Sex and the University ~ the blog

One year, shortly before graduation, the mother of a friend came to visit him at college. As they walked across campus after dinner, a young woman he knew stopped to say hello and ask where he was going. "He's going home," his mother snapped. "Alone."
Has it really come to this? Has adult obsession with college sex reached such a pitch that a parent assumes that every cordial conversation will, without his or her intervention, end in frantic intercourse?
Actually, we understand parents' alarm. College today is portrayed almost exclusively as a sexual free-for-all, where undergrad action is effortless and frequent, where randy young things not so much leap into the sack as never leave it in the first place.
Rolling Stone calls it "the booze-fueled culture of the never-ending hookup." In her book "Unhooked," The Washington Post's Laura Sessions Stepp sniffs that hookups are as "common as a cold." Bill O'Reilly airs furtive footage on Fox News of "pure debauchery" at Brown University's annual SexPowerGod party. And of course, in Tom Wolfe's impossible-not-to-cite novel "I Am Charlotte Simmons," set on a campus where sex is in the air -- sorry, where the air is "humid with it! Tumid with it! Lubricated with it! Gorged with it!" -- students practically major in "herky-jerky . . . bang bang bang." One envisions RU-486 available at the dining hall salad bar, next to the croutons.
But as the Class of 2011 settles in on campus this month, we're betting that the students are discovering the cold-shower truth: The type of action they're likely to get is more hanky than panky.
We say this at our own peril. As the editors of IvyGate, a blog that dines out on all that is base and scandalous about the Ivy League, we have written about students and sex once or twice. It's hard not to, when even the smallest incidents get hyped to the max.
This year, two weeks before Valentine's Day, we posted an e-mail that the beleaguered master of a Yale residential college had sent to his charges -- subject line: "Shower Stalls are for Showering" -- asking an unnamed intimate couple to please stop clogging the bathroom drain. Hilarious? Absolutely. (The man has a PhD!) Did we give it a second thought? Nah. Not, that is, until a New Haven newspaper got wind of the professor's plea. And then the Associated Press. And then about 130 news outlets worldwide, including the "Today" show.
It wasn't the first time, obviously, that a campus sex story had been blown out of proportion. Last fall, the New York Daily News ran a thoughtful, nuanced article with the headline "WILD SEX 101: S&M Clubs, Nude Parties, Porn, X-Rated Romps Rule at Columbia." Having gone to Columbia, where we had experience with only the third item on that list, we read eagerly. Had the school really become a "playpen for sexual hijinks" in the months since we'd graduated? By e-mail and instant message, we canvassed some friends for our blog: Forget the kinky part; how often are you having sex at all? Here are some of the responses:
"Once every six months. Columbia is a rough world for single people."
"The average in the engineering school is probably like once a semester."
"Either I missed out or everyone else in college isn't having sex at all."
"Random hookups do happen, but it is probably rare for most students. At night people just go back to their rooms and finish their homework, or maybe heat up a Hot Pocket."

