...When You (Mostly) Like Guys

"Did you just say you're all straight?" asked a senior named Ashley*, ushering me and a bunch of other first-years into her dorm room.

"Yes," we chorused.

An hour later, we were all making out. Welcome to Bryn Mawr.

Without guys around to act like girl-on-girl intimacy is a scandalous party trick, there's more room for us shy, straight girls to explore non-hetero sexuality in a fun and safe way.

The lack of guys also means our social life isn't based on chasing men around. Even when we go to parties at Haverford and Swarthmore, the nearby coed colleges, it's often just for a change of scenery and some free alcohol. I was once in the basement of a Swarthmore fraternity when I heard a Bryn Mawr girl say to a friend: "She's so incredibly hot." I whipped around immediately.

"Are you talking about Mira?" I asked. She was literally every Bryn Mawr girl's crush.

"Hey, girls," a Swarthmore frat brother interrupted. "Want anything?"

"Wait, so do you know if Mira's single?" the girl asked me, ignoring the dude. "I mean, I'm usually straight, but ..."

"I know," I said. "Welcome to Bryn Mawr."

— Maya Felman, a senior at Bryn Mawr who would love to have hordes of freshman secret admirers

*Names have been changed.

... When You Like Girls

As an out lesbian, I chose a women's college because, frankly, I thought my odds of getting laid would be better. How many lesbians go to Bryn Mawr, really? Enough that you can't just assume a woman is straight.

Mostly, though, no one cares about labels. I once saw a girl make out with a guy at the bus stop at Haverford and then hightail it to a Bryn Mawr party where she proceeded to make out with a girl. There's a high rate of girls who arrive identifying as straight but who ultimately fall for one (or more!) of the smart and sexy queer ladies on campus. I have a friend who started school with an athlete boyfriend at Penn. Now she's shacking up with her hot philosophy-major girlfriend.

The respect between Bryn Mawr women is intoxicating — and the sex on average is great. Women are socialized to be highly attentive to their partner's pleasure, and when you get two people doing that with each other, how could you possibly go wrong? I've never heard a couple having sex in a Haverford dorm on my visits. But I can't even count the number of times at Bryn Mawr when I've heard through the walls the noisy, ecstatic exclamations of my peers getting it on.

— Mattie Weschler, a 2014 graduate of Bryn Mawr who is engaged to a woman she met in art-history class

This article was originally published as "What Sex Is Really Like at a Women's College" in the September 2014 issue of Cosmopolitan. Click here to subscribe to the digital edition!

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