Laura Nguyen

Everywhere I looked, sex was there looking right back at me — for better or for worse.

Pretending like rapists don’t know what unambiguous, enthusiastic consent looks like is on the same wavelength as blaming sexual assault survivors for wearing revealing clothing.

None of these reasons felt as insurmountable as the fact that we came from different cultural understandings of the world.

I won’t fake anything anymore. I’ve swapped out my performances for honesty — so yes, I will tell you if I did not orgasm in bed.

Aside from the role that it can play in perpetuating rape culture, hypermasculinity helps explain why a lot of men may feel reluctant to vocally express pleasure during sex.

For a long time, I looked back on my wild preteen fantasies about making love to women with a big question mark.

I traded staying six feet away for sharing six seconds of embrace because I didn’t know if or when I would see some of these people in my life again.

As a petite woman, I have enough privilege to blind me from the grievances of my female peers who do not have the same body privilege.

When people in Greek life and beyond blur hotness and power together — when some bigger institution or body has to tell us who’s hot and who’s not — we perpetuate a culture in which those who don’t have racial, class, gender or body privileges are unable to obtain social and political power, or even just feel sexy.

To the labia of the world, thank you for keeping us safe from foreign objects and infections, as well as helping lubricate our pussies during sex.