September 2009

September 25th 2009

DTRs: Is Knowing Where You Stand Really So Bad?

- Laura Sessions Stepp

The lengths couples will go to to deny they are a couple can be mind-boggling. Exhibit A: this season’s first episode of CBS’s “How I Met Your Mother.” The back story is this: Barney and Robin hooked up all summer. Their friends, especially the husband-wife team of Jason and Lily, kept pressuring them to admit that they meant more to each other than just a good lay.

September 25th 2009

DTR Intercept: Stefanie Saves Hippie Chick an Awkward Conversation

- Stefanie

The other night I was watching the season premier of “How I Met Your Mother.” The entire episode was about DTRs, or “Define the Relationship” talks. DTRs are awkward, mildly traumatic, and most people try to avoid them like the plague. But the one thing worse than having a DTR with someone you are involved with is getting Rick Rolled into a DTR for someone else – and it’s a lot more common than you would think.

September 22nd 2009

Seen On Twitter: #whateverhappenedto Condoms?

- Liz Sabatiuk

We were pleasantly surprised to see the trending topic #whateverhappenedto come up in our "Condoms" twitter feed today ("pleasantly" because we're glad people are discussing birth control--the bad news, I guess, is that the topic is people not using it!). Anyway, I couldn't resist choosing a few favorites to highlight for posterity. Here are my top 11 #whateverhappenedto condoms tweets (with commentary), in no particular order:

September 18th 2009

'Bright Star': Naked Passion, Fully Clothed

- Laura Sessions Stepp

In her new cinematic love story, “Bright Star,” filmmaker Jane Campion reacquaints us with delicious sexual passion and reminds us that it need not be accompanied by intercourse. I, for one, thank her for that.

Not that I have anything against "doing it." But many of today’s media and entertainment figures, as well as political pundits on the right and left, reduce the bountiful buffet that is sex to one dish – intercourse. One kiss and the young partners are bouncing on 300-thread count sheets. A sexy voice, lingering glance, hungry eyes, stolen kiss, tender touch, poetic language…all are hardly more than appetizers, and easily skipped.

September 18th 2009

...With a Little Help From My Friends

- Stefanie

The phrase “wait, wait, don’t tell this story” is becoming common in my life. Someone will start a story and then interrupt themselves to say “you can’t blog about this,” and I usually roll my eyes and say “fine.” Sometimes they are great stories and I cry a little on the inside that I can’t use them. So after three months of writing this blog, I want to officially say thank you to all my friends who let me blog about their lives, tell me stories about their friends, and who have not yet voted me off the friend island. The award for the greatest group of friends ever goes to:

September 11th 2009

On Being "Down With Your Parts"

- Laura Sessions Stepp

Hey girls, are you “down with your parts?”

I love that phrase, and it’s not because I’m trying to suck up to the woman who coined it, Sarah Brown, the National Campaign’s CEO.

I love it because it reminds us, in a playful way, of something we tend to forget: Knowing our bodies helps us take care of them. It’s like friendship: The better you know someone, the better friend you can be.

September 11th 2009

La Coquette and the Morning After

- Stefanie

The other night Smart Chick and I were driving La Coquette home after a dinner when the conversation turned to the previous weekend's activities.

Me: “Did you go to that party in the ‘burbs last weekend?”

La Coquette: “Oh, yeah. . . .”

Smart Chick: “Did you make any bad decisions!? Come on, tell us!”

La Coquette: “Well. . . . I brought home this really hot guy.”

Me: “Did you have sex with him?”

September 8th 2009

A Great Little Moment on "Greek"

- Amy Kramer

Nice scene on ABC Family’s “Greek” last night: Rusty and Jordan are mid-hookup and he interrupts the action to say “I have one question…” and before he can get any other words out she responds with “Yeah, I have some in the drawer.” He wasn’t going to ask about contraception -- he was preoccupied with trying to impress her visiting dad and was about to ask whether he was succeeding -- but when Jordan hinted at the condoms in such close proximity, Rusty seemed happily surprised.

September 6th 2009

A Philosopher's Guide to Dating?

- Laura Sessions Stepp

How do you get to know someone on a first date? Say you start talking about the Emmy nomination for “How I Met Your Mother.” How do you move the conversation forward?

Ask Boston College students who took a philosophy course last spring taught by Elyse Purcell.

Yes, that’s right. Philosophy. Purcell, a doctoral student of philosophy at BC, was approached early in the semester by two female students with what may seem like an unusual request: They wanted to be assigned to go on a date and write about it. Students in another course had gotten such an assignment, and they were eager to try it.

September 4th 2009

Have You Met…Anxious Girl?

- Stefanie

The other night I was having dinner with Anxious Girl and reminiscing about our first winter in DC. We were so miserable in the cold that we made up a game called “At Least We Don’t Live In Iowa,” to make ourselves feel better. I apologize to the residents of Iowa but desperate times call for desperate measures.