Peter and I had been dating for only a week before our relationship became marked by the signs of a long-distance relationship: expensive phone bills, used-up data plans and Skype sessions over plates of steaming pad Thai.

He’d graduated from the University of Oregon a few months before we’d met and, by the time we’d begun dating, he was already packing up to move to Portland. Only a handful of dates later, and our relationship was already reliant on screens and notifications and FaceTime.

Not that our situation was unique. Lots of couples — particularly, those in college — will face time apart. Especially during the summer months. Come June, no longer will they live down the hall, down the block or across town from each other. There’ll be differing time zones to consider and phone bills and Wi-Fi connections and data plans — not to mention The Big Questions: Should we stay together? Will we stay together? And if we do, how do we keep this relationship alive? Especially when everything is so fresh and new and vulnerable?

Take UO student Lindsay McWilliams and UO alumnus Dash Paulson, for instance. They had to answer those questions; both began dating their current partners only weeks before a summer break they’d spend apart. I talked to them both and put together a few tips in case it’s your turn to navigate The Big Questions.

Communication. Communication. Communication. Not feeling the long-distance thing? Not wanting to break up for the summer? Fine — just tell your partner that. When McWilliams wasn’t sure what the summer would look like for her and her boyfriend, she was upfront with him. No matter what they chose to do for those summer months, she said, come September, she’d want to be with him. That’s when they thought: Why don’t we just stay together? So they did.

Consider the long-term. Let’s say you’re still confused as to whether or not you want to become exclusive with this new partner over the summer. After all, it is a commitment. Perhaps this will help: Imagine yourself in the fall. Imagine that you had stayed together over the summer; now, imagine that you hadn’t. What does it look like? Feel like? What would be the consequences of not staying together? The benefits? Consider the vulnerability of the relationship and the amount of investment necessary in order for that relationship to grow. Imagine that the relationship has grown. How do you feel?

Just hang out — on Skype. So. You’ve decided to stay together. Here’s a tip: Skype as if you were just “hanging out.” When my boyfriend and I were apart, we Skyped as if we were together in person. That means we didn’t just get on to chat about our days and be done with it. We’d stay on Skype while doing the things we’d normally do: homework, listening to music, writing a paper. We even watched a couple of movies together. 

Know this: It’s okay if you go your different ways. Paulson abides by the advice a friend gave him once: Should you and your partner grow apart, it’s okay. “You’re still new to each other and getting to know one another,” Paulson said. “The relationship itself should just be about having fun and being supportive and if you’re engaging in that way, and you two aren’t tearing each other’s hair out and not losing interest, you should stay with that person. If you do find you’re going in different directions, that’s okay, too.”

Plan time together. Whenever Paulson and his girlfriend have spent time apart (and they’ve done it twice now) they plan a trip for the end of the summer — just the two of them. First time, it was a few days in Portland; second, they camped in Idaho. Planning a trip like that gives you something to look forward to, and a time when you two can replenish the relationship.

Take it as a sign. Remember, if you do make this work, it’s no small feat — especially if you two were still getting to know each other before you made the commitment to stay together. It says something if you two can communicate naturally and honestly — even miles apart. It says something if you two can Skype for hours and text about miscellaneous happenings and have electronic dates. Treasure it.

Editor’s Note: This column was written in preparation for HuffPost Live’s video broadcast series, On Campus: Let’s Talk About Sex. The segment host invited the Emerald’s former sex and relationships writer and Quackd editor, Katherine Marrone, as well as two other sex columnists from Harvard University and Rollins College, to talk about summer sex rules. Watch the live-streamed video and join the conversation online today around 2 p.m. (Pacific Standard Time).

**Both Lindsay McWilliams and Dash Paulson are former Emerald writers.

Remember back in middle school when it seemed you couldn’t go anywhere without finding a drawing of a penis? You’d find penises scribbled in notebooks, or drawn in the dust of a car window, or etched into the walls of a bathroom stall? And not once did you ever see a drawing of a vulva?

That’s kind of like what happened when Nancy Tuana, a philosophy professor at Pennsylvania University (and a former professor at the University of Oregon), asked her students to draw male and female genitalia: She saw a lot of detailed pictures of penises. And balls.

But when it came time to go over the drawings of female genitalia, the pictures weren’t so complete: Most of them consisted merely of drawn-in bubbles, labeled “vagina.”

