing to deal with logistics and scurried off. Maybe she was aware of the irony that Cosmo — the magazine that, just this month, is suggesting its readers learn to "Tease Him into a Frenzy!" and "Be a Jealous Bitch!" — was hosting a discussion about the deeply conflicted nature of young women's sexual identity. Or maybe she was just afraid we'd tell everyone how airbrushed her letter from the editor photo is.

Earlier: 'Cosmo' Wonders: Is It Rape If You Had Too Many Jaeger Shots To Remember It Anyway?
Related: New Yorkers: Come Protest "Gray Rape" Panel This Morning! [Feministing]

But then in Israel I saw this other girl who used to hook up with him and she assured me he remains a douchebag, only now one that practices medicine in New York. Anyway, I sure hope he saves some lives, and I remember that sexual experience a little more vividly than most of the consensual sexual experiences I've undergone in a similar state of intoxication, but neither sentiment makes it RAPE, does it? It's something, "date rape" I guess, but it's not rape unless I say it was, right?

All of which is a poignant, personal way of alerting you to the fact that Cosmo has come up with a new name for this kind of nonviolent collegiate date-rape sort of happening: gray rape.

And some feminists are angry, and they've launched a letter-writing campaign about it, though if you're reading Cosmo for purposes other than to revel in its unique special brand of inanity you have bigger issues with your sexual identity than what to call that time you fucked that guy you didn't really want to fuck. I'm not sure what to think about any of this, because while Laura Session Stepp (the writer of the Cosmo story) is a tool, reading the individual stories of "gray rape" victims that so closely mirrored my own — they got too drunk! they said no, but then they passed out! when they realized they were having sex, they stopped! — I felt absolutely nothing. It was one drunken regrettable night. One of so, so many more to come. And I have found that when a guy demeans you in a drunken state, it is more likely to stick with you and haunt you if you give anything resembling a shit about his opinion.

And come to think about it, how gross do you have to be to fuck someone when it's, like, three Goldschlager body shots away from being necrophilia?

Battling The Myth Of "Gray Rape" [Talking Points Memo]
No Such Thing As Gray Rape [NYC Against Rape]

Says Levey: "You see someone who's wasted on alcohol or stoned on your couch. Viruses like HPV can seem minor by comparison."

Uh, Levey, a bad case of the muchies and cervical cancer are sorta , you know, an apples-oranges type of issue, see what we mean?

(Check user-generated content created by Laura's afternoon chat for the thoughts of even more idiotic, ignorant citizens.)

In No Hurry To Give It A Shot [Washington Post]

'Unhooked' Author Warns Against 'Hooking Up' [NPR]