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I suppose my biggest regret as UCLA’s sex columnist was never coming up with a sassy name for my weekly musings – such as Cal’s “Sex on Tuesday,” Boston College’s “Sex and the Univer-city” or (my favorite) “Cornellingus” from you can guess where.

Unfortunately, I don’t think the letters U-C-L-A lend themselves to a clever acronym – at least none I could think of (Under the Covers and Lactating Acid?) and certainly none that could even compare to Cornell’s stroke of genius.

So my column remained nameless, but it remained the “sex column” nonetheless.

Independent of name (or lack thereof), college sex columns across the country are criticized. Some say they promote stereotypes of the sexually promiscuous college student.

Others are concerned that a sex column is not appropriate material for a newspaper – be it a college publication or otherwise. But most disappointingly, they’re criticized because many college sex columns are written by (God forbid) young women who arrive at college and decide to start an extracurricular hobby as self-proclaimed “sexperts.” According to the critics found in a USA Today article, this absolutely must lead to false information and misguided advice.

Way to stereotype me.

I’m fortunately not one to be offended. I’m even one to realize that sometimes there is a hint of truth in stereotypes. After all, I was an awkward college sophomore when I started this column. Not exactly a sexpert by any standards, nor am I one now. But this shouldn’t matter.

I strongly believed when I began this job that a college newspaper could only benefit from a good sex column. And now, over a year later, I am even more convinced. If this column has done anything, it has continually reminded me of the ridiculous misconceptions people have about sex.

Or, if not misconceptions, the guilt complexes or complaints.

These include more mechanical problems such as erectile dysfunction, more elusive anxieties about what it means to be questioning one’s sexuality and questions about rape and sexual harassment.

Many of these issues can be best addressed in a newspaper column because it’s anonymous. You don’t have to sit next to anybody; nobody even has to know that you read it.

As to false information and misguided advice?

When the most likely way for you to get your high school girlfriend to fool around with you is to get her to take a virginity pledge (a Harvard study found that 52 percent gave up their pledges within a year) and when high school students in federally funded abstinence-only programs are taught that abortion can lead to suicide and sterility and that half of all gay male teens in the United States are HIV positive, then I think the critics need some serious target practice.

I’ve barely been able to write a column without having to stop myself from going off on a rant about the ridiculous ways this country thinks up of teaching sex ed. False information and misguided advice? Enough said.

The fact that I’m not a “sexpert” should not even be an issue. Just like other columnists, I’ve had to do research so that I don’t present false information or misguided advice, and my columns have undergone the same scrutiny and editing process as everything else that gets published in the Daily Bruin.

As to the stereotype that all college students are promiscuous. That’s obviously not true. According to the 2002 Ashe Center Student Survey Report, about 50 percent of the undergraduate population on this campus has never had sex, but that doesn’t mean that they’re abstaining from all sexual contact. And it certainly doesn’t mean they will be abstinent their entire lives. People should ideally know everything they need to know before they have sex, not after.

Sex columns are a little ridiculous – it’s ridiculous that there’s a need for them. It’s ridiculous that we’re continuing to have to fight for rights that should be obvious such as abortion and birth control. It’s ridiculous that factual and helpful information is not more readily available and even more ridiculous that one of the best ways to get misguided advice is to attend a high school sex ed class.

Newspapers pride themselves on presenting factual information that pertains to their readers. That’s why college newspapers are the perfect place for sex columns. If done correctly, sex columns present information and advice that pertains to the main readers of college newspapers – college students.

Loewenstein is done talking about sex, but you can still e-mail her at lloewenstein@media.ucla.edu. Send general comments to viewpoint@media.ucla.edu.

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