Julia Allison

Eeek! I’m so excited to present to you the piece I just...

Tue, 22 Mar 2011 12:01:56 -0400

Eeek! I’m so excited to present to you the piece I just did for Nerve on The Ten Hottest Nerds in Cyberspace

There were a few obvious choices I left off the list just because I think they’re too overexposed - I wanted new blood! I hope you enjoy it.

FASHION WEEK: TALES FROM THE FRONTLINESTHE GUARDIAN UKSEPTEMBER...

Sat, 16 Oct 2010 22:12:50 -0400

FASHION WEEK: TALES FROM THE FRONTLINES
THE GUARDIAN UK
SEPTEMBER 22, 2010
BY JULIA ALLISON

Six years ago, when the now-storied New York Fashion Week was still held under huge white tents covering Bryant Park on the chaotic, touristy intersection of 42nd Street & 6th Avenue, I attended my inaugural fashion show. Just twenty-three then, I sat fourth or fifth row and gaped, slack-jawed, at the models parading the clothing of a designer I’ve forgotten. My first impression was the ultimate industry cliché: “Goddamn, these models are REALLY freaking SKINNY.”

Four years later, as the editor-at-large of Star magazine, my boss asked me to cover Fashion Week. I had never reported on fashion before, and I had absolutely no idea what or how to do so. I got there with my videographer and my press pass and expected it would be no trouble. And it was quite a bit of trouble indeed.

Unless your last name is Wintour or Roitfeld, Fashion Week requires – if nothing else – stamina, fortitude, old-fashioned wiles and a substantial amount of (preferably unassailable) of self-esteem, because it will be rocked heartily by the jockeying and politics of the FW pecking order. You think you’re important? You’re not. You think you’re thin or attractive? You’re not. You think anyone cares whether you get your interview? They don’t.

Many Fashion Week regulars fight this paradox: they adore it, they understand why it is what it is, why it has become what is has become. And they also count down the days until it is over and congratulate each other on “making it through,” as if it were some sort of physical therapy or painful experiment with dark green vegetables.

It’s been seven long seasons since I stumbled with my microphone into the tents for the first time, and there are certainly stages to the Fashion Week experience. First, uncomprehending wide-eyed wonder as the glamorous chaos swirls around you coupled with a palpable fear at the mayhem – doing the wrong thing, saying the wrong thing, sitting in the wrong seat, arousing the attention or ire of the ubiquitously lean, black-clad PR girls. Then a gradual onset of confidence begins, oh yes, *this * is how it works: Only the neophytes ask Anna Wintour for a photograph. Make your press requests early, but remember, there is no such thing as a confirmed interview. Ever. Accept you’ll be body-checking people - literally - to get that soundbite. That’s just part of the job. Prepare for bruises, blisters, even blood (my camera guy once started bleeding after he was shoved in the giant pit of photographers that stand at the base of the runway).

Become a liminal figure – too aggressive and you piss people off, too passive and you won’t get any coverage whatsoever. Dress in subtle designer frocks, but never jeans (unless you’re an editor) and always unconscionably expensive, outrageously high heels, preferably YSL, Jimmy Choo, Manolos or Louboutins (they are studied with some regularity, especially if you’re sitting front row). Too showy and you’ll attract attention as an outsider – only front row celebs & total newbies dress like it’s a red carpet – too casual and unless you’re a well-known editor or buyer, you’ll look (and feel) out of place.

Fashion Week – to the uninitiated outsider – sounds so … frothy. In reality, it is anything but. This is a multi-billion dollar global business, but it’s also an enormous art presentation, bigger and more elaborate than all of the Basels put together. The best comparison I’ve come up with – and one I use with some frequency – is that of 90 weddings, with 18-30 brides each. All in the span of eight days.

I’ve never been in combat, but I’ve seen GI Jane, and from the looks of it, fashion week bears more than a passing resemblance to a regimented boot camp, completed in 6-inch YSLs and Herve Leger bandage dresses, in the middle of a highly organized, unrelenting mosh pit of well-dressed editors, reporters, buyers, models, photographers, press and flaks with competing agendas.

It’s this mix that makes Fashion Week so defiantly brilliant, so exhaustingly frustrating.