In other words, most students — men and women — didn’t know what the hell a vulva really was. And that meant they didn’t really know about the clitoris — arguably the most orgasm-inducing part of a female’s vulva.

It’s this kind of ignorance that Tuana focused on in the lecture she held Wednesday at the University of Oregon: “Coming to Understand: Orgasm and the Epistemology of Ignorance.” In particular, she’s curious about the “epistemology of ignorance,” or the “what we don’t know and why” when it comes to female sexual pleasure.

After all, Tuana said, there’s a huge discrepancy between the number of (heterosexual) male and female orgasms in the the bedroom. Data from the Kinsey Institute shows that only 29 percent of women reported that they always had orgasms with their partner, while 75 percent of men did. 

Think back to the sex education you received, Tuana said: Were you taught about pleasure — more specifically, female pleasure? What about the clitoris? What did your anatomy books show besides a uterus and some fallopian tubes and maybe the labia?

“They teach you about menstruation,” said Tuana. “They teach you about STDs. But how many times have we been told about women’s pleasure? You see female genitalia in a reproductive sense, rather than in a way that recognizes women’s orgasmic potential.”

According to Psychology Today, 70 percent of women report needing clitoral stimulation in order to climax. How are they going to do so if they, nor their partners, know much about the clitoris — let alone know where it is?

And, according to Tuana, there are cultural reasons for this kind of perpetuated sexual ignorance.

“Over history, you see the same pattern of suppression of knowledge when it comes to female orgasm,” said Tuana. “You get the construction of the ‘good woman’ as the ‘passionless woman’… Eve was the one who bit the fruit. Eve was the one who betrayed God. Many theologians took that to mean that women are more susceptible to passion and to corrupt mankind. Female sexuality was seen as something ‘dangerous.’”

Perhaps this conversation is even more relevant today, at a time in which debates over a female viagra pill are heated. Some women called the FDA sexist for not approving the pill back in April; others say libido-enhancing drugs for women aren’t the solution, that we should be focusing more on education when it comes to female sexuality.

Tuana would agree with the latter.

“We don’t need the pink pill,” said Tuana. “We need to know about our pink parts. The problem has to do with what we do or do not know… We need to pay attention to the ways in which sexuality — in particular, female sexuality, gets suppressed. And, then, we need to go spread the word.”

The post “Coming to understand:” How ignorance skews our ideas of the female orgasm appeared first on Emerald Media.

I’ll admit: I really like to shake my ass. But, sometimes, the music I like to dance to (club hits, mostly) compromise my feminist sensibilities: I back my ass up to “Gas Pedal” and drop it like it’s hot while rappers talk about the “white… spilling down your throat” and “the way she shakin’ make you want to hit it.”

A majority of the lyrics objectify women, and, in the process, focus only on heterosexual male pleasure.

That’s why I wanted to put together this list: a list of songs about female pleasure, about women coming. Songs in which women are the ones who desire, for once, rather than the other way around.

Beyonce — “Blow”

This comes as no surprise, I’m sure: A song that begins with the lyrics: “I love your face/ You love the taste,” just has to be at the top of the list. It’s an oral-sex treasure: “Can you eat my skittles/ It’s the sweetest in the middle/ Pink is the flavor/ Solve the riddle.” Plus, that beat. Damn.

Aaliyah — “Rock the Boat”

Oh, Aaliyah. What a woman. As an artist, she was unapologetic — both in her independence (check out her song “More than a Woman”) and in her sexiness — a sexiness that wasn’t focused solely on arousing her male audience, but herself, too. Her 2001 hit “Rock the Boat” embodies that: “Change positions/ New positions/ New positions/ New positions/ (Now stroke it baby)/ Stroke it for me/ Stroke it for me.”

“Stroke it for me?” I’m not sure if she means stroking the penis or the clitoris, but I sure hope it’s the latter.

Tweet featuring Missy Elliot — “Oops (Oh My)”

This one’s about female masturbation. I remember the first time I heard it — when I was 8 or 9 — and how excited I was by its explicitness: It was the first time I’d heard a mainstream artist talk about female masturbation in such a frank, clear way. “…this body felt just like mines/ I got worried/ I looked over to the left/ A reflection of myself/ That’s why I couldn’t catch my breath/ Oops, there goes my shirt up over my heard/ Oh my/ Oops, there goes my skirt droppin’ to my feet/ Oh my/ Ooh, some kinda touch caressing my legs/ Oh my.”

