During a co-ed game of Never-Have-I-Ever my freshman year of college, a boy from my English class, sporting a mischievous grin, asked the inevitable question: “Never have I ever...masturbated.” All the boys proudly swigged their beers and looked anxiously around the room to see if any members of the fairer sex would take the bait. All us girls looked around anxiously too, some even exclaiming “ew” or “of course not”—and then one young lady, braver than I, slowly raised her can of Natural Light to her lips. The boys went wild, hooting and hollering, and we all blushed, simultaneously embarrassed for and envious of her honesty. Fast-forward to spring of my senior year: I’m in the local V.I.P. shop (a.k.a. Very Intimate Pleasures) advising a friend on vibrators. She is agonizing over whether $80 is an exorbitant amount of money to spend on a phallic piece of plastic that can gyrate and vibrate at the same time (the “Rabbit” of Sex and the City fame). When another friend, casually running her fingers over the various items in the “waterproof” section, remarks, “I mean, you spend more than that on a pair of jeans,” the indecisive shopper forks over the cash. How did we get from that anxious moment four years earlier to a casual conversation in the vibrator aisle of a well-lit erotica superstore? While my experience may not have been typical, it reflects a broader trend: as life and sex change for the college woman, she is masturbating—and not afraid to talk about it. While college always has been a time for experimentation, shifts in academia and pop culture—everything from prime time to pop to porn—are making female masturbation not only more socially acceptable but even kind of sexy. For all the judgmental press about promiscuity on campuses, with reporters and authors exploiting the shock value of the “hook-up” scene (I, in fact, am not Charlotte Simmons), this new openness has its upside for the single gal. My first friend to embrace battery-operated pleasure had just ended a long-term relationship. Her rationale was as simple as it was stimulating: “Life’s too short not to be having orgasms.” Exploring this familiar yet uncharted territory isn’t easy for everyone: girls jonesing for some solo fun have a lot of cultural baggage to overcome. Vanderbilt sociology professor Laura Carpenter, author of Virginity Lost: An Intimate Portrait of First Sexual Experiences, explains that the strangely schizophrenic messages of American sex education, which often emphasize abstinence and steer clear of issues like desire and agency, can ironically make sexual exploration deliciously rebellious and even empowering. “I see a big divide between my students,” Carpenter explains. “Half of them have really come into their own and realized that sex is part of their identity. They own it. The other half still can’t resist a giggle when I say ‘masturbate’ with a straight face. Often, this is an issue of age, a shift that occurs during the four years of college.” Fortunately, things are beginning to change in the world at large. Carpenter sees a reciprocal relationship between culture and behavior: culture can impact behavior, but people have to be ready for it. Well, after some coaxing, a few compliments and perhaps a couple glasses of red wine, we’re ready. Part of this broader cultural change is the increasing acceptance and support of gender and sexuality curriculums on college campuses, including history and sociology courses that intellectualize sex and demystify activities that used to be discussed only in whispers or in under-the-bed, triple-locked “Dear Diary” laments (see sidebar). Just last year, one of my professors let it slip that the whole free-love-gay-sex-orgy thing of the 1970s wasn’t exactly something he watched from the sidelines. If a respected academic can admit that, what’s the harm in revealing the real motivation behind that late night run to the corner store for a fresh supply of double A’s. Recent years have also has been witness to the rise of the college sex columnist, almost exclusively young women with big vocabularies, dirty mouths and zealous followings. Even Vanderbilt’s Hustler carried a column titled “Naked Sex” by undergrad Amy Elhoff, which dealt with issues as disparate as anal sex, STDs on spring break (“Come Back With a Tan, Not Herpes”) and, of course, the beauty of self-love (“The Health Benefits of Masturbation”). In pop culture, factors like Sex and the City, sexed-up women’s magazines and even pop music (with Britney Spears coyly singing “I love myself/It’s not a sin... I’m into myself in the most precious way” on her infamous track “Touch of my Hand”) have softened the stigma. If Charlotte, the prissy one, can fall in love with her pretty, pink, plastic friend, who’s safe? Plus, girls being girls, word spreads fast. One Vanderbilt undergrad I talked to got an extra special (battery-powered) 21st birthday present from a friend because “she loved hers so much.” Beyond that, sex shops are no longer confined to back-alley operations with tinted windows, sketchy hours and a place to check your trench coat and dark glasses at the door. They are often highly corporate (like our very own Hustler Hollywood), bright, sterile and thoroughly nonthreatening. If these companies can sell vibrators and porn to college women, they’ll do all they can to keep them coming. Even the suburban sex-toy parties, which have garnered sex-starved housewives so much attention in recent years, have been showing up in dorm rooms and at sorority houses. One of Carpenter’s final points is that most women aren’t slapping on a diamond in their eighth semester. The marriage age is on the rise. Many young women now see years of independence on their horizons. Consequently, they’re thinking longer and harder about how sex fits into life outside ’til-death-do-us-part. What many of them are deciding is, well, life’s too short....
