ColumnHating on Valentine’s Day is nothing new. In fact, you’re in a very small minority if you earnestly adore putting on your little red dress, going out to dinner, and getting (cheesy) jewelry from your significant other (or fantasizing about any of the above).

SNL’s recent spoof on last-minute gifts kind of says it all. But if you’re one of the millions who despise, lament and regret having to participate in V-day, I actually believe you can hack it, transforming it into an authentically awesome holiday.

Screw conventional chocolate hearts, pesticide-laden flowers, Chinese factory-made teddy bears, slave-mined gold, blood diamonds and corporate chain store cards. Continue to boycott all that BS, because you’re eco-aware and besides, this Valentine’s Day hack requires just one ingredient: you.

Whatever your relationship status, you likely spend more time thinking about what’s wrong than what’s right. We humans tend to do that: rather than living in the moment and enjoying it, we fret about when the moment will end. Whether you’re happily single, casually sleeping with someone, bitterly single, newly dating, in a long-term relationship or just sexting, V-day tends to remind you of what you lack.

Are you not having sex with your partner anymore, even though you feel like he/she is your best friend? Have you just broken up with someone (for good reasons) and yet you’re still feeling unready to even flirt? Are you a newlywed just realizing that marriage isn’t all it’s cracked up to be? Even if you just met someone and you’re bubbling over with passion, oxytocin and high-expectations, you know it won’t always be as perfectly perfect as it seems to be right now. Because your life is not a rom-com, and that’s a good thing.

Most of us play the dating game with a toxic false premise – that love is bestowed upon us from some outside force. That’s why Valentine’s Day can be such a miserable, mocking, malicious experience for so many. Our outsized, manufactured romantic expectations – the ones the culture force-feeds us 365 days a year – are transformed into a monstrous mélange of cookie-cutter Hallmark cards and impossible reservations on February 14th. Let’s flip the script, shall we? It’s time to stop looking for love, and to simply BE love.

Any relationship, even the most egalitarian ones, even the ones in which sexual attraction seems to never cease, even the ones that seem like they’ve been spun from an irony-deprived screenwriter’s fever dream – yes, even those relationships suffer from the same false premise. If you arrive at the doorstep of your next relationship feeling needy and unlovable, the lover you choose cannot fix that. Not that you have to come to new partnerships without battle scars – god knows we all have those. But you have to come, at least, with a willingness to be vulnerable. The healthiest relationships are those in which both partners aren’t afraid to ask for what they need, and that requires bravery. I also believe that we have to trash the patriarchal concept of “forever after,” but that’s just me.

More important, whether you just met, you just broke up, or you’re twenty years in, you have to remember that you’re already whole. He can’t fix you. She can’t heal you. All you can do is support each other for as long as it lasts. All you can do is know that you’re enough, all day, every day, and on Valentine’s Day.

And that, my friends, is how you can hack Valentine’s Day. Or forget all of this heavy stuff and eat a boatload of ice cream, get drunk and have sex with a stranger, masturbate, get drunk and have sex with your lover, go out with your besties and dance all night, or all of the above (in any order that makes sense). Bonus: V-Day coincides with a Full Moon this year, and it falls on a Friday, so you have a lovely excuse to stay up all night to get lucky.

Join me on Thursday evening for a Live (Eco) Sex Chat on Facebook. I’ll be answering your burning questions about sustainable condoms, organic lube, sexual fetishes and/or positions, sex toys, orgasm, Orgasmic Meditation, and whatever else you want to know about. I’ll also be giving away three signed copies of my book “Eco-Sex: Go Green Between the Sheets and Make Your Love Life Sustainable”(Crown Publishing/2010) and samples of my favorite lube!

Got a question for Stefanie? Email  stefanie at ecosalon dot com and she’ll answer it in the next Sexual Healing column.

Keep in touch with Stefanie on Twitter: @ecosexuality

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Image: ArloMagicMan

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A weekly look at sex and culture, by the numbers.

If anyone has the right to be irritated this week, it’s Kate Middleton. Can’t a Duchess get a little uninterrupted tanning time in? In her royal honor, we’ve dedicated this week’s Sex By Numbers to every woman that just wants to be left alone (there’s an app for that, by the way).

24 Hours: Length of time that a French court gave the gossip magazine Closer to hand over topless photos of The Duchess of Cambridge. Will and Kate won an injunction against the tabloid shortly after the pictures were published on Monday.

1 in 10: Only 10% of sexual harrassment incidences are reported. The Metropolitan Action Committee on Violence Against Women and Children, based in Toronto, has created a helpful app which provides snarky responses to cat calls and ways to dispel unsolicited and inappropriate attention.