Tori Amos — “Icicle”

Okay, this isn’t really a song you can dance to, but it’s sexy — in a haunting kind of way: “And when my hand touches myself, I can finally rest my head/ And when they take from his body, I think I’ll take from mine instead/ Getting off, getting off, while they’re all downstairs.”

Missy Elliot — “Work It”

It didn’t occur to me until very recently how huge Missy Elliot was (and is) when it comes to female empowerment and challenging ideals surrounding submissive womanhood. And lyrics like “Sex me so good I say blah-blah-blah/ Work it, I need a glass of water/ Boy, oh, boy, it’s good to know ya,” just prove it.

Khia — “My Neck, My Back”
This song’s a given, I know, but I couldn’t help but include it. It’s the queen of all oral-sex songs, I think (sorry, Beyonce). She takes on the kind of hard-edged persona we see so often from male rappers —  and by doing so, she challenges female submissiveness.

Pink — “Fingers”

I haven’t heard this song before, but I’m not surprised Pink has a song about masturbation, she’s always been an artist that tests the limits of the industry: “When it’s late at night and you’re fast a sleep/ I let my fingers do the walking/ I press record I become a fiend/ And no one else is watching/ (I let my fingers do the walking).”

Dear Katherine,

I hardly ever get to see or talk to some of my best friends since they started becoming more interested in their boyfriends. This keeps happening again and again. Should I be jealous? Is this petty? At what point do I take it personally?

Sincerely,

Left Behind

Dear Left Behind,

What you’re feeling is not petty, Left Behind. People close to you, some of the closest, in fact, aren’t around as much as they used to be. You feel cast aside. And those feelings are valid, real and important.

Nonetheless, it’s as important to analyze one’s feelings as it is to validate them. You don’t mention how you’ve reacted to this lack of communication between you and your friends: Do you react passive aggressively? Is your reaction to their not contacting you to not contact them right back? That might feel like the “right” way to respond — the “eye for an eye” mentally, so to speak — but it won’t work. Not today, and not in the long run.

Jealousy isn’t the answer, vulnerability is. Cue into that vulnerability and express it to your friends. Tell them they’re important to you, that you miss them and that you want to connect with them more than you have been. And say it in the most vulnerable, non-defensive and non-aggressive way as possible. Say it in the way you would want to be approached if the situation were reversed. Say it in the way you’d like to be approached if your friends were ever upset with you.

Be understanding, as well. They’ve met people with whom they experience such a budding intimacy it distracts them from their other relationships. That’s not to dismiss their behavior; your relationship is just as important. Rather, it’s an effort to better understand their intentions; they’re almost certainly not malicious. And that’s an important — and humbling — distinction to make. Sometimes, when we hurt people, we act out of oblivion or confusion not malice. We’re complicated and messy. That doesn’t make it right. We should be sensitive to other people’s feelings. But it does make it a little easier for us to be more generous with those who afflict us — which is, in the end, healthier for us all.

So be generous to your friends, Left Behind, but express your feelings, too. Chances are, they’ll listen.

Yours, 

Katherine

Dear Katherine,

My best friends and my boyfriend don’t get along — so much so that they can’t stand being in the same room. What should I do?

Sincerely, 

Stuck In the Middle

Dear Stuck,

That’s a lot of awkward in one room. I’m curious: What is it that your friends don’t like about your boyfriend? What does your boyfriend not like about your friends? Is their rift a mere product of personality conflicts, or does it go deeper? Do your friends have a point when they say your boyfriend is selfish or rude or inconsiderate or whatever they don’t seem to like about him? Or does your boyfriend have a point when he says your friends are obnoxious or bossy or inconsiderate or whatever it is he doesn’t like about them? 

Talk to your friends. Talk to your boyfriend. Individually. Find out what ails them, and then perhaps you can remedy the situation. Perhaps once they talk to you, they can talk to each other. 

If solving the issue isn’t a possibility, then you have to express to both your friends and boyfriend how important it is to you that they get along. Even if they never become best friends, at least they can tolerate the existence of the other for the sake of their friend or partner: you.

If that doesn’t work, either, perhaps you accept their rift and carry on with the awkward scheduling of holiday and birthday celebrations.

But, if I were you, I’d reflect on what this problem might be trying to tell you: Perhaps this rift says more about your friends and boyfriend than you originally thought.

Yours, 

Katherine

Just this September, I went topless  — in public — for the first time. Laying on a towel by the river in Eugene, I had untied my bikini top. I felt free. Confident. Empowered.