What began, in essence, as a trade event has been co-opted, at least in part, by the changing fixtures of the tents: the celebrities (mainly reality “stars” – Housewives, Project Runway alums, America’s Next Top Models – oddly sitting front row instead of walking in the shows – and their CW starlet professional counterparts), the celeb-stylists, the celeb-editors, the celeb-bloggers (an oxymoron?) and the inevitable hangers-on that come with all these.

This season, I asked designers, “Do you consider fashion to be an art – or a business?” It is both of course, but it’s also entertainment. It isn’t, after all, a Fashion Tell. It’s a Fashion Show.

And that show isn’t limited to what walks down the catwalk or the lighting or the thumping music. The shows are really installation art, and the installation is the tents and the art is the people and their arrangements and their interactions and the way they react to the clothing (a standing ovation? I’ve seen it before), and the way a beautifully constructed dress can actually make a crowd gasp.

To a certain extent, it’s also an incredibly nuanced, unbelievably complicated multi-layered competition – who will get the most press, the choicest front row seats, the hottest celebs & most powerful editors in attendance? What results is sometimes a battle of egos, sometimes a celebration of craftsmanship.

Astounding creative visions are realized here. But sometimes you’re cold and you’re bored and you’ve seen clothes like that before and you’d rather be in sweats and trainers and your ego is wounded because some PR lady put you in the third row and you couldn’t think of anything else to ask Diane von Furstenberg other than “What was your inspiration?” and you absolutely hate hate hate that question and if you did make it into the first row by some chance, isn’t it true that your thighs are simply too big to be there and everyone will be judging you against the backdrop of 0% body fat and oh, god why are you here anyway? You’re a fraud. You just want to go home and eat chocolate bunny from last Easter.

And I’ve done that, too.

So back when I was first out of college, I wrote a monthly...

Tue, 20 Apr 2010 01:08:00 -0400

So back when I was first out of college, I wrote a monthly dating column for COED magazine - a sort of collegiate Maxim, if you will. I also did regular Q&A on their website (with the above graphic as the header - yep, I was a baby in that photo). Today, when I was looking for an old document, I stumbled across these. Thought you might get a kick out of them. This is circa 2005, btw. :)

Q: I have a new girlfriend at school, and I’m wondering whether I am spending too much time with her. How can I tell?

A: It’s very simple: if you have to wonder, then you are. And let me tell you, girls dislike clingy guys just as much as guys dislike clingy girls. So become acquainted with the library, your roommate, a sport or smoking pot – anything to give yourself a little distance.

Q: My boyfriend and I have no privacy, not in our dorm rooms; that’s for sure. We’re ready to take it outdoors. Where are some of your favorite places for making love in the sunshine and why so?

A: Uh … good luck with that. 9 times out of 10 having sex outside is overrated. Sand, bugs, uncomfortable grass, allergens, other people – it makes dorms look pretty good in comparison. That having been said, if you’re lucky enough to live in California or it’s summer in the rest of the country, you can take two large picnic blankets out to a secluded spot on campus and have a go at it. Other than that, I’m afraid the library might be your next best bet. It’s not outside, it’s not secluded, but at least you won’t end up with a giant rash all over your nether regions.

Q: I’m only a sophomore, but I just had my first threesome, which was pretty wild. I had a good time, but I had a little trouble keeping my erection. I want to hook-up with this guy and his girlfriend again, but now I’m starting to wonder whether I won’t rise to the occasion.

A: If you think like that you’ll pysch yourself out and then you DEFINITELY won’t rise to the occasion. A lot of guys do this – there is absolutely nothing wrong with them physically but they get it in their heads that they can’t get it up, and viola – their dick is DOA. They think they need Viagra but what they really need is a healthy boost of penis self-confidence. Try to think positive thoughts and you’ll have no trouble at all. Oh yeah – and congrats on the threesome.

Q: A bunch of guys in my freshmen dorm and I pledged SAE last fall, and we’re having a great time. Thing is, each of us is sleeping with his Big Sister, all of them seniors. That’s why we are having a great time. Does it sound a little strange to you, though?

A: I have no idea what you’re talking about, so yes, it sounds like a little strange to me. Either you were drunk when you wrote the question or … you need to go back to English 101 and study the basics. I’m not sure which it is – but what I got out of it your query was this: 1) you pledged a frat. 2) you’re sleeping with someone called Big Sister and 3) you’re having a good time. Where’s the problem here?

