[For many of us, sex and college go together like Uggs and snow - you can’t have one without the other. So, we brought in one of Berkeley’s finest sex columnists, Julia, to start a dialogue about the topic (and act) that is very near and dear to our hearts. Every Thursday Julia will get your day goin’ with a little somethin’ somethin’ that’s on her mind.]

Last week I went to my university’s health center for a birth control pill issue. As soon as Dr. Nancy scurried in with her Lisa Frank name tag and orthopedic shoes, I knew that this was going to be trouble. I answered the routine questions and then braced myself for what was next; the question that every single girl dreads.

“Are you sexually active?” inquired Dr. Nancy with her beady eyes judging my contraceptive-popping self. What the hell are you supposed to say in that situation?

“Well, you see Nance, I did hook up with my ex-hook up two weeks ago but other than that it’s been quite the dry spell…” Nobody really wants to delve into their complicated lust life with a complete stranger.

This got me thinking, how does anybody really know if they are “sexually active”? To me, activity isn’t all-or-nothing; there are several levels to be aware of. Dr. Nancy, for instance, would abide by the criteria of “hyperactivity.” In other words, if you have ever touched a boy or even really thought about it, you are sexually active for the rest of your life and probably well after you’re dead. Read More »

[Every once in a while, we have to go something that blows. Something we’re not prepared for. Something, that at least, makes a good story…]

I took my off clothes slowly, placing them in the plastic hospital bag and eyeing the hospital johnny with intense trepidation. Intense, fearful, trepidation. I was in the hospital for a biopsy – a biopsy that had been scheduled the day before – so there really hadn’t been any time to prepare for what was about to happen. And when it comes to hospitals, I need to prepare.

After clothing myself in a paper thin gown and crawling underneath a paper thin blanket, I made small talk with a nurse as she prepared vials for the blood she was about to take, and an IV she was about to shove into my arm. Apparently, when you get a biopsy of something hanging around your rib, lots of things are included; vials of your blood, IVs, a few needles of Novocain, “conscious sedation”, and some kind of giant, hand-cranked needle to do the actual biopsying.

The hand-cranked needle was the thing I was least happy about.

I sat underneath the blanket and wiggled my feet, squinting as the nurse flicked the inside of my elbow, the same place that had been flicked only a few days before, and squinted even more as she stuck the needle in. “Looks like someone already got you right here!” she said cheerily, and I nodded as I bit my tongue, wondering if she knew how painful it was to puncture an already bruised patch of skin.

Once the IV was taped securely to my arm, I began the always taxing process of sitting and waiting. People in scrubs padded in and out of the room, my parents stood over the bed and made some strange jokes, and my nurse checked my blood pressure, pulse, and asked me thousands of questions – including if I was in “spiritual distress” (a question I considered answering yes to, because, isn’t every twenty-something in spiritual distress?). Read More »