Luckily, I live in Oregon — where it’s legal for a woman to be topless in public. If I’d been in, say, Washington or Nevada or Michigan, I could have been facing thousands of dollars in fines. If I had been in Utah or Tennessee — one of three states in which toplessness laws are so strict that a woman can’t breastfeed in public — I would have been screwed.

This makes me angry. Really angry.

I’m far from alone. So is Miley Cyrus, who wrote a song about freeing the nipple. And Kiera Knightly who posed topless — photoshop-free — for Interview Magazine. And Chelsea Handler — who engaged in a battle with Instagram after a photo she posted of herself topless on a horse was taken down — three times.

You might call these women, and many others like them, a part of the “Free the Nipple Movement.” They want to go topless on the streets and not face a $1,000 dollar fine. They want to feed their babies in public. They feel a female’s body doesn’t always have to be a sexual body. Sometimes, it’s just what it is: a body, with nipples and breast tissue and areola — just like men.

The movement has gained so much attention, there’s even a movie about it: Free the Nipple, which follows a young female journalist as she reports on women protesting nude in New York City. The movie is based on the real-life efforts of a group of women who fought the body-censor laws in New York and whose protests eventually led to the 1992 law legalizing public toplessness for women (even though women in New York still face fines for toplessness).

In fact, it might have been the director of this film, Lina Esco, who popularized the movement. In an article for the Huffington Post last year, she argued that there are “hypocritical contradictions in our media-dominated society” that allow an American child to see over “200,000 acts of violence and 16,000 murders on TV before they turn 18 and not one nipple.” Why is it okay, she asks, to show so much blood and gore in movies, but not Janet Jackson’s nipple after the infamous Super Bowl wardrobe malfunction? What was so wrong with her nipple that we had to censor it by using a metal “nipple shield?”

And why — she asks — are women’s nipples so much different from men’s? It’s a double standard that’s difficult to ignore, and the implications are clear: A woman’s body is always a sexual body. It is a shameful body. It’s a dirty body —  and a body that is not our own.

Women should have the choice to take off our shirts on the soccer field. To take off our shirts just because we’re hot. Or we want to feel the sun’s rays on our chests. Or just because we feel like it.

Fighting censorship of women’s bodies is a fight for rights and equality. So let’s free the nipple.

The first time I sought birth control, I was in high school and I was nervous.

It wasn’t so much that I was embarrassed to talk about sex. I’d been having sex for a few months with my long-term boyfriend. It was that I dreaded answering the question I knew my doctor would ask: What form of birth control had I been using prior to that day?

When I told the nurse we’d been using the pullout method, her expression was exactly the one I feared: a mixture of horror, distaste and extreme disappointment.

She told me nothing I didn’t know before — how my boyfriend and I were at a very high risk for pregnancy. How pulling out in time was a risky feat.

That day, my face grew red as I took the birth control pills from her while berating myself for having not come to her office sooner.

Today, I would argue with the nurse: The pullout method isn’t perfect, but it’s not completely ineffective — that is, if you’re doing it right. After all, the folks over at Planned Parenthood call the pullout method “safe, easy and convenient.” Are they a bunch of crazy lunatics wishing unwanted pregnancy on us all? No. They’re just being honest.

Effectiveness of the method relies on a few factors: trust, self-control and pre-ejaculation fluid. 

Men: How well can you gauge your sexual excitement? Do you think you’ll be able to pullout before you orgasm? Are you so afraid of pregnancy that you’d probably pullout well before you orgasm? Then the withdrawal method might be right for you. Obviously, if the guy doesn’t any have self-control whatsoever, the pullout method will be much less effective. 

But, it’s the fear of pre-ejaculation fluid containing sperm that prevents most people from pulling out. In fact, it wasn’t until about a year ago or so that I found out that sperm in pre-ejaculation fluid is very rare. According to the Feminist Women’s Health Center, “it is likely that pre-ejaculate fluid will enter the vagina, but this should not contain sperm nor lead to an unplanned pregnancy.”

That’s because sperm rarely exists in the man’s urethra tract if he has urinated anytime after his last ejaculation. If he has urinated anytime since his last ejaculation, he has (very, very likely) flushed out any leftover sperm hanging out in his urethra tract. 

The pullout method has another benefit: It’s easy. There are no pills to remember, no hormones to inject. If you’re like me, you especially like the latter. I’m wary when it comes to putting hormones into my body. Plus, it’s free.

