Let’s face it, the Ivy League is where sex goes to die. Yet, perhaps, if we had some rudimentary understanding of our little sexual universe, maybe more—some?—love could be had by all. I learned this firsthand recently, as I sat down for a face-to-face chat with sophomore Natalie Krinsky, the woman behind the semi-phenomenon that is “Sex and the (Elm) City,” the Yale Daily News’ weekly sex column. Increasingly, Krinsky’s column—which began running this fall—serves the college masses as a sexual bible, (re)introducing wayward undergrads to the joys of doing it right and doing it often.
Unlike most undergraduate columns, “Sex and the (Elm) City” is actually widely read. In fact, the column commands not only a sizeable readership on the Yale campus (among the small but growing minority at Yale who are capable of reading, of course) but, even more remarkably for a student column, Krinsky’s byline is read beyond Yale’s ivory towers.
The high profile of Krinsky’s column can be directly attributed to her Dec. 7, 2001, column, subtly titled “Spit or Swallow? It’s all about the sauce.” The column, which affirmed that “swallow” is the only respectable decision for hummer practitioners, has been downloaded over 250,000 times from the Yale Daily News Web site and has circulated through e-mail lists, electronic bulletin boards and newsgroups across the web.
While Krinsky’s column may not soon replace the standard dorm room library—Maxim, Cosmo, Glamour, Playboy, Black Tail—it has, at least for the moment, earned a place among those sacred ranks. Krinsky says she receives enthusiastic feedback from other colleges. “I receive a lot of e-mails from people at Duke,” Krinsky confesses.
The wild popularity of the column is largely due to Krinsky’s unflinching and vivid candor. In her Oct. 26, 2001, column “Manual manipulation: a dying art,” for example, Krinsky bemoans the handjob’s disappearance from the love repertoire, a change that she claims essentially removes third base from the sexual infield—leaving couples to either jump the canyon to home plate or hunker down at second for the long haul.
“By removing this crucial step [the handjob], we have removed so many options. For example, how do good girls take a walk on the wild side without compromising their decidedly D.J.-from-‘Full-House’ status? Before, it used to be through the handjob, now, it is all or nothing,” philosophizes Krinsky.
Krinsky’s use of naughty words and willingness to address sexual taboos are not the only reasons for her column’s popularity—I could write “penis” and “vagina” all day and my mom would still be the only person to read my FM articles. People are drawn to Krinsky’s columns because she writes about sex in much the same way that most of us discuss it with our closest friends—freely and loosely. As Krinsky says, “The essence of my column is to talk about things we all talk about anyway, just a lot louder.” Once Krinsky has settled on an idea for a column, she often convenes an intimate group of girlfriends who volley thoughts on the issue back and forth over cocktails.
To most men, this might not seem like the best way of achieving the sort of gender-balanced—or even guy-friendly—perspective that characterizes Krinsky’s work (after all, she is a staunch advocate of “swallow” ). To guarantee parity, Krinsky assures me that she solicits extensive input from guy friends as well. Krinsky’s ability to relate to the male perspective makes her sexual insights accessible to men and women alike.
‘SEX’ AND THE (REAL) WORLD
Krinsky’s efforts to spread the sexual gospel have found support in some unexpected realms. She has received messages of support from, among others, Yale alumni, including one e-mail from a 69-year-old (a fortunate coincidence) who thinks Krinsky is just “great.” A web search will reveal that Krinsky’s work is a favorite at certain fringe sex sites, such as 69wishes.com, which bills itself as the “Home of the Donkey Punch,” and deadmousedotnet.net.
But Krinsky admits her most unusual vote of support likely came from a high school senior in Arkansas in the form of an invitation to be his prom date. Like any consummate professional, Krinsky respectfully declined the youngster’s tempting offer: the burden of finding the right dress, she explains, would have been far too overwhelming.
