When you write a blog about sexual and reproductive health, it’s fairly hard to conceal your politics. I’ve found that people automatically assume I’m extremely liberal and maybe even promiscuous when it comes to my own sexuality. Regardless of this unfortunate stereotype, I typically try to remain as neutral and unbiased as possible when it comes to matters of sex. However, on Wednesday as I walked past a line of signs encouraging students to call their senators about the Clean Energy Act, I found an issue I can’t stay neutral about any more: the Stupak-Pitts Antiabortion Amendment to the Affordable Health Care for Americans Act. After finding that Cornell students were rallying around the Clean Energy Act, I was both surprised and disappointed to find that students aren’t responding as energetically to the injustice that is the Stupak-Pitts antiabortion amendment.

If you haven’t tuned into the news or picked up a Daily Sun since last weekend, here’s a quick re-cap. On November 7th, the House of Representatives included the Stupak-Pitts amendment in the most recent draft of the Affordable Heath Care for Americans Act. While the Affordable Health Care Act offers numerous provisions to improve women’s health care, this particular amendment seems to be a step backward for the United States. Specifically, the Stupak-Pitts amendment prohibits use of Federal funds “to pay for any abortion or to cover any part of the costs of any health plan that includes coverage of abortion" except in cases of rape, incest or danger to the life of the mother.

At this point, you probably think I’m about to go off on some self-righteous, pro-choice rant, chastising Bart Stupak and Joseph Pitts for failing to recognize the rights of female citizens. Don’t click to the next blog. I assure you this is not the direction I plan to take. Instead, I’d prefer to discuss the reasons that limiting access to abortion is incompatible with the reality of abortion in the United States.

In thinking about abortion, many people jump to the conclusion that this procedure is most prevalent among sexually irresponsible teenagers and adolescents. Much to the contrary, one-half of pregnancies that occur among married women are actually unintentional. This means that by the age of 45, approximately 35% of American women—both married and unmarried—will have had an abortion. Do these numbers surprise you? If you think about the efficacy of contraceptives, it shouldn’t. 8.7% of women using oral contraceptives will conceive within the first year of use; 17% of couples using condoms as their primary method of birth control will conceive within the first year of use. Why, then, is the Stupak-Pitt Amendment aiming to take abortion services away from the large portion of women who have actively protected themselves?

As much as I’d love to, I can’t answer that question for you. But I can encourage you to do something about stopping the Stupak-Pitt Amendment before it passes through the Senate. Please take a few moments to call the offices of New York State Senators Kirsten Gillibrand and Charles Schumer (202-224-4451 and 202-224-6542, respectively) to alert them of your opposition to the amendment.

Remember, when Obama was elected, he promised that no American would be forced to lose his or her present coverage under any health care reform. Do not let women lose this important component of their present coverage. Do your part to ensure that Obama’s promise is upheld.

Recently, I feel like I’ve heard a hundred stories about Cornellians using rape as an excuse to cover up cheating or promiscuity.  While I’d like to think our peers are above trivializing rape, unfortunately, it seems that this is not always the case. I’ve heard about numerous sorority girls who hook-up in frat bathrooms, but tell their friends they were raped so their boyfriends won’t think they cheated.  And I’ve chatted with guys who are so embarrassed by the chick they picked up at the Palms that they defend their pride by joking, “Dude, she totally raped me”.

These common college tales might not seem like a huge deal.  In the grand scheme of things, they probably aren’t.  Nobody got hurt.  Nobody went to jail.  But when I start to think about real rape situations, these trivializations put a bad taste in my mouth.  Specifically, after reading about a recent California gang rape, I became increasingly frustrated by the number of Cornell students who think of rape as a joke or as distant phenomenon that couldn’t penetrate our ivy-covered gates.

For those of you who aren’t up to date on your New York Times, I’ll give you a quick recap.  On Saturday night, a fifteen-year-old girl from Richmond High School (Richmond, CA) was sexually assaulted and rape while leaving her homecoming dance.  Local police reported that “[she] was walking to meet her father for a ride home when a classmate invited her to join a group drinking in the school courtyard”.  After becoming severely intoxicated, the unconscious girl was raped by a number of young men in the group.  The Richmond Police Department was tipped off about the assault after overhearing a number of students bragging about the incident in a neighborhood restaurant.  A few hours later, they discovered the female student semiconscious and naked next to a school picnic table.  As of now, six men ranging from fifteen to twenty-one years in age have been arrested on charges of rape, sexual assault, battery, and robbery.