But the pullout method, like many forms of birth control, does have its downsides. For instance, it doesn’t protect against sexually transmitted diseases, so it’s not an effective form of birth control if you’re hooking up with people whose sexual histories you’re not familiar with. 

And, it does require a certain amount of trust (that the guy will pullout), so that should definitely be taken into consideration, too. As Planned Parenthood says on their website, “Couples who have great self-control, experience, and trust may use the pull out method more effectively.”

And, sure, it might not be as effective as other forms of birth control, even if you do it perfectly. According to Planned Parenthood, 4 in 100 women who use the withdrawal method, correctly, will get pregnant — compared to less than 2 in 100 women who use condoms correctly.

But, still, a 2009 study found that when you compare typical condom use to typical use of the pullout method, using the withdrawal method is only slightly less effective than using a condom.

Why is this important to know? Because knowing your body is important. Because it’s not helpful to perpetuate fear and shame and myths surrounding a method that is, in fact, quite effective. Because, if you’re going to use the withdrawal method, it’s important to know how to most effectively use it.

The withdrawal method is by no means perfect. Sperm in pre-ejaculation fluid is rare, but not impossible. The guy might not pullout in time (meaning you’d have to take an emergency contraceptive). It doesn’t protect against sexually transmitted diseases.

But for the right couple and the right situation, it might be more effective a method than your high school nurse made it seem. 

Lillian Huebner forgets where they first heard the word. It might have been while reading a book. Or scrolling through Tumblr accounts.

What the 20-year-old University of Oregon sophomore does remember is this: Huebner was 18, living at home in rural Missouri, when they read the word and felt something unlike anything they had experienced before: Relief. Excitement. Curiosity. Finally, they had the ability to define what they knew was always there. Or, rather, what wasn’t. 

Huebner was asexual. 

Up until then, Huebner had just made excuses to explain their lack of sexual attraction: The pool of potential partners wasn’t large enough (they graduated with a class of only 80 students). They liked country music, Hueber didn’t. They were conservative, Huebner wasn’t. Huebner didn’t like porn — in fact, they found it hilarious — but, surely, there were others who didn’t, either.

“In that moment, I finally didn’t have to find a mate and explain to myself why I didn’t have a desire to go out and start a family,” Huebner said. “I just don’t want a sexual relationship. And that’s all.”

***

THE INVISIBLE ORIENTATION

For Aidan Grealish, it’s the invisibility that hurts most.

Like Huebner, Grealish is a UO sophomore who identifies as asexual. But according to people at her high school, Grealish was homosexual. That’s because asexuality was something you talked about in reference to plants. Not humans. 

The media didn’t help either. The only characters she saw who weren’t having sex were either non-humans or humans portrayed as socially inept: Emotionless robots in movies or awkward Sheldon Cooper in The Big Bang Theory. 

Even in a 1994 United Kingdom study in which one percent of the 18,876 respondents reported “no sexual attraction toward anyone,” the participants didn’t claim an identity.  

It wasn’t until around 1997, when a first-hand account of life as an asexual, “My Life as an Ameoba,” written by Zoe O’Reilly and published by StarNet Dispatches, and the first asexual online community arose from its comments section.

And it wasn’t until 2001 that the world’s largest asexual organization — the Asexual Visibility and Education Network — was founded by asexual activist David Jay. According to AVEN’s website, the organization has helped over a million asexuals find community. 

One of those people was Sara Beth Brooks.

***

“I WASN’T BROKEN”

Growing up, Brooks was never into kissing. She didn’t worry too much about it, though. She figured a “switch would turn on” eventually. 

It never did. Not when she went on her first date in high school. Not when she got engaged to a man who was sexual. And not when she began seeing a therapist and a gynecologist and taking progesterone and testosterone on and off for about a year.

Everyone told Brooks she was broken, and she believed it — that is, until one night when she was in her early twenties and was Googling alternative ways to end a marriage ceremony. Instead of ending it with a kiss, Brooks wondered, perhaps a hug or handshake would do. That’s when she came across the word “asexual.” 

She spent the whole night reading, tears streaming down her face.

“Suddenly, I wasn’t broken,” said Brooks.

The night marked the beginning of asexual activism for Brooks. Soon afterward she got in touch with AVEN’s founder and came up with “Asexual Awareness Week” — an online community that would dedicate one week each year to asexual rights and awareness.

