Let’s unpack that: How and why we talk about sex in college If you walk into my house after 11 p.m., know that you will be talked about when you leave. Every morning after a night out, my roommates and I follow the same sacred ritual: the debrief. All 12 of us — and any male guests who have dared to stay past 9 a.m. — squeeze together on the couch to recap the night before. Over cups of cof- fee and pieces of dry toast, we rehash everything from who was talking to who at Rick’s to who got too drunk and had to go home early to which guys were being stand-offish. No one is spared. Each person in the circle goes around and has their own 15 minutes of fame to tell their version of the night, frequently ending in who they went home with, what they chatted about, how the sex was and whether they’d do it again. Everything is dramatized to the fullest extent. My house actually bought a karaoke machine to add to the fanfare. An informal Q&A follows with questions rang- ing from “Was there cuddling after?” to “Did you come?” We laugh at mishaps and awkward moments, talk about positions and scrutinize potential red flags. I rarely venture stories of my own, probably due to the fact that I have a boyfriend more than anything else. So, instead, I throw out questions and give unsolicited advice, half jealous of their random hookup stories and half grateful that I’m not in their position. Inevitably, someone’s story will outshine the others, like the time, not one, but two of my room- mates brought boys home just to make them watch the entirety of “Lemonade Mouth” and then quick- ly sent them packing. Of course, we have much more serious conversa- tions about sex at other times of day — conversations about hookup culture and consent and safety — but there’s something so enthralling and even empow- ering about talking about sex in a way that’s entirely carefree, light-hearted and non-judgmental. The morning recap is hardly a universal expe- rience, but many female survey respondents and people who I interviewed (who will be referred to by fake names to protect their privacy) recounted similar experiences. “We all kind of wake up and slowly migrate into the living room one at a time, but eventually we all just kind of talk about how everyone’s night was,” LSA senior Sarah said. “Not just sex-related but like, ‘I lost you here, where did you go? What did you do?’ ” The first time my boyfriend sat in on the debrief, he was surprised how formal it was, like a “morn- ing support group” he said. I’ve always assumed that’s because the morning recap is a gendered phenomenon, and to some extent, it is. When asked on The Daily’s 2021 Sex Survey, about 65% of male respondents said they either agree or strongly agree with the statement “I feel comfortable talking to my friends about sex.” In comparison, almost 80% of women said they agree or strongly agree with the same statement. Even if men are comfortable talking about sex, they do it at much lower rates than women. Eighty- five percent of females said that they discuss sex with their friends “often” or “sometimes,” whereas the majority of men — 75% — said they discuss sex with their friends “sometimes,” “rarely” or “never.” There’s also a huge gap in terms of what we share. Over half of women said they share every- thing or almost everything about their sexual encounters with their closest friends. Another third said it depends on the circumstances (which friends they’re talking to and who they had sex with) and only 15% said they rarely, if ever, share details with friends. On the other hand, two-thirds of men said they share little to no information with their friends. Many responded to the question saying “I don’t kiss and tell.” The other third either said they share a lot of details or are open to sharing details when asked by friends. Sarah shares virtually everything about her sex life with her friends. Still, our sexual experiences seem to be very similar. Men and women gave comparable descrip- tions of their typical one night stand: meet someone at a bar, go home with them, have mediocre sex and never see each other again. They also cited similar reasons for having sex, the top answers being pleasure, love and to feel wanted. So, if our experiences are so similar, why do we talk about sex so differently? There’s the biological answer, that women are more socialized to communicate verbally than men. While men bond through activity, women tend to bond through sharing — a phenomenon particularly pertinent within heterosexual rela- tionships. “Men are socialized to use language to assert a hierarchy and their place in a hierarchy,” Cynthia Gabriel, Women’s and Gender Studies professor, said. “So they have less practice using talk to establish intimacy and rapport, and so it makes sense that they would talk to their friends less often about it.” LSA senior Lauren feels comfortable sharing vir- tually everything about her sex life with her friends because she says they have nothing to hide from each other. She sees their morning recaps as a fun, com- fortable space that may even bring them closer. But maybe it’s also a function of hookup culture. Some social circles (I’m looking at you, Greek life) set very different sexual expectations for men and women. While men are free, even encouraged, to sleep around, the same behavior for women is looked down upon. Obviously, this leads to very dif- ferent sexual behavior. As Marcus, a recent Michigan graduate, said, men spend their first few years of college “racking up as many bodies” as possible, while women rarely do the same. Marcus felt like his friends talked about sex less frequency as college went on, a facet he thinks of the diminishing novelty of sex for men. Most of his male friends came into college relatively sexu- ally inexperienced, so when they started rushing a fraternity, were exposed to an entirely new culture. He remembers late-night recaps from his fresh- man year that bear a striking resemblance to my morning debriefs. But, once the novelty of sex was lost, the experiences became a bit more routine, and he found there wasn’t much to discuss. It wasn’t that sex got boring or was any less enjoyable, but sex was just sex. “One thing that I noticed is that guys like gossip just as much as girls,” Marcus said. “I think it’s just that (sex) as a point of gossip is just not really as disclosed. I don’t really know. It’s definitely true that details are gone over, particu- larly when things are new, when you’re a freshman, and the whole hookup culture and sex scene is just new. You’re just getting with all different types of girls and things like that. So you’re addressing, you know, ‘This girl was like this, that girl was like that.’ But, then when you get older, people don’t want to hear the same old, same old.” But, for women, there really is no “same old, same old.” Regardless of hookup culture, the physical act of sex for heterosexual women is more nuanced than it is for men, particularly because the vast majority of heterosexual encounters end when the man finishes. The orgasm gap, the idea that het- erosexual men reach orgasm 40% more frequently than their heterosexual female partners, creates more variety in the female sexual experience. Wednesday, December 8, 2021 // The Statement — 2 BY LANE KIZZIAH, MANAGING SPORTS EDITOR & STATEMENT CORRESPONDENT Read more at MichiganDaily.com Illustration by Katherine Lee Page Design by Sarah Chung & Brittany Bowman