Posts Tagged With 'sex'

Let’s Talk About Sex

Posted by Mannimal in Issue 2 - Full Text, Sex January 12, 2012  |  No Comments

The Mid-term Sutra – love it or leave it

By: Helenaz Hajifattahi

It’s that time of year again. I’m not talking about hockey season (and the unexpected rise of the Leafs’ standings) and I’m not talking about Halloween. I’m talking about midterms. Be it with lab reports, essays, or oral exams, we have all been exposed to this tortuous form of suffering in some form or another.

As students head into their fourth consecutive all-nighter, running on nothing more than Strachan coffee-flavoured-water and bananas that they snuck from under Zen’s peering gaze, they can’t help but yearn for a little bit of relaxation, balance and tranquility. For some, that translates into a brisk walk to Tim Hortons to gorge on a scrumptious assortment of Timbits. For others, a swift lap around Queen’s Park to get the endorphins flowing does the trick. For many, though, de-stressing entails a quick – and arguably necessary – session under the sheets.

One of the most basic human instincts is the desire to seek pleasure and live life to the fullest, carpe diem style. By nature, we just want to have fun. I find that this intense yearning for self-fulfillment is even more pronounced when we’re feeling defeated. When feeling the pressures of school, we need a little pick-me-up. As such, we seek to reward ourselves, and while some turn to scrumptious desserts or strenuous workouts, an equally stressed group turns to casual sex. But why?

According to the always-reliable source, Wikipedia, stress is the failure of a person to respond to mental, emotional or physical demands. Our nervous system responds by releasing surplus amounts of hormones, and we feel the crunch. We are all emotional creatures; we crave human interaction, be it a physical or a psychological one, and sex is the amalgamation of these desires. It feeds both our physical desires (self- explanatory) and our psychological cravings for companionship and adoration. It follows, then, that getting laid is a most effective outlet when times get tough.

But if sex is such an effective calming agent, why aren’t we all living in an epicurean fantasy where we just get it on all the time? Most likely, it is because sex, just like everything else that’s good in life, has complications. In the same way that desserts cause diabetes and running begets bad joints, sex comes with the potential pangs of emotional damage. It could be argued that the danger of this side effect is a reason to never have sex again. Who wants to experience yet another heartbreak and subsequent rom- com marathon with a tub of Tom and Jerry’s and a bottle of Jack as your two best friends? Clearly, sex can be rough in more ways than one.

But the other day, when watching the new Rihanna video for “We Found Love,” I had a clarifying and comforting realization. The opening scene is of a hipster Rihanna and her Chris Brown look-alike in a dreary urban apartment. First glance tells us they have a fiery and passionate relationship with the dark tinges of alcohol and substance abuse. However, the video doesn’t come with a precautionary warning to keep away from the threats of love and sex. Instead, it has a simple message that good experiences are worth the baggage. Desserts are tasty and exercise is satisfying, but neither give you the intense, seemingly lasting emotional high you get from a sexual encounter – it’s incomparable.

So, while you stake your permanent spot in TC 22 or begin to recognize the faces of the night shift security at Robarts Library, don’t forget to take a deep breath and seek other forms of pleasure, like consensually falling on to someone. On some level, it may just lighten your load and allow for smooth sailing through this tempestuous testing season.

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Let’s Talk About Sex

Posted by Mannimal in Issue 1 - Full Text, Sex January 12, 2012  |  No Comments

Orientation week: Sexual oasis or overhyped gimmick?

By: Helenaz Hajifattahi

Arguably, college life is best epitomized in the 1978 American classic, Animal House, a film that explores all the finer qualities of life away from home ( a life defined by the the ooze, togas and ladies). Thirty years later,it is hard to say that college campuses do not still purport these earlier qualities, only there have been small modifications, like the addition of beer pong tournaments.

Without a doubt, when this year’s first years received their frosh kits, they, like so many college freshmen before them, were tingling with anticipation. Whether because of stories of roommate situations breeding irrevocable “bromances,” tales of first dates solidifying romances, or simply too much American Pie, they had a few ideas of what university life would be like, and most of these ideas had some connection with sex.

But, when frosh week came to a close, was it all about sex? Would sex even have been a thing if upper years the week by throwing condoms at frosh, and concluded it by encouraging the first years to under the moonlight with nothing but bedsheets holding their ‘selves’ together?

we have informative events like talks with the Sexual Education Centre, we also chant that “Our priests can have sex!” to other colleges during the parade.

This points to column’s ultimate question: Is frosh week naturally about sex or do we, the frosh from years past – the gyrating Trojan warriors – make it that way?

Pier Paolo Pasolini, an acclaimed Italian intellectual of the 1970′s, once voiced his opinion on the sexualization of humanity by saying that sexual promiscuity “is really only an obligation, a social anxiety, [and] a necessary feature of the consumers way of life.” Essentially, he says that we obsess about sex because we are told to do so. So, normative society espouses that orientation week is all about sex, but it doesn’t have to be the case.

Sex is everywhere because we put it everywhere, and frosh week is about hookups because we say , but it is important to recall the other side of Frosh Week.

Recount the tours, the boat cruise, and the beach day. Remember the awkward lunch, and how you laughed about it, totally at ease, with your new friends, just seven days later. Most of the week is not about sex but about encouraging some old G-rated fun.

In the end, Frosh Week may have nudged some into the deep, dark realms of night time activities; . Hey, one or two may have even the world of ‘Trincest!’

But, let’s be honest – the overtly sexual nature of orientation week probably turned them off the whole thing.

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