What We Talk About When We Talk About Sex: A Conversation with Hailey Colborn
Having just been crowned Miss Teen USA in 2018, Hailey Colborn arrived at Princeton University curious about its bizarre social scene. The rumors she’d heard — about hookups and one-night stands prevailing over lasting relationships — were a far cry from what she’d grown up with in her more conservative hometown of Wichita, Kansas.
She didn’t know what to expect. “I wasn’t allowed to date until I was sixteen, so when I got to Princeton, I experienced the ‘hookup culture’ firsthand and was really confused by it,” she told me over the phone.
As it turned out, she wasn’t the only one.
Hailey, an avid writer, grew up in the Bible Belt, where, she claimed, sex is considered extremely taboo.
“My ideas about love and sexuality were shaped by my upbringing in that kind of atmosphere,” she said. “I had to take steps within myself to be comfortable talking openly about it. I still struggle at times.”
She first began toying with the idea of writing about sex at Princeton two summers ago, after binge-watching the show Sex and the City. This past summer, she stumbled upon an article about Candace Bushnell, the woman the show is based on, and connected with Bushnell’s spirit of progressive sexual liberation.
“She was this amazing woman in the 60s who wrote about sex, something that was very controversial at the time,” Hailey gushed. “She almost single-handedly helped kickstart the trend of female sexual autonomy.” Bushnell is also known for making Cosmopolitan the liberal, sex-positive magazine it is today.
After TigerTrends, Princeton’s premier fashion arts magazine, opened a journalism segment, Hailey pitched the idea for her column, “Hookups with Hailey.”
The first installment, “Love at First Kiss,” was published on August 2, and there have been two more since then.
Although the project is still very much in its formative stages, Hailey is excited about its potential — namely, the space it creates for people from different cultural backgrounds and sexual identities to express themselves.
She began by reaching out to people she knew who had interesting stories to share. Slowly but surely, she received responses from people who had read the column or heard about the project and wanted to pitch in.
“I think the reason people feel comfortable talking to me and going into depth about their sex lives,” said Hailey, “is because I always try my best to foster an atmosphere that’s open and honest.”
In a departure from journalistic norms, she grants her interviewees anonymity and lets both parties read the story before publication so they don’t feel judged or exploited.
For those who finish their interviews and later decide they don’t want the piece to be published, Hailey’s response is always, “That’s okay.”
“I’m just the mediator who is giving people a platform where they’re able to share their experiences,” Hailey said. “The story is, and always should remain, theirs.”
Hailey goes into each of the phone interviews with a loose list of questions about the relationship. But the conversation usually takes off, and she rarely gets past the first few. She said she always conducts two separate interviews so that she has a complete picture of the entire narrative, rather than just one perspective.
“Sometimes the two sides will give me wildly different accounts, and then I have to do my best to combine them into one cohesive article,” Hailey said. “I think that’s part of what makes the process so interesting.”
Hailey said she doesn’t have a formula, but she’s been pleasantly surprised to learn that people are open and willing to share.
She also loves how unexpectedly dynamic and unconventional many of the stories have been, redefining the gender roles normally associated with hookup culture: that the women get easily attached and the men have to clarify that it’s ‘just a hookup,’ nothing serious.
“It’s honestly ironic that I’m doing this because my own love life is so boring,” said Hailey, who has been in a serious relationship for almost two years. But she credits her past experiences — as well as her relationship — with teaching her to embrace her own sexuality.
The project, in a way, represents Hailey’s personal journey of growth and self-discovery.
“I grew up feeling so much guilt and shame about sex due to my religion and geographic region. I cherish this platform because it’s also given me a way to assuage those feelings within myself.”
Hailey expressed her hopes that she can encourage others to be comfortable in their own skin.
“I think everyone probably has some embarrassing hookup stories,” she laughed. “I just want to let people know they don’t have to be ashamed of them.”
Such vulnerability, she acknowledged, is especially important now, when the pandemic has put a number of relationships on hold or broken them apart. In a time when intimacy is hard to come by, many college students have been struggling to cope with loneliness.
“‘Intimacy in the Time of Corona,’ maybe that’ll be my next project,” said Hailey, whose self-proclaimed mission is to remind people that they’re not alone. “I know people have a lot to share — and I’m here to listen.”
Check out Hookups with Hailey on TigerTrends and reach out to Hailey at hcolborn@princeton.edu if you have a story you’d like to share!