Ali Drucker - Do As I Say, Not Who I Did: Honest Advice on Hookups and Relationships in College

Orientation Starts Now

I t was sophomore year of college and I was lying on my back, half naked, when I noticed something starting to sting, and then, slowly, burn. After I gently tapped my partner on the shoulder, he popped up from between my legs and asked what was wrong. I was about to say, Im not sure, when I noticed to my utter horror there was an Altoid mint still in his mouth. Equal parts mortified and traumatized, I ran out of my dorm and into the shower, rinsing the residue of winter-fresh mint out of my vagina.

And then, of course, I immediately went to the dining hall and told all my friends, warning them of my urban-legend-esque hookup disaster that had turned all too real.

That moment was perhaps the genesis of this book, in its own odd way. Not because I think the world needs informing about the perils of after-dinner mints, but because there are far too few resources to prepare us for the scenarios we have no idea we might face when it comes to our intimate lives. Simply put, the purpose of this book is to give practical advice for an impractical time: college.

In the first two months after arriving at school, I had already hooked up with three guys who lived on my dorm floor. Thats not one, not two, but three daily opportunities to awkwardly bump into someone who had seen me naked as I scurried, shower capclad, to the bathroom. By my second year, I knowingly made out with my friends crush in front of her at a party. I told my boyfriend I loved him while high on mushrooms. My friends kept track of the number of shots theyd taken by marking horizontal slashes on their forearms with a marker; I kept track of all my sexual partners in an iPhone note because I was scared Id forget.

These kinds of impulsive antics are what college is about. But like many of my peers, Id had only basic sex ed at my suburban high school, and though I arrived on campus with some experience (assuming you consider a few sessions of awkward, fumbling sex that resulted in approximately zero orgasms experience), I felt completely in the dark about the difference between antic and unnecessary risk. And things didnt clear up anytime soon.

After a whole bunch of trial and error, I learned how to balance my newfound social freedom with the real reason I came to college in the first place (learning, duh). But grasping those lessons didnt always feel good: Having to ask your friend for the Geology notes because you and your boyfriend slept through class together doesnt exactly make you feel like youre getting the most out of school. Id often wished I had the benefit of some older, wiser, cooler, nonjudgmental voices to shepherd me alongand maybe even help me make smarter decisions, like perhaps not volunteering to be the model for the clue cheese whiz bikini on an R-rated campus scavenger hunt. So Ive written the book I wish I'd had when I was in school.

In these pages you will find straightforward, unflinchingly honest, and research-backed sex and dating advice from myself and experts in the field of sexuality whom I consulted, with the ultimate goal of helping you develop a healthy sex life as you prepare for and navigate the most excitingand often the most confusingyears of your life. So enjoy the education. It is college, after all.

Heads-up: This book contains frank discussions about unwanted sexual contact throughout.

You Dont Owe Anyone Sex

Giving, Getting, and Withdrawing Consent

I dont know why this is happening to me, Jacob said, pulling on his boxers and conveniently avoiding eye contact. Ive been with girls much hotter than you. Instantly stung, I flushed a shade of red impossible to see under the blue glow of his MacBook. Youll never forget where you were the first time a guy blames you for his erectile dysfunction. I sure as hell cant. And Ive tried.

I was one week into my first semester of college and didnt know why someone who was complimenting me hours ago would be insulting me now. But instead of throwing off the twin extra-long sheets and storming out of his dorm, I stayed and listened to him explain why his lack of an erection was my fault. I did eventually leave, exhausted by both his placement of me on the spectrum of his sexual partners hotness and from feigning enthusiasm for his soft boner in my mouth, but more than a decade later that memory haunts me more than the bangs I cut myself four days before my freshman year.

I wouldnt realize why until much later, but even in the moment I knew something felt off. This wasnt how I thought college would be. These four years, bursting with parties, new friends, and fun hookups, were supposed to save me from a high school experience that had left me feeling broken and insecure. But is this what salvation looked like? Sneaking through the common room with lingerie under my zip-up hoodie for sex with someone who was using me to coax confidence back into his sad, shy penis? It didnt seem fair, but I felt powerless to object.

And maybe his cruel joke of a rejection hurt so much precisely because I felt powerless. Before I left for my first year of college, I spent an awkward summer in therapy trying to make sense of the fact that I suddenly had no friends. I had never been popular in school. (Fun fact: The one and only time I ran for student council, my classmates started chanting my opponents name at me when I walked into homeroom.) After high school graduation, though, even my small social circle had unwound. Every single friend I had considered close just stopped talking to me en masse. I couldnt understand it, but deep in my anxious bones I figured it must have been my fault and theyd just grown tired of having me around. With no explanation, their invitations and messages simply stopped coming. To this day I have never found out why. Weekend sleepovers and marathon messaging gave way to Friday nights at home with my parents, when Id fantasize about the new life Id start in college. I was the only person I knew who didnt feel a whiff of sentimentality about leaving my hometown; I couldnt wait to get away.

Helping to build my anticipation were the hours I logged trolling all the Incoming Freshman Facebook groups to get a look at my future friends and, Id hoped, guys who I could convince via a series of hookups to eventually date me. I spent so much time glued to my familys desktop computer that I even discovered a way to sort peoples profiles by sex, age, and relationship status. I called it the Boy Catalog (yes, I actually said those words out loud to people!), and I would click through to build a mental Rolodex of every available guy in both my class and future dorm. Thats where I first spotted Jacob. He was a sophomore on the hockey team, and in his photos he rocked a scruffy bearda rarity in the dating pool when youre eighteen.

So, fresh off my Summer of Social Rejection, when I bumped into Jacob the first week of classes and he smiled at me, I felt I had somehow willed this blessing into existence. All my late-night wishing and clicking had brought A Real-Life Hot Man into my life. Suddenly, it didnt matter anymore who had rejected me in my past. I had the sort-of affection of a cute older guy, and that had to count for something. Sure, he playfully put me down in a way that kind of made me feel bad but, I thought, this only proved his effortless coolness. And that is exactly how you wind up staying in bed with a man who implies that youre not very pretty and expects it to turn you on. Raw trauma and internet stalking make for one potent cocktail of bad decisions.

When, late one night, Jacob asked me to come to his room for the first time, it didnt matter that he seemed just a bit creepier than my projected ideal of him constructed from carefree and well-tanned Facebook photos. He wanted to spend time with me, a girl who came to college in Converse sneakers covered in Sharpie-scrawled Green Day lyrics; a girl who would gladly tell you why Franz Kafka was her favorite writer; a girl who hadnt had a friend to confide in for months. We all come into relationships with unique vulnerabilities, and whether or not we realize it, those vulnerabilities can affect the way were able to communicate what we really want. Jacobs attention made me feel valuable to both myself and others for the first time in a long while. I was conflicted, but ultimately it felt like I had no choice but to push aside my momentary doubts. I had wanted this, right? So how could I say no?