From the beginning, the University has had a bit of a problem with sex. Like everything great about this beautiful school, the story begins with our old pal TJ. Let’s face it, if he couldn’t keep it in his pants the rest of us mere mortals were doomed from the start.
I must admit I’m slightly conflicted at this moment. Part of me would like to spend the entirety of this column discussing the best pick up lines — “My phone is dead and I’m locked out. Can I sleep at your place?” — or the craziest sexcapades my friends have shared. From adventures on top of the Rotunda roof and Clark Library bathrooms to tales from within the Alderman stacks, the stories are legendary — not to mention surprisingly academic.
But as much as I want to release my inner Carrie Bradshaw, I have come to the unfortunate conclusion that I do not live in New York City, do not date my way through the week and definitely do not make enough money writing columns to buy Manolos. Not to mention the fact that there’s a much more valuable way I can use the rest of my 800 words.
As it stands, the University is ranked as the second best public university, the 23rd best college overall and — drumroll, please — the 19th horniest school in the nation. Not to mention the incredible honor of being named the number one party school in the nation by Playboy — an evaluation which used students’ sex lives as one of the three main criteria. Most horrifyingly, our hallowed Grounds were recently mentioned in a Washington Post article that named us as one of the colleges making rape worse.
For the most part, we ignore the issues posed by these statistics because thinking about them beyond surface level is both disturbing and incredibly defeating. The Saturday date night of our parents’ generation is now obsolete. Dating culture as a whole is pretty much obsolete. We’ve traded movie nights and dinner on the Downtown Mall for a rampant, hit-it-and-quit-it sex culture.
The expectation today is that if someone buys you a drink it’s not because they want to chat and get to know you. It’s because they’d like to get to know your ass on the dance floor. Sleeping with someone may even be the most surefire way to ensure he or she will never call you again, or even look you in the eye. And let’s not even talk about the way this University treats rape survivors.
Let me be clear — I don’t think there’s anything wrong with sex. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with premarital sex. Everyone has sex — I’m pretty sure even Cav Man gets laid.
But the fact that 25 percent of college students have a sexually transmitted disease is an enormous problem. The fact that some guys I know have slept with more girls than I went to elementary school with is beyond problematic. It’s not about religion or prudishness — it’s about the fact that I’m not interested in being number 25 on a guy’s laundry list. And I’m definitely not interested in catching what girl number 15 gave him.
If you don’t think pop culture’s facing a major sexual crisis I will kindly direct you to the recent United Nations report that revealed one in four men confess to raping women for “fun” or out of a sense of “sexual entitlement.” Sex in the 21st century is an expectation, not a privilege. And this is displayed everywhere — TV shows, advertisements and every Thursday through Saturday night on Grounds.
You say, “Anne-Marie, what I do on my Tempur-Pedic is none of your business.”
Snap. I see your point. However, let me remind you my high-achieving, ambitious peers of our friend, Anthony Weiner. Fifteen years later the number one auto fill for “Monica” on Google is still Lewinsky. Tiger Woods lost 23 million bucks in endorsements alone when he finally cleaned out the porn stars in his closet in 2009. Thomas Jefferson himself would probably love it if we could only strike Sally Hemings from his record.
As history has proven, the idea that “What happens in Charlottesville, stays in Charlottesville” has not — and will not — ever be true. Save karma the trouble of coming back to get you and stop screwing around now.
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