The journalist perched on a stool in a corner of the bedroom, pen in hand, ready to jot down the most intimate details of our sex lives.
Her name was Peggy Orenstein, and she was writing a book about girls and sex. As a 20-year-old college sophomore, I apparently still qualified as a girl, and I was having sex. So, one night in late 2013, I agreed to let Orenstein hang out at my sorority house.
We swanned about the tiny bedroom, dodging piles of clothes and admiring one another’s earrings in the mirror, while Orenstein quizzed us on boys and parties and relationships. She listened attentively as we detailed the precise alchemy of a “going-out outfit”. (You could wear a tight skirt to show off your legs or a tight shirt to show off your boobs, but never both. The goal was to look available, not like a sure bet.) I could feel her eyes taking in all the pink in the room: the hot pink carpeting, the pale pink walls.
