THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 14, 2006
SEX ON THE HILL
3C
naughty bits
Midwesterner's candid sex column shocked readers
BY IAN STANFORD
Meghan Bainum sits on the futon in her Emery Road apartment, flipping through the pages of "The Age of Faith," the 1086-page fourth installment of Will Durant's eleven-volume set that Bainum has been reading off and on for the past few years, collectively titled "The Story of Civilization."
She's dressed in ripped jeans, a T-shirt, and worn sneakers. Black-rimmed glasses and a lipring adorn her pale face, and her body art — four tattoos thus far — is a "work in progress."
Not what you might expect for America's sexiest co-ed, as Playboy proclaimed Bainum in 2002.
But like it or not, Bainum, a 2004 journalism graduate from Dover, was a pioneer. The informative yet witty sex column she wrote in The University Daily Kansan from Fall 201 to Spring 2003, covering topics ranging from what foods to try during sex (almost anything in a squeeze bottle begs "sex play, please") to how to deal with the hair "down there" ("Try to trim your pubic hair into a shape. Be creative!"), was one of the first of its kind in the Midwest.
"There were a few other sex columnists on the liberal, sexually enlightened coasts," she said. "But I was writing from Kansas, where the 'old guard' still believes that people wait until their wedding night to have sex."
For Bainum, starting a sex column at the University setting seemed perfectly logical.
"Here we are shipped off to college, away from our parents, 18 years old, and curious. It's a time when you learn about yourself sexually."
Bainum's columns were met with unyielding media attention. She was profiled in The New York Times, Cosmopolitan, the
Chronicle of Higher Education, The Associated Press, Esquire, and Inside Edition, among others. She wrote a bi-monthly column for the Chicago Sun Times, and a guest column for Playboy, accepting an invitation to pose nude in the February 2003 issue of the latter, when she was a senior.
"It was really cool to play around in someone else's underwear," Bainum said of the Playboy photo shoot, for which the magazine flew her to Chicago and put her up in a "posh-ass" hotel. "The whole atmosphere was very relaxed."
What was not relaxing for Bainum was the criticism she received from the Lawrence community and the state of Kansas.
Kansas Senator Tim Huelskamp (R-Fowler) called Bainum's columns, in an online newsletter dated March 31, 2003, "better suited for the brown-paper covers of X-rated magazines."
The criticism was not limited to Republicans over 40 years old.
"Students openly questioned my morals. It was a lot to take. It's unfortunate that, in this society, girl plus sex equals slut."
It was especially frustrating. Bainum said, when students could not differentiate the things that she wrote about from what she personally indulges in during sex.
"The column was not about my sex life. A lot of the things I wrote about I learned from talking to other people," Bainum said. "There are people out there who enjoy, for example, using costumes for role play as a part of a healthy sexual relationship, and my columns were for those who wanted to explore themselves sexually. I didn't want to turn the entire University into dildo-wielding anal bangers."
In fact, Bainum considers herself to be pretty basic when it comes to sex.
"There isn't a sex swing hang:
ing from my bedroom ceiling. People assume because of my column that every night I have fourteen guys covering me in marshmallows and chocolate syrup while I slap them with dildos."
What has she done in the sack?
"I've worn a cape, I've done a little spanking. I've also been a single girl, and have had some quality time with a vibrator."
The craziest thing Bainum admits to having ever done was giving a blow job in the back seat of her parents' car while they were preoccupied with singing Christmas carols.
"Those kinds of things just happen when you're sixteen with no privacy."
Today Bainum enjoys plenty of privacy, content for the meantime being a "T-shirt and jeans" girl.
Her work is still remembered in The Kansan newsroom.
advice from a sexpert
"Weghan approached sex intellectually, responsibly and without fear," said Malcolm Gibson, general manager and news adviser for The Kansan. "We've had other people try to follow in her footsteps with a sex column, but every attempt has been a miserable failure."
For a short time after graduating, Bainum wrote sex columns for Lawrence.com, but soon quit after being relentlessly attacked in online forums. A Los Angeles production company contacted Bainum about doing a nationally televised sex show, but she passed.
"They wanted me to take on this ultra sexy persona, and that's just not who I am. The fame wasn't worth selling out."
Meghan Bainum offers these tips for spicing up your sex life.
> "A common nickname for shaved genitalia is 'slick' — without hair to absorb sexual secretions, there's more wetness to go around."
> "Playing around with the inner lips (of the vagina), like gently tugging on them, can cause fantastic feelings for some females."
> "Lubricant can turn a dry, tired vagina or penis into a slip-n-slide of fun. If the lubricant runs out, saliva is the next best thing."
Ian Stanford
- "Costumes are a fun way to take sexual situations from routine to risqué, no walking around in the cold involved."
Currently she works at locallyowned Blue Collar Press producing concert button designs, and as a bartender at the Replay Lounge and Jackpot Saloon in downtown Lawrence.
"It's nice when people still approach me just to say that they remember something I wrote, or that they remember the Playboy spread. It's a little weird when strangers tell me that I have great, perky nipples, but whatever."
It has been at least two years since Bainum has done any writing. She sees herself pursuing writing — sex columns or something new — in the future.
But first, "The Story of Civilization."
Kansan correspondent lan Stanford can be contacted at editor@kansan.com.
Edited by Jonathan Kealing
Meghan Bainum parlayed her stardom into Playboy as well as the cover of the December 2001 edition of Sex on the Hill.
"I didn't want to turn the entire University into dildowielding anal bangers."
Meghan Bainum
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