Welcome to the infamous sex column. Some of you like to read about sex to compare yourselves to others, some to experience the exploits of your peers, to be shocked, or maybe to get off. This semester, I want you to read this column to be prompted to think about your own experiences and opinions about sex. I want you to learn to be more open about sex, to talk about sex, and to improve your sex lives. Sex can be fun, hot and wild, and we kind of need to do it if we want to ensure the survival of the species, so why not make it the best it can be? I don’t plan on talking about my personal experiences, because that wouldn’t do anything besides indulge the voyeurs. If you want to read sex stories or watch people have sex, you can find that on the Internet. There are plenty of sites, and I can give you some great recommendations.

So, why am I your sex columnist this year rather than someone who would regale you with tales of his or her latest conquest? Well, I have formal experience discussing, writing about, and researching sex. I volunteered for a semester at Brook, which is the United Kingdom’s version of Planned Parenthood, where I was trained in sexual education and answered online inquiries about sex and relationships. I took Professor Ralph Bolton’s Human Sexuality class and worked as a discussion leader for the class the following year. I spent this past summer working in Dr. Cindy Meston’s Sexual Psychophysiology Lab at the University of Texas at Austin. And this year, I’ll be completing an experimental thesis in the field of sexual endocrinology. I plan on attending graduate school for psychology, where I will focus my studies on sex and relationships.

You don’t need to learn about sex from such informal and biased sources as your own or others’ experiences, porn, television shows, magazines or books. Sex is a fascinating science with controlled experiments, dedicated lab space and scientific journals devoted to the topic.

Let me elaborate on my experience in the Sexual Psychophysiology Lab this summer. I helped perform research about topics such as caffeine’s effects on sexual arousal, the effects of child sexual abuse on women’s attitudes towards sex, men’s sexual function via questionnaires, attitudes toward female genitals, and cultural effects on sexual function. Even though I knew about the field of sex science before working with Dr. Meston, I was still startled to learn about how scientific the study of sex actually can be.

The lab contained upward of 20 heterosexual porn videos that had been standardized for content so that each 15-minute female-centered video had five minutes of kissing and foreplay, five minutes of oral sex and five minutes of penetrative sex. An entire room in the lab was dedicated to the study of sexual arousal, with a large recliner facing a wall-mounted flat screen on which participants watched porn. A connected room contained sophisticated physiology equipment. As with any other science, strict procedures were enforced to ensure the participant’s comfort, like a participant-controlled locking door to the porn-viewing room, sterilization procedures using incredibly strong antiseptic and an extensive debriefing process. A television producer spoke to Dr. Meston about running a reality series about the lab, but there was not much support because, honestly, it was just like any other lab––formal, scientific and often pretty boring.

Even though there are a growing number of labs like Dr. Meston’s, it’s sad that studying sex is still seen as so taboo that it is difficult to find funding for studies or receive permission to perform studies. Grant proposals are framed to show sexual satisfaction as crucial only in the context of a happy marriage. If a researcher writes in a grant proposal that his or her study is important because everyone has sex, it is fun, and it makes people happy, then the researcher will often not receive funding. I’m even nervous about the fact that my thesis (which I will elaborate on in another column) may not pass a Human Subjects review just because the procedure includes masturbation, which is way more fun than any other study where the subject takes surveys for an hour. Sex is one of our basic needs, yet there are such tight constraints on our abilities to study it, write about it, look at it, talk about it and do it.

If this column causes people to think and talk about topics surrounding sex, thus improving openness and spreading the word that sex is great, not scary or dirty or immoral, I will consider it a success. For this year’s sex column, I plan to e-mail short surveys to random students about their experiences and opinions. Among other topics, I plan to cover threesomes, f*ck buddies, anal sex, women’s sexual dysfunction, prostitution, sex education, porn, orgasms, sex in relationships versus one night stands and attitudes toward penises and vaginas. Sex shouldn’t be scary, shocking, or unattainable. The best way to improve it is to think about it, talk about it, and do it, so let’s get going.

Throughout the semester, I want to hear feedback and suggestions. Tell me what topics you think are the most interesting and important, or what you’d like me to touch on under a certain topic heading. This column is for your enjoyment. If you’re not enjoying it as much as you think you could be, say something. Let that double as your first sex tip of the year.