60s: When it comes to the sex lives of people over the age of 40, Hollywood has historically left the subject alone, until now. A new film starring Meryl Streep (63) and Tommy Lee Jones (66) is boldly and funnily “acknowledging that sexuality in older age exists.”

90: Thinking about the act of sex outside the context of, well, sex can make the actual mechanics seem kind of off-putting. A new study in the journal PLoS ONE that surveyed 90 women found that sexual arousal lessens gave the “disgust factor” that might otherwise be associated with the exchange of all those bodily fluids.

3rd highest: The state of Texas has the 3rd highest teen pregnancy rate in the nation. Despite this, some parents would still rather opt out of the new sex-ed curriculum that is being adopted by many Texas schools, which aims to take a more realistic approach to the sexual lives of teenagers.

54%: When it comes to sexting, teenagers are doing anything but leaving each other alone. A Los Angeles based study found that 54% of teens know someone that engages in sexting and that the act is usually an indicator of further sexually risky behavior.

64: Women who regularly read magazines such as Cosmopolitan (which has a total of 64 international editions) or others that include scripts about female sexual desire are more likely to “prioritise their sexual desire for their own sake, but not for the male partner.”

80%: Number of Egyptian women who report having experienced some form of sexual harassment. The study, carried out by the Egyptian Centre for Women’s Rights, found most of the victims were wearing headscarves.

Image: Tom Soper Photography

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A weekly look at sex and culture, by the numbers.

From teenagers to nonagenarians, it appears we all like to have sex—even after giving birth and especially while on vacation. For that reason, here’s an age appropriate installment of Sex by Numbers.

28: Percentage of 1000 Texas teenagers surveyed who said that they have sent nude pictures of themselves via email or text; researchers previously thought merely one percent of teens were ‘sexting.’

85: More than half of residents in elderly care facilities are age 85 or older and, even though we don’t like to talk about it, it appears they still like to have sex.

40: Percentage of women under 30 who admitted to having a one night stand (or a few) while on vacation.

6 Weeks: The amount of time most doctors suggest waiting after giving birth before having sex; a new study finds that many postpartum women aren’t that patient.

78: Age of the late female health activist Joan Dunlop—who is credited with getting the UN to define a women’s right to say no to sex as an essential human right—when she passed away last week.

28: Number of hours after giving birth that Cambridge University honors student Isobel Cohen took her final exams.

18 to 96: The age range of individuals asked by researchers from the Kinsey Institute to answer the question: “would you say you had sex if…”

Flickr: Mike Licht

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A weekly look at sex and culture, by the numbers.

1 minute: Length of the first Magic Mike trailer to feature full male nudity, released this week

112: Age of recently discovered notes from a failed Antarctic expedition describing the “depraved” behavior of Adelie penguins, including apparent acts of necrophilia

$413: Difference in amount earned per hour by one American stripper in a single month last year

1200: Wedding licenses pulled by Hawaiian wedding planner Maui’d Forever since a recent ruling requires all weddings taking place on Hawaii’s beaches to purchase state permits

13: Same-sex unions & weddings taking place in comic book stores nationwide next week to celebrate the release of Astonishing X-Men #51, in which Northstar marries boyfriend Kyle

100: Participants in a brawl that broke out at a Glendale wedding last weekend that ended in multiple arrests

1000: Signatures amassed overnight on a bill attempting to block the creation of domain names .porn, .adult and .sex

4%: Proportion of text messages sent by teenagers that contains sexual content (an average of 77 per month per teen), according to data gathered by TxtWatcher

Image: Ricymar Fine Art Photography

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Sexting and cyberbullying have harsher consequences for girls.

A recent instance of cyberbullying involved a slut list that was initially mass forwarded amongst students using Blackberry Messenger until one New York teen said he was tired of requests to forward it and decided to create a “smut list” Facebook group (the name was evidently changed to avoid flagging). Only a few months prior, a girl on the other side of the country took a full-frontal nude photo of herself and sent it to her new boyfriend. A series of events and bad decisions resulted in that photo going viral throughout her school, community and beyond. In both instances, girls were painted with the equivalent of a cyber scarlet letter.

Bad girl directory

The list contained over 100 girls’ first and last names (some as young as 14), ranked them according to their alleged sexual encounters and what they were willing to do, and included anonymous commentary. All boys’ names were omitted. The girls are from seven different high schools in the Westchester, New York and Greenwich, Connecticut areas. The group attracted more than 7,000 “likes” overnight.

The good news is that the schools and the authorities are taking it seriously, investigating, and discussing some severe punishment. The bad news is that, like all digital content, it most likely still exists somewhere. There is no way to unring this particular bell. In a time where college admissions personnel and job recruiters admit to Googling prospective applicants, inclusion on the list could have long-lasting consequences.

