School just started and that means F*Bomb in Print has returned, ready to dispense sexual wisdom and erotic facts to unprepared college students for yet another semester. F*Bomb can be seen each week in UWeekly, available at any UT or ACC campus in Austin, online at UWeeklyAustin.com, and is now available in full on this site. For our first column this semester, F*Bomb had the honor of interviewing the wise and wonderful Violet Blue.
Her blog, Tinynibbles.com, has been an inspiration to us here at F*Bomb for many years and is a great resource for people who like sex-related media and things you can masturbate to. Read the full column below.
Hook up, Horns
Welcome to college. You are now the resident of a small, burnt orange city whose 40,000 plus population consists primarily of young people looking for a good time. If you can avoid getting addicted to online poker, Xbox Live, or hard drugs, you will have a lot of fun and meet many new people, some of whom may want to get naked with you.
To help UT’s new freshmen get off to a good start- as well as stop you returning students from making the same dumb mistakes- F*Bomb spoke with Violet Blue, blogger and author of the new book Total Flirt, for advice on better navigating this seething, co-ed cauldron of hormones and hook ups we call college.
F*Bomb: What’s the best way to take thing to the next level with someone who lives in your dorm or is in one of your classes?
Violet Blue: In the type of situations where you’re going to see people over and over again, and you’re not sure how things might work out, first of all, keep a sense of humor about everything you’re doing. There’s a great rule that I like to say about flirting, and that’s “Don’t be creepy.”
Try to put yourself in their situation. If every time they look up from their coffee you’re staring at them, that’s creepy. If you want to take things to the next level, there’s a couple things you can do that come across as “not creepy.”
FB: Like what?
VB: Invite the person to things that you are already doing. Instead of saying, “Hey will you come out with me to dinner tonight?” what you want to do is say, “Hey, a bunch of us are going to this opening tomorrow night, it’s at 8 o’clock, it would be great to see you there.” That way the person doesn’t have as much direct one-on-one pressure. They can show up but it’s not putting them in a position where they feel like they either have to say yes or turn you down flat. It’s a nice way of keeping the pressure really low when you want to test the water and find out what’s going on.
FB: How can you make sure hook ups stay respectful?
VB: Before you go out and play, get in mind what your expectations are and what you’re looking for. If you’re just looking for fun or if you’re looking for something more, know yourself. That way you can select your targets appropriately in terms of flirting and no one else gets their feelings hurt.
If you’re just looking for a casual thing and you don’t want to make a boyfriend/girlfriend (or girlfriend/girlfriend or boyfriend/boyfriend) situation out of it, let them know before you even get them back to your room. What you can do is just let them know, “Hey, I don’t know where my heads at with this but I would love to spend the night with you. I don’t know where it’s going to go but I think you’re super hot. If you wanna come back to my room that would be awesome,” and make sure they’re not setting expectations around, “Oh, and we’re going to have breakfast the next day and then move in together by Friday.”
FB: What can you do so no one feels taken advantage of?
VB: Make sure you understand what informed consent is. What I mean by informed consent is make sure that everybody knows what they’re saying yes to and what they’re saying no to. If you invite someone back to your place with the expectation of them having sex with you, but you haven’t communicated that, you’re not giving the person a chance to give you informed consent, and that can be really problematic.
Everyone thinks that when you have any type of negotiation about sex, that all of a sudden everything has to errrrr….(imitates record scratch) and the music stops and suddenly it’s just not hot anymore. That’s not necessarily true. You can definitely negotiate in a really flirty way and that doesn’t mean that you need to take a break from foreplay. What you do need to do is to say, “Hey, I’d love to go from kissing you to trying this with you, how do you feel about that?” And you can do that in a way that’s hot.
FB: What about sex and alcohol?
VB: Alcohol is the great inhibitions lowerer and it’s something that a lot of us do when we want to relax, get into the groove and get our courage up to go flirt.
But sometimes it’s really hard to tell when the other person has had too much to drink. If they can’t adequately communicate to you, “Yeah, I do want a kiss,” or “No, I don’t want a kiss,” or if you ask them and they seem too wasted to adequately respond, then you know that they’re too wasted to give informed consent. And that’s some place you just don’t want to go whether it’s a stranger or a friend that you’ve been hoping to hook up with. I think a couple drinks is great but you gotta use your Spider senses to make sure they’re not too drunk.
It’s much safer to err on the side of, “Wow, this would have been an awesome opportunity to hook up but the consequences are probably going to outweigh how awesome it was that I had sex.” It feels like you’re only going to get one opportunity all year, but there will be more opportunities you’ve got to keep that in mind so you don’t make a poor choice around one opportunity when it comes up, because if she’s too drunk or he’s too stoned, the sex is going to suck and it’s going to be crappy the next day if the person really wasn’t that into… or worse.
FB: What about online flirting?
VB: Technology can totally be used to enhance hook ups. Flirting in person is definitely the summit because you get body language and eye contact, and you get to see what the chemistry is like and the subtle nuances of what they mean when they say things, but with social media you can flirt on many different levels as well. It’s a really good way to casually ping someone through out the day whether it’s liking something that they said on Facebook or giving a little @reply, it just kind of lets the person know that you’re there.
And it keeps each other on each others’ minds and it’s a really great way to keep the flirt going and keep the heat on, as long as it’s something friendly, neutral, and warm, and obviously, not every two hours or anything like. Maybe twice a day.
And, if you’re definitely interested in someone you don’t want to let more than two days go by without any type of contact whatsoever. Because generally two days is the drop off for attention span in flirtation. So what you want to do is, before two days go by, if you’re wondering, “How long should I wait before I message them?” or “How long should I wait to text them or call them?” after the hook up or leading up to the date, two days is the max you want to let go by. Definitely don’t let their attention drop off.
More great advice, sex-positive links, and pictures of hot naked people can be found on Violet Blue’s blog, tinynibbles.com. Along with common sense and communication, safer sex is an essential part of any adult hook up and new students should visit the Healthy Horns center for additional resources and information, as well as check out Total Flirt’s handy safer sex risk assessment guide.