Krinsky has received more support for her column in the world at large than from the two people who are otherwise her biggest fans—her parents. Not surprisingly, Krinsky says both her parents were initially reluctant to embrace the idea of their daughter acting as the sexual Anne Sullivan to her fellow students’ Helen Keller—challenged, awkward, but eager to learn nevertheless. In her parents’ defense, Ma and Pa Krinsky first learned of the column over Thanksgiving, a time normally reserved for expressing appreciation for such gifts as having enough food to eat and not suffering from any terminal illnesses, not for your daughter’s wealth of sexual insights.
Krinsky’s mother, who is by Krinsky’s own account “quite conservative,” has come to terms with her daughter’s column but has decided not to partake in the weekly wisdom. She is aware that the column exists and is content with that.
Krinsky’s father, however, has not enjoyed the same luxury of choosing whether or not to read the column for himself. In fact, several of his daughter’s pieces have reached him via e-mail as they traversed the list-serves of his New York investment bank. Though not yet privy to her entire body of work, Pa Krinsky has been able to decipher a light at the end of the tunnel with regard to his daughter’s writing prowess. “He thinks I’m a good writer,” Krinsky beams, “he thinks I should I write a book.”
Praise for Krinsky and her column is far from universal, however. There are those who would like to see “Sex and the (Elm) City,” and Krinsky herself, swept off the face of the Earth in a raging moral whirlwind of righteousness. Krinsky, however, treats her naysayers as almost an afterthought. She casually informed me that the conservative Yale Free Press (Yale’s answer to the Salient) had recently assessed her as “giving syphilis a bad name.”
As I desperately scanned my memory banks for that long forgotten eighth-grade sex ed lecture on the sexual scourge known as syphilis—so that I could put the name with the face—Krinsky, with an air of genuine relief, exclaimed, “At least it wasn’t herpes. Who even really knows what syphilis is?” Good point. (Word of the Day—Syphilis: “A chronic infectious disease caused by a spirochete progressing through three stages characterized respectively by local formation of chancres, ulcerous skin eruptions, and systemic infection leading to general paresis,” according to Dictionary.com)
While the prospects of losing face among a small cadre of effete ultra-conservatives would give any columnist pause, Krinsky confronts even more practical considerations each time she attaches her name to an edition of “Sex and the (Elm) City.” As an economics major (translation: concentrator) currently entertaining notions of one day working the I-bank circuit in New York, Krinsky realizes that her ability to discuss sex in print can only hurt her chances of advancing in the reserved and image-conscious world of high finance.
Unlike most investment banking hopefuls, who can recite their “five-year plans” as readily as their Harvard ID numbers, Krinsky refuses to censor herself or her column for the sake of some distant and as yet unknown job opportunity. “The column’s on my résumé,” Krinsky says, “I’m not embarrassed by it.”
While I-banking may be Krinsky’s long-term plan, writing a sex column for a professional newspaper is her immediate dream. She is pursuing internships at America’s finest journals, including Maxim, Stuff and Glamour. Asked if she would ever consider a post at Playboy, Krinsky replies “in a second!”
But as VH1’s “Behind the Music” demonstrates, with fame, sadly, comes the consequences of fame. There have been a few dates recently who were less than subtle about their fantasies of riding to their own sexual fame on Ms. Krinsky’s back—yes, literally. As a result, Krinsky has begun to proceed a little more cautiously in her own love life. However, she says that there have also been men at the other extreme, who fear that a minor gaffe in an evening with her would transform them from upright Elis to degraded tabloid backwash. So, on average, Krinsky figures she’s about where she started in terms of dating—which is still probably better than where we at Harvard are.
Asked for wisdom to share with her sex-forsaken Ivy League brethren to the north, Krinsky was at a loss (much as one would be after being prompted to give a twelve-word solution to the problem of world hunger). After a thoughtful pause, Krinsky seemed poised to share with me the elusive answer to Harvard’s 366-year sexual drought. “Umm...we’re all in this together,” is the best she can offer. We’re doomed.
For the record, Natalie Krinsky doesn’t really have a favorite character on “Sex and the City”—though she relates to Carrie most and Miranda least. Miranda is just “too damn ugly” to relate to.
