It wasn’t Natalie Krinsky’s idea. But the editors at The Yale Daily News were sure she would be a natural: She was a good writer. She was funny. But most of all, she was not easily embarrassed.
Now, a year later, Krinsky, a 20-year-old junior, is a campus celebrity, writing the most talked about column in The News.
Krinsky’s subject is sex.
In her sassy “Sex and the City”-inspired voice, Krinsky talks about everything from the Yale man’s fear of commitment to the finer points of oral sex, which prompted more than 200,000 hits on the Yale paper’s Web site last year.
Krinsky is one of a growing number of sex columnists at college papers across the country, reflecting a striking openness among many undergraduates when it comes to the discussion of sex. The columns include “Sexpert Tells All” in New York University’s Washington Square News; The Daily Californian’s “Sex on Tuesdays” at the University of California at Berkeley; and Meghan Bainum’s odes to experimentation and safe sex in The Daily Kansan at the University of Kansas.
“If you’ve been missing a spark in your sex life,” Bainum, a 21-year-old senior in Lawrence, Kan., wrote recently, “adding a good pair of handcuffs or a spanking or two to your normal routine could be the way for you to put the sprinkles on your ice cream cone.”
But all this talk about sex does not mean that college students are more sexually experienced than past generations.
Jordan Friedman, Columbia University’s director of health education, who is in charge of the university’s popular health and sexuality information Web site, “Go Ask Alice!” said many of the student’s questions show their level of inexperience. “It’s not just about `Dear Alice, help me have a better orgasm,”‘ Friedman said. “It’s about `Dear Alice, help me have a better orgasm because I’m not sure if I’m even having them.”‘
Nor are all students entertained by the candid discussions of sex, though there has been little organized protest. Meghan Clyne, a 21-year-old senior who is a conservative political columnist for The Yale Daily News, said she found it offensive that Krinsky writes about “various sexual behaviors as if she were talking about decorating your living room.” Sex, Clyne added, “is not something that should be joked about.”
But with interest in student papers waning along with the rise of the Internet, some undergraduate newspaper editors may see the discussion of favorite positions as a great way to increase circulation.
“School papers are doing more to make themselves more relevant and interesting,” said John Katzman, chief executive of The Princeton Review, which studies student attitudes. And what could be more interesting, said Katzman, than sex?
