As I write this, I have been awake for over 36 hours in the middle of a Hell Week more miserable than any other that I have experienced in my college career. I try to keep a cool head most of the time and hold on to an “It’ll get done eventually” attitude, but this week I’m all stress. I can hardly keep my eyeballs in my head with how much caffeine I’ve been ingesting, and from the looks of it, not many of you are doing too hot either.

So please: Masturbate.

Here’s a riddle for you. What do you call a twelve-year-old male in a middle school classroom? If you guessed “a kid with an awkward boner,” then you’re right! Testosterone has a way of awakening the beast up to 20 times a day, usually for no reason at all. For pubescent guys, hard-ons are a lot like herpes outbreaks. They always pop up at the most inconvenient times, and they’re really hard to get rid of.

Maybe it was the gooey saliva and snot bubbling from every facial orifice. Maybe it was the way she precariously hung over her tiny mother’s shoulder. Or maybe it was the fact that she had less regard for social boundaries than a Risley resident, and had been staring at me, reaching at my face for the entire subway ride. Whatever the reason, I was not about to lose a staring contest to someone who had nil control over her bowels. This was a pride thing.

My nemesis was dangling by one leg now, her diaper crunching as she inched closer to me, held from a 5-foot death fall by her mother’s haphazard grip on her baby cankle. I wondered if I could — or even would — catch her in time.

And, yes, I liked it. As you’ll recall, a few months ago I decided to touch my repressive roots and renew my vows with the hetero lifestyle. It hasn’t been easy, but let’s just say it’s been a very exciting ride. I didn’t quite know where to begin, but kissing a girl seemed like the natural first step. This proved harder than I had anticipated — perhaps my skinny jeans and oversized pink Vera Bradley tote turned them off? — and thus I decided to start by styling myself as the virile bachelor in order to fully embrace my new high-testosterone, possibly pussy-chomping lifestyle.

In discussing race relations or feminism my students often say that things are getting better, frequently as a preface (e.g. “Even though race relations have improved, we must still … ”). It is a general assumption that U.S. social history is a story of progress. There are temporary setbacks, but the trajectory is upward: We are better today than yesterday, will be better tomorrow than today.

Tuesday night I hung out with the boys of “What George Bush Told Me,” a weekly Slope Radio talk show. We shot the shit, they asked to see my armpits, I showed them (still haven’t shaved), they pretended to puke — it was cute. We took a couple phone calls, and after one guy called in asking how to make anal sex “less bloody” (seriously), we spoke with “Patricia.” Her call may or may not have been for real, but it sure was interesting.

There are two sides to every coin. On Nov. 4, even as the nation elected its first black president, California was banning same-sex marriage. The seeming juxtaposition of the two events — the collapse of one barrier to equality and the erection of another — left many of us shaking our heads in confusion. Had we stepped both forwards and backwards at the same time?

By Kathleen Marie McDermott

I would like to commend Sun Senior Editor Katie Engelhart for making a series of necessary points about the Greek system at Cornell. One of her most astute observations was on the way in which most of us come to a diverse, liberal arts college only to almost immediately quarantine ourselves into comfortable social sub spheres. Many of us are guilty of this, not just those participating in Greek life.

With that in mind I’ll say that I have no problem with the individual sorority woman. There are many intelligent, capable, self-aware women in the system. I know some, they’re pretty nice! The problems with the system aren’t really visible in the individual sorority woman. The problems are visible in the group affect:

Lynah Rink hosted a particular crowd a few nights ago. The most-of-the-time victorious Cornell varsity hockey team and their usual opponents were replaced by a charming game between two of Cornell’s best known sororities, with a historical rivalry that is not confined to hockey. These pretty girls were lining up against each other for their first real hockey game, and as they swirled — and fell — on the ice, the referees would take them in their arms and, after some opportunistic cuddles, put them back up on their feet.

Naked has been on my mind lately. Firstly, because the blustery days of winter have come, bringing with them streaking season. And secondly because Playgirl, women’s first answer to men’s pornography, has folded. I would mourn, but this supposed bastion of women’s nudie mags has always puzzled me. It was founded as a feminist response to Playboy, but it is an uncreative one. It mimics rather than invents, as if to say that women like making people into sex objects just as much as men. Nudity, re-imagined by feminists, should speak from women’s experiences and also subvert the patriarchal power structure. As we all know, Naked happens in more than just porn. Naked reveals itself in mainstream popular culture, dance, and daily life.