Q: I not really experienced with guys, but I have a feeling my new boyfriend is a selfish lover. What are the tell-tale signs?

A: If he pushes you out of bed, he’s a selfish lover. If he pushes your head towards his crotch, selfish lover. If he refuses to wear a condom when you ask, selfish lover. If he makes faces when you take off your clothes, he’s just a dick. I’d say that if you have a feeling he is, he probably is. In which case dump him now, because college is way too short to sleep with a dick.

NEWSWEEK End of the Decade Project "Top 10 Internet Memes" #1: LonelyGirl15

Thu, 03 Dec 2009 15:22:20 -0500

NEWSWEEK End of the Decade Project "Top 10 Internet Memes" #1: LonelyGirl15:

And below, if you want to read the (slightly longer) version I turned into Newsweek:

END OF THE DECADE PROJECT: LonelyGirl15
NEWSWEEK
December 3, 2009
By Julia Allison

LonelyGirl15: the post-modern Hughesian icon for the Face-space generation.

****

Sixteen years old, with widely spaced brown eyes – and those crazy eyebrows! – Bree’s first video as “LonelyGirl15” on her eponymous YouTube channel had all the sophistication of a pink fuzzy diary (with over 100 million people leafing through the pages) and all the plot … well, it didn’t really have much of a plot at all. Ostensibly the clear-skinned home-schooled daughter of super religious parents, somewhere in a generic IKEA outfitted room in the heartland, she pulls her legs in close to her chest, has difficulty maintaining eye contact while glancing around nervously, and awkwardly stumbles over her lines … oops, wait – did we say lines?

Oh yeah, Bree isn’t really Bree, of course, but an unknown Kiwi actress named Jessica Rose, now 22, playing what the New York Times dubbed “an unbeatable fantasy: a beautiful girl who techy guys had something in common with.” Bree certainly captured the eye-roll inducing late-aughts zeitgeist of semi-precocious teens spending their free time angsting into web cams and editing it on iMovie. That made it all the more shocking for the millions of fans who finally realized they had been duped when it came out that LonelyGirl had a web cam Svengali: the 2007 budgetless (talentless?) John Hughes.

The story lines were unabashedly basic, but media outlets obsessed over the hoax, with the NY Times calling it “one of the Internet’s more elaborately constructed mysteries.” User generated content that wasn’t so user generated? It was, as NY magazine concluded, “the birth of a new art form.” An art form with more views than the last two superbowls combined.

That the popular success didn’t necessarily translate into direct monetary success was neither here nor there: LonelyGirl15 was more proof of concept – a concept that some argued represented the future.

“Maybe this, and not some NBC shows for sale on iTunes, is the future of television—or the promised land of a new narrative form,” NY magazine wrote presciently in 2006, far before the LonelyGirl creators released the sub-three minute “In the Bedroom,” their highest viewed episode, clocking in at almost 25 million views as of October 2009. The irony, of course, is that hits-based-upon-trickery are inherently un-replicable: fool me once, say the easily-jaded internet viewing masses, and we’ll find it creative and maybe a bit charming. Fool me twice? Well, uh … you can’t!

In the end, LonelyGirl’s rank in the annals of pop culture certainly won’t be for masterful story-telling (You got kissed? Whatever. Get murdered and now we have a show NBC might air). But with the Blair Witch-esque blurring of the lines of is-she-or-isn’t-she real - the hallmark of the muddled “reality-based” entertainment in this decade – it did, at the very least, capture our attention. And as the first episodic internet series to go mainstream, LonelyGirl showcased the web’s ability to create and sustain a viewership for content beyond cat videos and Andy Samburg.

For that alone, Bree deserves a prize.

NEWSWEEK End of the Decade Project "Top 10 Internet Memes" #2: Obama Girl

Thu, 03 Dec 2009 15:17:00 -0500

NEWSWEEK End of the Decade Project "Top 10 Internet Memes" #2: Obama Girl:

And below, if you want to read the (slightly longer) version I turned into Newsweek:

END OF THE DECADE PROJECT: Obama Girl
NEWSWEEK
December 3, 2009
By Julia Allison

“You seem to float onto the floor
Democratic Convention 2004
I never wanted anybody more …
cause I got a crush on Obama!”