“It was so empowering and liberating,” Brooks said. “Many people describe feeling broken like I did. I wanted to give that relief to others, too.”

***

HELPERS AT THE NEST

That some people don’t feel sexual attraction could have an evolutionary basis. At least that’s what Klaree Boose, a UO graduate student in the anthropology department who specializes in primate behavior, thinks. There are a number of species in which certain members of the community don’t reproduce, she said, and instead help raise their kin’s offspring.

In biological anthropology, these members are called “helpers at the nest.”

“We see it in bees, for instance,” said Boose. “The queen bee is the only one who reproduces and the workers help raise the family. We also see it in other species. So, I think it’s totally possible that asexuality is an evolutionarily stable strategy — also, that it’s just part of the continuum of human sexuality.”

A certain kind of continuum also exists within the asexuality community. Tastes vary among asexuals, said Grealish. Some are interested in relationships, cuddling and romance. Others are aromantic and have as little desire for romance as they do for sex.

Grealish identifies with the latter. For now, at least, she’s not interested in romantic relationships. 

Huebner, on the other hand, is open. Though they’ve never had a relationship — just a “somewhat romantic friendship type thing” — they like cuddling and watching movies and kissing and just “feeling nice.”  

And although it might seem counter intuitive, some asexuals masturbate. Sometimes it’s purely physical — something they do because it feels good — and other times, they masturbate using outside stimuli (such as pornography or erotica). But one thing always remains: They don’t want to act out these desires with another person.

***

PUTTING THE ‘A’ IN LGBTQA*

For Brooks, Asexuality Awareness Week means asexual activism through multiple realms: The medical community is one of them.

After all, it wasn’t until the most recently published Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, said Brooks, that a disinterest in sex didn’t mean that you had hypoactive sexual desire disorder (HSDD). In 2013, a footnote was added to the manual that stated a lack of sexual attraction doesn’t necessarily mean deficiency, but, perhaps, asexuality— and that this lack of attraction need not have a pathological cause, unless symptoms caused distress.

And although Brooks found a particular alliance with the trans community during the beginnings of Asexual Awareness Week — Brooks refers to the community as asexuals’ “first cheerleaders” — she sees the LGBTQA* community as another she would like to further engage when it comes to asexuality awareness.

After all, it’s not always the case that the “A” in LGBTQA* refers to asexuals. Oftentimes, it refers to allies, instead. In fact, it wasn’t until last week that the staff of the University of Oregon LGBTQA³ voted unanimously to include asexuals and aromantics in their acronym — thus making the group the “LGBTQAAA Alliance.”

That’s not to say that Brooks thinks the asexual community has suffered the same as other sexual and gender minorities.

But that’s not to say they haven’t experienced any, either.

Brooks doesn’t feel comfortable coming out at her place of employment. And she’s experienced prejudice from several human sexuality professors over the years: When Brooks asked if she could speak to their classes about asexuality, some said no. They told her they didn’t think the orientation was a “real thing.”

For Grealish, the prejudices are more subtle.

“A lot of people think: If you’re not sexual, you’re not human,” said Grealish. “There’s this expectation that the desire to hook up and have children is biological. You wonder where you belong in it all.”

***

AN ASEXUAL MOVEMENT?

When you ask Grealish if she thinks there is an asexual rights movement, she’s a bit reluctant.

“I think movement implies choice,” said Grealish. “There have been gender queer people since the dawn of time. So, it’s less of a movement and more of a statistics and awareness thing.”

Even if it might not be a movement per se, Brooks believes we will see a change: That there will be more asexual characters in fiction, in love stories and on television. And that there will be a stronger engagement — politically and socially — overall. After all, she still gets emails from high schoolers thanking her for what she does.

“In the end, it’s just a matter of taste,” said Brooks. “I like rock climbing, other people don’t. I don’t like sex, others do. It’s as simple as that.”

When John O’Malley first moved to Eugene from New York City, he was shocked. It wasn’t the city’s people, its politics or its dampness. It was its nightlife: Eugene didn’t have a gay bar.

Then O’Malley thought: forget a gay bar. Eugene didn’t even have a place where LGBTQ-identifed people could meet. At least one that wasn’t secret.

“It’s a college town,” said O’Malley. “There’s a bunch of LGBTQ-identified people here. It just didn’t make sense.”