Tantalizing! Having eaten a Hot Pocket or two ourselves, we will vouch that there's a lot more truth to these kids' answers than what you see on CollegeHumor.com. Statistics bear this out. In a 2000 Zogby poll, 40 percent of students nationwide reported that they were not "sexually active" -- a term left vague enough to include everything from kissing to soliciting strangers in a Minneapolis airport men's room. At the country's top schools, the dry spells approach levels not seen since 1930s Dust Bowl Oklahoma. Harvard's health department reported last year that 47 percent of students there said they had not yet had vaginal intercourse. (Numbers not adjusted for homosexuality, apparently.) At the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a 2001 survey found that only 51 percent of undergrads had lost their virginity; at Princeton the same year, the student body was 44 percent pure.
Parents and other interested parties often confuse having had sex with having sex regularly. One landmark 2000 study found that kids have an average of 10.8 hookups in college. That seems like a lot. But the math works out to only 1.35 hookups per semester -- and remember, some of these incidents are merely make-out sessions. This is what we're getting so worked up about?
More devastating to the idea that everyone is constantly hooking up is the evidence that students hugely overestimate the notches on their classmates' mortarboards. In 2005, a survey of four universities found that while 80 percent of students had had one sex partner or fewer in the previous year, only 22 percent thought that the average number of partners was that low. In a similar survey in 2002, most guessed that three or more was the norm.
Even the MD/PhDs of college nookie -- sex columnists at student newspapers -- often talk the talk rather than walk the walk (of shame). At Yale, prototypical sex-scribe Natalie Krinsky parlayed her "Sex and the (Elm) City" column into a prominent profile in the New York Times and a book deal. "Chloe Does Yale," a peek into "what goes on behind these proper ivy-covered walls," was published in 2005.
Funny thing about that sex column, though: It contained very little sex. Krinsky's topics included first dates, shopping for vibrators and even a saucy question about oral sex, but never explicit material from her own life. Her skills were playing reporter and confidante, not exhibitionist. Krinsky knew that her scandalous material was mostly talk. "You are young, you are hip, you are beautiful, and you are smart," she wrote in one column, a letter to incoming Elis, "and if you're anything like any one of your classmates, you are ready to bonk. You are ready to bonk a lot. Well freshmen, you have come to the wrong place. At Yale, it seems we discuss sex far more than (admittedly) we actually have it. This is essentially the reason for my job. I talk about sex. A lot."
Some people will no doubt be thrilled to hear that college chastity levels remain high. A new book by Wendy Shalit, "Girls Gone Mild," follows up on her 1999 tract, "A Return to Modesty," which argued that the sexual revolution of the 1960s has overshot its original goals of liberation and turned into its own kind of oppression. Instead of feeling empowered, Shalit now writes, young women feel pressured to act "bad" and sexy at increasingly early ages. The solution: good old feminine purity. Not the repressed, Victorian kind but a new, deliberate sort. A student group at Harvard called True Love Revolution has a similar goal: premarital sexual abstinence. The group made headlines earlier this year for merely existing, and commentators -- mostly conservatives -- greeted it as evidence of a backlash against college "hookup culture."
Indeed, chastity is as rampant as ever -- at least at the more privileged schools, where for the most part, it's not intentional. In 2001, David Brooks profiled "The Organization Kid" -- the happy young workaholic who, between hockey practice, a cappella rehearsal, problem sets, SAT tutoring, Model U.N., AIDS research, human genome mapping, clerking for appeals court justices and cutting a debut solo album, has little time for the "character building" that used to occupy university life.
Brooks touches on the social repercussions of this omnivorous lifestyle, such as friends penciling in appointments with one another. But what he doesn't mention is how the hyper-commitment of college life means that kids end up doing everything but "it." For one thing, there's the time factor. As one male friend told us, in response to our query about the Daily News expos¿, "I've kind of got a girl right now, but we're both too busy to actually have sex. I think a lot of people are in my boat, and they deal with it by commoditizing and scheduling time for sexual pleasure as they would a meeting with their adviser."
Improbably, it's a recent comedy -- a movie whose plot turns on vomit, penis art and a fake ID issued to one Mr. McLovin -- that gets it right. Next to "I Am Charlotte Simmons," "Superbad" is nothing less than a documentary of our time. The story of two best friends on the eve of college, it nails how our generation's culture really is based on drinking and hookups -- but also how at the end of the night, even with girls who are eager and boys who score booze, sex remains elusive.
Sometimes it doesn't happen because the guy is uncomfortable; sometimes it's because the girl doesn't like the guy. And sometimes sex does happen for dweebs who've just ridden in a police car, fired a Glock and been punched in the face by a robber. (Okay, that last one may be unique to the movie.) If there's a sequel -- "Superworse"? -- all of these characters will hook up in short order at college, and then every now and then until they graduate.
In other words, they'll be gettin' some. Literally -- some. As in, a medium amount.

mailto:jcbeam@gmail.com
By Christopher Beam and Nick Summers
Christopher Beam and Nick Summers co-founded the blog IvyGate.