June of 2007: the Democratic presidential nominee hadn’t yet been decided, even by the most precocious of pundits. It was a slow news day (month, really) when a not-quite-professional YouTube music video featuring a sexy young girl singing about her love for a certain politician broke out. Before the end of the week, over five million people had seen “Obama Girl” gyrate in a bikini next to a superimposed shot of “relatively unknown” democratic contender Barack Obama, bare-chested in the waves.

No campaign video then – or since – has made it so clear: Hillary Clinton or John Kerry, he wasn’t.

“So I put down my Kerry sign / So black and sexy, you’re so fine.”

Presidential candidate as sex symbol? This was a new era, indeed.

This was no Swift boat, no cranky senior citizens complaining about health care. Instead we had model/actress Amber Lee Ettinger, then 25, with long flowing black hair and curves that could make gay Republicans straight – plus an undeniably catchy tune, some arguably amusing lyrics (“You’re into border security/Let’s break this border between you and me/You can love but you can fight/You can Barack me tonight”), and, oh yeah, a bright red pair of booty … uh … “shorts” – with OBAMA in white letters on the butt.
Such iconic sexual-political imagery is the stuff of pop culture legend.

“It’s safe to say the original video was more memorable than any of Barack Obama’s own TV ads,” says former ad-exec Ben Relles, who co-created Obama Girl with vocalist Leah Kaufmann, shooting it in a single weekend.

That it looked slightly homemade – no slick videography, with a budget of just $2k, only fanned the flames of grassroots views & media love. More important, the message perfectly articulated – in a cheeky (figuratively & literally) manner – the cult-like almost adolescent adulation Obama fanaticism that had been building in pop culture. “It was a metaphor for how young people were head over heels for him for the wrong reasons,” says co-creator Ben Relles.

Well … maybe not the “wrong” reasons, per se, but certainly reasons not frequently ascribed to politicians, like, for example, uh … “hotness.”

But it wasn’t just sex appeal that made Obama Girl (now viewed almost 50 million times worldwide) the defining viral video of the 2008 election. For the first time it became possible for an individual to create and disseminate a video to an enormous audience. “A video created in a weekend for a few hundred dollars could impact a national election,” explains Relles, “That represents a real shift in the way people can participate in politics.”

And so Obama Girl stands – clad in a tight white tee with Obama’s face – at the intersection of sex, politics and the internet, harkening a new era where elections are young and sexy and fun and underwear doesn’t just sport boring lettering like “Juicy Couture” but instead politicians’ monikers.

“Obama Girl’s in textbooks, in museums, referenced on SNL and in Michael Moore’s book,” marvels Relles. Oh, and one more thing … “Obama’s seen it. He emailed me.”

And how many of these young entreprenuers are female, eh BusinessWeek?

Mon, 12 Oct 2009 13:42:15 -0400

And how many of these young entreprenuers are female, eh BusinessWeek?

Yes, that’s me. No, they didn’t sink in. In honor of...

Sat, 04 Oct 2008 02:24:00 -0400

Yes, that’s me. No, they didn’t sink in.

In honor of his birthday, I’m reprinting the below column, which I wrote in honor of my Dad on Father’s Day 2006. Happy Birthday Dad! I love you.

THIRTEEN SIMPLE RULES FOR DEALING WITH MY DAD
AM NEW YORK – “THE DATING LIFE”
JUNE 19, 2006
BY JULIA ALLISON

My father is not big or tall. He does not own shotguns. And he has never threatened to murder any of my boyfriends with his bare hands.

He doesn’t need bare hands – he’s a lawyer. He cross-examines them to death.

Most past beaus haven’t survived his withering interrogatives.

There was Greg, who often reeked of cannabis: “You do realize that pot is illegal in this country, correct?” There was Jeff, who didn’t believe in going to class: “Would you say failing out of college indicates you don’t take your studies very seriously?” There was James, who was superbly talented at drinking copious amounts of vodka: “How many alcoholic beverages, on average, do you consume in a given week?”

There was Dan, who nearly had a heart attack every time my father would interrupt one of our interminable high school make out sessions by pounding on my bedroom door and bellowing, “Are you studying physics? Just remember the first law: Bodies in Motion Stay in Motion!” I’m still mortified.

Even The Current Boyfriend had a rough start. After interrogating Boyfriend about his “intentions,” my dad pounced: “I understand you’re ‘divorced’ – would you happen to have a copy of the documentation? And exactly how old are you again?”