By now, you’re probably wondering why I’ve chosen to discuss this case instead of talking about something a bit more light-hearted and entertaining.  The truth is, I think that rape—and particularly the way New York state law defines sexual offenses—is something that college students know too little about.  Of course, I can’t remedy this lack of knowledge in a single blog, but I can better inform those of you who have followed me this far.  Listed below are several critical components of New York state laws regarding rape:

1. Only a male can be the perpetrator; only a woman can be the victim.
2. The act must be committed against the victim’s will and without consent.
3. Consent cannot occur if the victim is under seventeen, threatened, or drunk.

I’d imagine that these laws surprise many of you.  I’d even go as far as to say that some of you are starting to think, “Well, I’ve had drunk sex.  Does this mean I’ve been raped?”  The answer is no.  These laws do not mean that you should feel violated or report every

incident of drunken sex to the Cornell PD.  It does mean, however, that many males and females on our campus are consenting to sex that they aren’t legally capable of consenting to.

Although drunken one-night stands many not seem as extreme as the aforementioned case in California, they are still extremely serious and may legally qualify as an incident of rape.  So the next time you’re leaving the bars with a potential partner who looks like he might not make it down College Ave., I encourage you to consider whether or not this is kind of sex you really want to consent to.

I don’t think I have to tell you that Cornell students are goal-oriented.  You all know the pre-med junkies who set goals about beating the mean on an orgo prelim.  Or the frat stars who set rigorous goals about winning their next intramural flag football game.  Even the library faithfuls set goals about how to run into that cute guy (or girl) late-night in Olin Café.

But there are some goals all of us orient towards that we aren’t consciously aware of.  These subconscious goals are, of course, sexual goals.  No, I don’t mean the type of goal you make about how many girls to bang after a weekend at Johnny O’s.

I mean the ultimate sexual goal: the orgasm.

Think back to your last hook-up.  Did you or your partner grunt, “Are you close?” or “Did you come?” at least once in the heat of the moment?  I’m gonna have to guess that yes, you did.  Now, I’m not asking you this question to criticize your sexual habits or to make you question your lusty pillow talk.  I’m simply asking to reinforce the important point that this is a pattern we as goal-oriented college students tend to fall into.

The truth is, the majority of us—and by us, I mean virtually every sexually active human in the world—have come to believe that orgasms are the be all end all of sex.  Obviously, this makes perfect sense.  After all the thrusting, humping, grinding, and groping, it’s rewarding to see the light at the end of the tunnel; to feel the instantaneous calm that comes over your body with those perfectly located muscle contractions.  But in focusing on achieving the final goal of the orgasm, are we actually missing out on a lot of the pleasure and toe-curling fun we could be experiencing along the way?

Sociological research hypothesizes that Americans’ preoccupation with the orgasm grew out of our founding father’s Protestant work ethic.  Based on this stringent work ethic, it was believed that nothing could be enjoyed for its own sake.  Thus, all types of physical and mental work, including sex, had to have a marker of success.  As you can guess, the mark of sexual success inevitably became the orgasm.

Consider contemporary sexuality.  There are undeniable pressures to be a rock star in the sack.  Guys talk to their friends about performance anxiety and what girl’s might say about their sex savvy.  Girls’ sexual self-worth is completely measured in terms of whether or not they can have an orgasm—or several—in a four-minute sexcapade.  However, when we measure our sexual success by whether or not we “get there”, we’re discounting other activities that might not necessarily end in orgasm.  Activities like touching, kissing, or caressing may not get you to the big “O”, but they are definitely legitimate and enjoyable aspects of any pleasurable hook-up.

So what does this mean for you and yours?  First and foremost, stop asking you partner “Was it good for you?” immediately after you pull-out.  This not only kills the mood, it also kills any intimacy that may have sparked between the two of you.  Instead start thinking in the moment.  Enjoy every look, every touch.  If you come right way, great.  If you don’t, stop freaking out.   In your search to stay in the moment, you may even discover some bed-shaking moves that you’d completely missed out on along the way.