Heads up, you could be sitting beside the next bunny


About 60 McGill students stripped down to their skivvies and birthday suits this week, vying for the opportunity to appear in a special issue of Playboy. The legendary men's magazine was in Montreal last week casting for its "Girls of the Top 10 Party Schools" spread.

Playboy recently ranked McGill tenth on its annual list.Auditions were held at a hotel on Sherbrooke over three days. After filling out forms asking for information ranging from measurements to hobbies, potential playmates were taken into a bedroom suite where they were asked to remove as much clothing as they were comfortable with.

Each woman then posed for a handful of Polaroid pictures.Some ladies donned lingerie, while others went completely nude, perhaps taking to heart the words of David Rams, a photographer who has been on the Playboy masthead for about 10 years."We probably won't pick you if you don't take your top off," he said with a smile as a surprisingly demure set of applicants completed paperwork.

"Why show up for a Playboy casting if you're not going to take your clothes off?" Gen Friesen, who said she attended casting to "break the mould of chemistry students," posed topless."I'm a bit of an exhibitionist, [so] I was comfortable being nude," said Friesen, U2 Chemistry, adding that she decided to try out after friends encouraged her. Most applicants described the shoot as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. "A lot of girls do it so that they can look back and say, 'I was hot before I had kids,'" said Eden Orfanos, producer of the shoot.

The girls were picked to represent McGill's party-school title. According to a statement released by Playboy the list was determined by editorial staff, who considered aspects of the campus social scene such as proximity to off-campus entertainment, general vibrancy, social opportunities and male-to-female ratio.McGill officials were not pleased with the ranking."This is clearly a promotional or marketing gimmick," said Jennifer Robinson, associate vice-principal communications. "It is not credible and not appreciated."Robinson said she found it unfortunate that the magazine is using McGill's name.

"We are known for very high-quality students, professors and research," she said. "This is the first time that we have ever been ranked in something like this."Theresa Hennessey, publicity manager at Playboy, said that being featured as a top-10 party school does not detract from a university's image nor trivialize its academic merits."I don't think it tarnishes the university's image at all," Hennessey said. "We're not saying that it isn't a great place to get an education. [Rather], it is also a great place to have a social college experience."Hennessey said that Playboy hasn't received any complaints from other schools in the ranking, which also includes University of California at Santa Barbara and Florida State University. Though McGill may take issue with its appearance on the list, Playboy is not violating university policy by recruiting local students."We don't do anything on campus," Hennessey said.

"We make it clear that we are not affiliated with the universities." Students, campus groups ambivalentIn all, six McGill students were selected to pose for the magazine. They were photographed over three days in different settings, the primary location being a loft owned by a McGill PhD student. Madison Chi, U2 Anatomy and Cell Biology, posed for the magazine after attending the casting call with her roommate. She asked that the Tribune use a pseudonym.
Chi said she was surprised that she had been selected."You picture these magazines as featuring only the skinniest girls with the biggest breasts," she said. "But then my roommate called from her photo shoot and said they wanted me to come in and pose."Though Chi felt slightly awkward "getting into it," her overall impressions of the experience were positive."It was really laidback and relaxed," Chi said of the shoot. "They looked us in the eye while talking [to us], even though we were in lingerie."

The reaction of campus groups was subdued. Liberated Bodies, a club that promotes healthy body image, did not applaud or condone the recent recruitment."We do not want to dictate what others should find liberating or oppressive," the club said in a statement. "We also respect the decisions of the women who chose what was right for themselves when posing for Playboy."The Union for Gender Empowerment was unavailable for comment. (Liz Allmang, McGill Tribune)

The "Girls of the Top 10 Party Schools" issue of Playboy hit newsstands on April 7. It's not too late to bare all for Playboy. Check out www.playboy.com/on-campus/collegecastings.