I’ve always told my boyfriends to “just be themselves” when they meet my dad. I’ve always been a moron.

My new plan is this: No more being yourselves, unless “yourselves” is perfect. Instead, all boyfriends who interact with my paternal unit will have to adhere to the following – let’s just call them Thirteen Simple Rules So My Dad Won’t Refuse to Pay for the Wedding. (Or have you arrested.)

1) My father will ask you many questions. You will look him in the eye when you answer, and you will ENUNCIATE. Under no circumstances will you check your Blackberry during the conversation.

2) You will not attempt to touch, kiss or partially disrobe me within three miles of my father. You will not slap any body part of mine unless it is my hand and I have initiated a high-five. Most importantly, you are not interested in cohabitation or sex until marriage, and even then, only to procreate. You love me only for my mind. My body? What body??

3) Whether or not you believe in God, you will not begin a debate on the merits of atheism or staunchly declare, “You know, Marx settled this question a long time ago.” You will go to church with my father and you will sing along with the hymns. If you’re Jewish, you will pretend that you considered your bar mitzvah a spiritual experience and not the most efficient way for a 13-year-old to separate his relatives from their cash.

4) Speaking of cash, upon seeing my father’s house/car/boat/lawn mower, you will not say “that is money.” You will refrain from ruminating aloud about your Kanye West-induced fear of golddiggers. And you will never, ever use the word “pimp,” or debate how hard it is to be one. Instead, you will set your car radio to NPR and hum Beethoven’s Fifth.

5) When my father asks you about your college education, you will not look confused and say “Huh?”

6) You will eschew all frivolous and/or hedonistic activities, preferring yard work, vigorous exercise and paying bills promptly and in full.

7) You will brag about working 167-hour weeks to save for the expensive college educations of your unborn children. You will find a way to work the terms “personal responsibility,” “family values” and “401k” into as many conversations as possible. You will name-check your health insurance provider (“Whoops, just broke my leg. Good thing I have a low deductible with Blue Cross!”).

8) You will profess a great interest in attending law school, even if you are currently a model slash waiter who (until five minutes ago) thought that the LSAT stood for “Last Saturday.”

9) You will not admit to any “youthful indiscretions.” You never had a youth, or if you did, it was spent reading ponderous books about Thomas Jefferson, working part-time jobs that taught you “the value of a dollar,” and discouraging girls from going wild.

10) You will bring my father a nice bottle of wine, but profess not to drink, “except for the occasional glass of red at dinner.” You have never heard of keg stands and you do not know what “boot and rally” means.

11) You will google David McCullough and reference him repeatedly. “According to David McCullough,” you’ll say, and then you’ll make something up. If you’re challenged, you’ll reply sagely, “Well, look at chapter 18 of ‘1776.’” No one will bother.

12) Under no circumstances will you admit to any of the following: pedicures, strip clubs, credit card debt, binge drinking, threesomes, comprehensive knowledge of unemployment benefits, comprehensive knowledge of drug trafficking laws, road rage, not voting, voting for a Democrat, and exceptional familiarity with internet porn.

13) You will not repeatedly mumble, “This is just like ‘Meet the Fockers.’”

If all else fails, think “What Would Colin Farrell Do?” … then make the opposite decision.

PAGE SIX MAGAZINE DEBATE: Has NYC slipped as the best city for singles?

Thu, 25 Sep 2008 23:12:00 -0400

THE UNEDITED ANSWER

Most New Yorkers’ reaction to Forbes ranking us #8 best city for singles was more or less universal bafflement. Were there even seven other cities in the US?? With, uh, singles, that is?

Don’t get us wrong, we love Rankings. Rankings mean there are Winners and, more importantly, Losers who are Not Us! But we’re clearly the best city to be single in - so how could we have lost? Well, Forbes obviously wasn’t evaluating on the right merits (duh). They factored in “culture” (we came in third, losing to … LA???), nightlife (we won!), job growth (jobs are useful for paying rent, but getting laid? they’re actually really distracting!), living cost and a category called “online.” Oh yes, and “coolness,” which is admittedly sort of difficult to quantify, although we won it. Of course. In fact, NY did pretty well in all of the categories, except Cost of Living, which we slogged in at last place. (Shock.)

