The Rocky Mountain Collegian

Seriously: What your birth control says about you

Astrid Thorn, Collegian Columnist • November 19, 2024

Birth control is a hot topic, especially among female-bodied individuals in college. The beauty of pregnancy prevention lies in its customizability, with modern medicine giving us numerous great ways to keep the babies away. What a lot of people don’t realize is that birth control is almost like medical astrology — the kind of birth control you choose can reveal who you are to your core.

Thorn: Sexually explicit media pushes harmful dynamics, sets unrealistic expectations

Astrid Thorn, Collegian Columnist • November 12, 2024

Editor’s Note: All opinion section content reflects the views of the individual author only and does not represent a stance taken by The Collegian or its editorial board. The current generation of...

Thorn: Talking about sex with your partner is important

Astrid Thorn, Collegian Columnist • September 16, 2024

For many young people, having sex is much easier than talking about it. It can often feel awkward to bring up sexual desires in conversation with a sexual partner or partners, but it is an essential part of developing a positive sexual relationship, not only with your partner but also with yourself.

Thorn: Remember these best etiquette practices to have sex in dorms

Astrid Thorn, Collegian Columnist • August 27, 2024

Moving into the dorms can be incredibly exciting, especially for first-year students who are living on their own for the first time. There are countless new freedoms that come with living in a college dorm, one of which is the opportunity for new levels of sexual exploration and experimentation.

Pavelko: Correct condom use is important

Hana Pavelko, Collegian Columnist • November 15, 2023

There are a variety of different contraceptives. Whether barrier methods, hormonal methods or even sterilization, they can all be used to reduce the chance of getting pregnant. One of the most common is a condom, a sheath designed to keep bodily fluids from coming into contact during sexual interactions. A male condom, or an external condom, is the one most people are probably familiar with.

Souza: Everyone should be able to take this CSU sex class

Emma Souza, Collegian columnist • October 22, 2023

Every Tuesday and Thursday around 12:15 p.m., I bid my friends at lunch a snickering goodbye as they roll their eyes, sick of me, already knowing what I am about to say: "Off to sex class!"

Pavelko: Sexual health discussions are important at CSU

Hana Pavelko, Collegian Columnist • October 15, 2023

With the flu, COVID-19 and an abundance of other diseases one can contract on a college campus, many students take precautions. Wearing masks, taking vitamins and eating healthy are all good ways to keep healthy during cold and flu season.

Blouch: Polyamory is effective if you communicate properly

Cat Blouch, Staff Reporter • September 19, 2022

In 2022, who can really define love? As society rapidly changes and we move toward new structures of communication, new structures surrounding relationships are created. Research has become more prevalent within the fields of gender and sexuality, and we are beginning to understand relationship structures that are outside the “traditional” one.

McKissick: Too much sex positivity can be a bad thing

Nathaniel McKissick, Collegian Columnist • April 24, 2022

Sex positivity is reaching new peaks on the internet. People everywhere of all gender identities and sexualities are joining sites like JustFor.Fans or OnlyFans to post pornographic content of themselves. The number of content creators on OnlyFans more than tripled from May 2020 to September of last year, and while the ratio of pornographic to nonpornographic content hasn’t been made available, the website is nearly synonymous with sex work now. But has sex positivity enabled the growth of hookup culture? Can too much sex positivity place us in unsafe environments with strangers whom we know next to nothing about?

Henry: Abstinence-only sex education is damaging, excludes LGBTQ+ people

Brendan Henry, Collegian Columnist • April 24, 2022

Young adults have sex before marriage. Believe it or not, it is a common occurrence, especially when leaving home for the first time and being on one's own — it is a time not only to learn about a specific field of interest in a university setting but also to learn about and explore the field of sexuality. This leads to the question of why abstinence-only sex education is still a thing. Telling a teenager not to have sex is like telling a grizzly bear to not defecate in the woods.

Tusinski: Normalize sex but not oversharing

Dylan Tusinski, Collegian Columnist • March 28, 2022

The other day, I was at a small house party. I was hanging out with a group of four or five people, and for whatever reason, we were talking about various injuries and illnesses we'd had over the years. I mentioned I'd broken one of my toes while playing hockey, a girl mentioned she'd once gotten pneumonia and then another girl blurted out she'd gotten chlamydia from her ex. The conversation lulled for a minute as we all took in what we just heard. Obviously, there's nothing really wrong with having chlamydia — or any other sexually transmitted infection for that matter — but it felt so out of place to hear that mentioned out loud among virtual strangers.

Eckburg: The pandemic changed our lives — our sex lives

Bella Eckburg, Opinion Director • March 23, 2022

When you think about the pandemic shutting down the world, do you think about lube? Or porn? Over the last two years, the pandemic has changed every aspect of our lives, including our sex lives. For some, staying home meant experimenting with toys or kinks. When you’re home for months working over Zoom, you’re bound to need some spice in your life.

Collegian Sex Column