Clearly both boys and girls participated in creating, expanding, commenting on, and distributing this list, but it is no surprise that it only contains girls’ names. The underlying principle never changes – society perceives sexually active boys to be studs, and sexually active girls to be sluts. It’s such a tired double standard it would be laughable if it weren’t so damaging. In this case, the larger problem with this list is that it could be a complete fabrication. True or not, this list tars the reputations of all the girls who are even mentioned in association with it.

Take nude photo, send nude photo, lose control of nude photo, live with nude photo forever

The New York Times recently told the story of an eighth-grade girl in Washington state who took a nude photo of herself and sent it to her boyfriend. Her boyfriend soon became her ex-boyfriend and she had a falling out with a friend. Her ex-boyfriend forwarded the photo to her ex-friend, who forwarded it to her entire contact list. In just one day, it had spread to hundreds of students in her hometown. After that, there is no way to tell how many people have seen it, or where it went next. When she tried to change schools, she was recognized, pointed at and whispered about.

The ex-friend and ex-boyfriend faced criminal charges, but ultimately their punishment was to educate other students on the dangers of sexting. The girl who took the photo of herself faced no charges, but her lifelong punishment is clear. Despite the dangers, sexting has become popular with both teens and adults.

How common is sexting?

According to a 2008 study commissioned by The National Campaign to Prevent Teenage and Unplanned Pregnancy and CosmoGirl.com, 20 percent of teens overall have electronically sent, or posted online, nude or semi-nude pictures or video of themselves (22 percent of teen girls, 18 percent of teen boys, and 11 percent of young girls 13-16). The numbers go up for young adults 20-26 (33 percent overall, 36 percent of women and 31 percent of men). When you count only suggestive messages (sans images), the numbers nearly double in both categories.

Sexting begins with one bad decision, but it could stop there if the recipient did not forward it on. Do teens and young adults just think it’s no big deal? Do they really think the messages and images they send will remain private? Especially once the relationship ends?

I believe dissemination requires malice. This generation of teens and young adults have grown up with the Internet and viral videos on YouTube. It’s hard to believe that they don’t understand the consequences of forwarding a nude photo or posting a slut list rooted in viciousness.

No matter what, girls are the most negatively affected. The NYT reports that a boy who sends pictures of himself might be considered an idiot or boastful, but girls are labeled sluts. “Photos of girls tend to go viral more often, because boys and girls will circulate girls’ photos in part to shame them.” However, when a boy sends a sexy photo to a girl, she usually does not forward it to the masses. Boys do not  forward photos of other boys, because they don’t want to admit to having photos like that. Not only is sexting a bad idea, but it’s an especially bad idea for girls.

Girls and Sex – Disrespect, Pressure, and Dehumanization

The reason that girls are more negatively affected when it comes to bullying related to sex is found in sexual attitudes toward girls and women that have not improved with the passing of time, and in fact, seem to have gotten worse.

A fraternity at Yale lines up and yells, “No means yes! Yes means anal!” and sends out its own version of a slut list, ranking incoming freshman girls by how many beers the authors thought it would take to have sex with them. At USC, a fraternity member sent out a disgustingly detailed email designed to identify “sorostitutes” willing to have sex, calling girls “targets” and saying that girls “are not actual people like us men…consequently, giving them a certain name or distinction is pointless.” It’s easy to see how treacherous the sexual climate surrounding girls these days really is.

Recent findings by the Center for Disease Control (CDC) suggests that sexual intercourse rates are down, but there is always a risk of teens lying on the questionnaire and questions not distinguishing between intercourse and oral sex. Conflicting reports have participation in oral sex from only 7 percent to over 50 percent of teens, but it’s possible that oral sex is on the rise as a hedge against unplanned pregnancy (the U.S. teen birth rate fell to a record low in 2009), and a way for girls to remain “technical virgins” longer.

Despite being bombarded with media messages, pressured to have sex younger and younger, and being the target of cyberbullying or objectifying attitudes – ultimately, it’s up to girls themselves to navigate this sexual minefield. No one else can make decisions for them about sending out sext messages of themselves or others, participating in creating a slut list of their peers, or deciding to when and how to have sex. We need to redouble our efforts to encourage girls to have respect for themselves and their bodies, resist peer pressure, and become educated on the consequences of all types of sex.

As for some boys’ and men’s attitudes about girls and women? Will they ever change? If not, these are the attitudes that the next generation of men will take to work with their female colleagues and bring home to their wives and daughters.

Photo Credit: modenadude

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