But so what if we have to store our shoes in our oven? We’re going on too many dates to cook, anyway. Yes, this pond may be expensive, but it’s well-stocked with some very nice fish.

The REAL most important criteria of a SuperSingles City, of which New York is clearly #1, is fivefold: 1) number of singles, 2) quality of singles, 3) ability to actually meet those singles, 4) how long singles STAY single, and 5) odds that those singles haven’t already slept with that one slutty friend of yours.

New York wins in all of these, no question, and so dominates number #3 and #4 that no other city - not even you, #3 Minneapolis - has a shot. After all, NY is the only true pedestrian city in the US, making it highly interactive as a rule. In LA you’re safely - antisocially - ensconced in your home, then your car, then your movie trailer. In NY, even celebs take the subway. Or, okay, hail a cab. On the street. That threat of constant interaction leads to an unexpected - if not warmth and friendliness - at least ease at meeting new people. And as we all know, meeting is a crucial step in actually having sex with them, which is (I’ve heard) a key component of dating.

Of course, meeting people doesn’t much help if they’re already married, which is something NY has going for it above all the other locales: Manhattan denizens stay single longer than anywhere else. Mostly they’re focusing on their careers, being awesome, that kind of thing, but this means you afford to stay picky longer, without worrying that you’ll be left with your Mom’s friend Sheryl’s son Albert, who’s 48 “but a dentist, honey!”

Which leads to the most important factor: despite the incessant grousing, the quality of singles in this city is ridiculously high. We’re intellectually stimulating, relentlessly ambitious, so cool we’re too cool to admit it, especially if we live in Brooklyn, and more or less wildly successful and/or loud in everything we do. But then again, so is everyone else. That’s why we moved to New York, after all.

Let’s just be clear: It’s “Sex and the City” … and they don’t mean Atlanta.

So, last week I got an email from one of my favorite editors...

Thu, 25 Sep 2008 23:05:00 -0400

So, last week I got an email from one of my favorite editors (Suzanne Zuckerman) over at Page Six magazine alerting me to this ~~traffic-whoring~~ servicey! Forbes listicle on the “Best City for Singles.” With New York hovering at a dismal #8, did I think agree it was a crap city in which to be Single?

Well … no. See above for my edited answer, and see the next post for the unedited version.

More importantly, what do you think?

From the archives, my favorite angry Letter-to-the-Editor from my college days

Wed, 05 Mar 2008 02:34:00 -0500

UNIVERSITY ENFORCING CONDOM POLICY ANATHEMA TO STUDENTS’ FREE SPEECH
THE HOYA
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
OCTOBER 1, 2002

To the Editor:

Continuing to erode what’s left of the academic right to free speech on this campus, Georgetown’s draconian decision to prevent the condom distribution on residence hall doors sets a frightening precedent.

This is the latest in a series of rights-based infringements on the student body under the questionable premise of “protection.” In other words, the administration has unilaterally decided the course of action and chosen to act without reason or impetus from actual students. [Halting the formation of a] Lesbian Gay Transgender Bisexual Queer Center? [Enforcing a mandatory] Lockdown Policy? See the pattern?

Who do they think they’re really protecting with these idiotic policies?
The justification for this new ban is absurd. Apparently condoms on doors now fall under the University policy against “grossly obscene or grossly offensive” material and as such violate the “communal nature” of the Residence Halls. According to Vice President for Student Affairs Juan Gonzalez, the “giving away of questionable items” is not permitted because “students need to feel as though this is their home and each person will respect all persons privacy and privileges.”

IS HE KIDDING? This is a white envelope on someone’s door we’re talking about. Grossly obscene? Grossly offensive? Even questionable? I’d like to meet a single student who can say with a straight face that placement of such envelopes violates their “privacy and privileges” and they are “grossly offended” by them. Please.

We all know what this is really about. It’s about our Catholic identity rearing its ugly head again in the form of censorship and didactic imposition of “values.” This university already refuses to provide easily accessible birth control, either from the on-campus pharmacy or bathroom condom dispensers common at campuses around the nation. Now they’re refusing to let private individuals distribute condoms from their own place of residence. What’s next – school sponsored lectures on the evils of actually using birth control??

Students will certainly continue to have sex regardless of whether condoms remain on doors. Impeding H*yas for Choice in their quest for increased safe sex does nothing but harm the very students this university claims to be “protecting.”

- Julia Allison, ‘04