The girl on the left is Alexandra Kosteniuk. She is currently considered the greatest female chess player on the planet. Last time we looked her FIDE rating was well over 2500, and she is a Grandmaster in both female and male lists (however that stuff works). If you were to compare the way she looks with some of her chess playing colleagues (see below; world's no.2 Peter Leko) you would understand why Alexandra is the ultimate chess darling of geekdom, and if you played chess against her she'd KICK Your Ass. Her talent has given her the opportunity to travel the world, and in certain circles she's become quite the celebrity. The girl on the right is just ass and her talent has given her cars, houses, plane tickets, movie roles, jewelry etc. Happy Friday!

Gamblers, it's said, will bet on anything, such as which raindrop will slide down widow glass first.You never hear someone say whether or not team X will beat team Y, it's always, "I think they'll cover the spread."Now, some enterprising Internet sports books have come up with a new twist on the sport of girl watching.These guys are taking bets on which female celebrity will be the next to have a "wardrobe malfunction," as happened to Janet Jackson. They however are posting odds and taking bets on who will have the next, as they are calling it, nipple slip.I, as I'm sure others do, often wonder just how "accidental" these events are.Many years ago when I read "Playboy," they had an amusing and informative Q&A section, to which a neophyte asked the question:"If I'm with a woman, and her clothing is revealing, should I, or should I not, look at what is showing?"The response was: "Take a look, because a woman always knows, and has control over what is showing."

Chocolate is rich dark and satisfying
You are never disappointed when you open the wrapper
Chocolate doesn't care how many you have eaten before
Chocolate always hits the spot
Chocolate doesn't secretly want to be eaten by your best friend
Chocolate doesn't think shopping chanel is stupid
Chocolate always smells good
Chocolate won't ask "Am I the best?" or "How was it?"
It doesn't sulk if you don't want it first thing in the morning
Chocolates are easy to pick up
Chocolate satisfies even when soft
You can suck on chocolate in front of Mom
Chocolate never leaves a bad taste in your mouth
Chocolate never minds what time of the month it is
You don't mind brown stains left by chocolate
With chocolate, size doesn't matter, it's always good
Chocolates do not wear white socks
Chocolate doesn't mind when you crunch the nuts
With chocolate you don't have to pretend you've never eaten one before
"If you love me you'll swallow that" has real meaning with chocolate
You can have more than one a night without ruining your reputation
Chocolate doesn't just think it's smooth
Chocolates aren't into rope or leather
You can tell just by looking at it, it hasn't been in anyone else's mouth
Hard chocolate is easy to find
and...
Great Chocolates are always available.

Joan Roughgarden, a transgendered professor of biology at Stanford University(is it only us or does Stanford gets all the interesting profs?? ed.), has penned a fascinating-sounding book on the evolutionary role of homosexuality called Evolution's Rainbow. Roughgarden's theories center on explaining why, if homosexuality is a genetic aberration, it hasn't been bred out of all species -- instead, homosexual coupling is more the norm than the aberration when it comes to most animals. As she says, "a 'common genetic disease' is a contradiction in terms, and homosexuality is three to four orders of magnitude more common than true genetic diseases such as Huntington's disease."

In some positions, a female macaque will rub her clitoris against her partner's back, deriving sexual pleasure.
Japanese macaques, an old world primate, illustrate this principle perfectly. Macaque society revolves around females, who form intricate dominance hierarchies within a given group. Males are transient. To help maintain the necessary social networks, female macaques engage in rampant lesbianism. These friendly copulations, which can last up to four days, form the bedrock of macaque society, preventing unnecessary violence and aggression. Females that sleep together will even defend each other from the unwanted advances of male macaques. In fact, behavioral scientist Paul Vasey has found that females will choose to mate with another female, as opposed to a horny male, 92.5% of the time. While this lesbianism probably decreases reproductive success for macaques in the short term, in the long run it is clearly beneficial for the species, since it fosters social stability. "Same-sex sexuality is just another way of maintaining physical intimacy," Roughgarden says. "It's like grooming, except we have lots of pleasure neurons in our genitals. When animals exhibit homosexual behavior, they are just using their genitals for a socially significant purpose."