That’s when O’Malley came up with, what he calls, “Eugene’s Official LGBTQ Happy Hour.” He’d already done something similar before back in Harlem, when he’d started “Coffee Grinder,” a meet-up event for LGBTQ individuals at a local coffee shop.

His hope is similar for Eugene: to create a space where he could serve as much of the community as possible — both those who couldn’t get a drink but wanted to dance and those who could but wanted to go to bed by 9:30 p.m. Only this time, the event, “Made in the U.S.A.” would take place in a bar (at Downtown Eugene’s The Barn Light), and it would be more than just a party; it would also be a fundraiser. Each month, 100 percent of the cover charge proceeds would go toward a small LGBTQ-rights charity in a different U.S. state.

The event’s kickoff party is on Dec. 3. The first state in the lineup? Oregon, of course.

“I’m not trying to reinvent the wheel by any means; there is a scene here already, but I do want to make it more accessible for all,” said O’Malley. “So that you don’t have to have a Facebook in order to know that something’s going on. So that you can go into a bar and see a cute guy and feel comfortable approaching him.”

O’Malley isn’t the only one in Eugene trying to improve Eugene’s LGBTQ scene. So are Jasmyn Hinton and Andrew Clark, the director of operations and the executive director— respectively — for Avalon Eugene. In fact, the majority of the proceeds from Made in the U.S.A.’s first party will go toward the local non-profit.

What Hinton and Clark want to provide Eugene is a bit more lofty: an LGBTQ-specific nightclub. The plan is to have a nightclub and a bar — the former downstairs, allowing individuals 16 years old and older a place to hang out and dance.

And, similar to O’Malley’s humanitarian efforts, the bar wouldn’t just be a safe place to hang out, it would also employ HIV-positive individuals — a demographic who, on average, suffers from stigmas surrounding employment.

“There’s no other club that caters specifically to the LGBTQ community in Eugene when it comes to employment and otherwise,” said Hinton. “And that space is needed.”

Hinton is optimistic. After all, the support is there. She’s asked for letters of interest from various community groups and they’ve received over 60 responses in the past month alone. Many have told them how neat it was. How they would want to come every week. Those are the kinds of people, Hinton said, they want to cater to.

“We want to make sure everyone feels welcome,” said Hinton. We want this to be a place for them.”

Dear Katherine,

I am demonstrably socially awkward. HOW DO I TALK TO MEN!?!?!

Sincerely,

Awk.

Dear Awk.,

In hopes of finding the magical how-to-talk-to-men-formula, I searched the world of Google. The first result brought up an article from Women’s Health Magazine titled, fittingly, “How to Talk to a Man.” According to those folks, it’s simple: just dumb down your anecdotal stories (since, you know, men can’t digest more than a few sentences); use more nouns and verbs; and talk to men in a way that gives a “play-by-play” of a story, rather than a detailed version (just like the sports they watch!).

Of course, that’s a bunch of sexist foolishness. Your real question should be: How do I talk to people who make me so nervous I can’t speak?

You just do it, Awk. You ask the guy in your anthropology class if he knows when the next midterm is. You introduce yourself to your friend’s friend at a party and ask him how he knows the people there. You smile at the guy on the bus and ask him where he’s heading.

Of course, it doesn’t seem that simple to you — or a lot of people for that matter — because talking is the last thing you want to do when your heart is going to bounce out of your chest, your hands are shaking so hard you can’t text and you forget to swallow so you choke mid-sentence and you can’t remember what class you just got out of.

I get it. I do. But social awkwardness shouldn’t impede you from finding men. In fact, it might be your own self-consciousness holding you back, making you that “awkward” person you think yourself to be. We think, therefore we are — so to speak.

And it’s easy to feel that way. After all, our society praises extroversion. If you’re not extroverted, you’re “lacking.” You’re “other.” You’re taken out of the classroom. You’re not considered as “cool” as that charming, loud friend of yours.

But to hell with it. You are you. If that means you’re socially awkward and say “bye” when you meant to say “hi,” that’s fine. That shouldn’t mean people don’t like you. If they don’t that’s their problem, not yours. In fact, a little awkwardness can be charming to some people. (It just so happened it was my boyfriend’s humble nervousness when he first spoke to me, over two years ago, that attracted me to him — the same awkwardness my boyfriend later told me embarrassed him).

Ironically enough, Awk., perhaps it will be the moment you stop feeding insecurities about your awkwardness, and just accept your fumbling and rambling and too-long silences, that you’ll begin to speak with men.

Yours,

Katherine