Thursday, March 8, 2007
We Are The Sex Media: Back to School Edition
filed under: State of Sex Ed, We Are The Sex Media by Melissa Gira
Of all the ways one could attempt to recapture one’s college days, keeping up on undergraduate student newspapers’ sex coverage is right up there (either that, or discussing post-coitally where Baudrillard meets Buffy, take your pick). If this is where the future of American sex is being played out extra-curricularly, we take it as a good sign that sometimes, campus sex journalism is as heartfelt and clumsy as dorm room sex itself.
This week in college sex:
Harvard. My first true loves (sex, politics, alt.culture, and Cambridge) all converge at the intersection of Massachusetts Avenue and red-brick lust. The Crimson’s Alwa A. Cooper delivers a complex feature on the oft-messy collisions of feminism and sexual liberation, covering Facebook-cruising, freshman dorm condom dispensers, and dominatrix guest lecturers.
Swarthmore. The only Swarthmore girl I ever got with involved a well-worn copy of Barthes’ Mythologies and an even more well-worn library couch. In a splendidly, even sexilly written bit of commentary, sophomore Josh Cohen of the Phoenix weighs in on “hookup culture.” It says something that even though I agree with only about 20% of his argument, he’s earned a full A in sex culture critique in my book. Snip:
I don’t want to absolve myself of the responsibility for hollering, “Take it off!” I’m only suggesting that if we want to talk about sex we should a) ignore all writers who aren’t having as much sex as we are and b) start by taking a leap of faith in one another…
Duke. Oh, Duke. Home of the most notorious campus-based (fine, I’ll say it for liability’s sake, alleged) assault on a sex worker in recent years, whose Chronicle is home to “retired sex kitten” columnist Shadee Malaklou, questioning, with a nuance not usually spared for the investigation, whether or not being “free” to have sex “like men” actually yields women better sex.
(Ed.: Lucky for me? My college paper has no online archive back to my attendance, but it used to be if you googled “naughty professor” you could find one of my editorials, no, really.)
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post-coitally? considering you are speaking of both Buffy and Baudrillard, the proper term might be post-mortem(ly). Goodnight, Jean.
“We are all Baudrillard now.”
interesting article from the phoenix, thanks for the link, though I’m less than crystal clear on his prescription for the betterment of our culture. when he asks, ‘isn’t love the thing?’ I wonder what he answers himself, and under what conditions he believes love is ‘more’ possible. I do wonder if we have more love now or just more sex. I do wonder if the meaning of ‘love’ is something constantly evolving along with our technology.