The fight for ideological dominance of D.C.’s college sex column “movement” rages on. Are our local campus columnists on the forefront of radical sex writing, or are they bringing back the good old days of valiant male chivalry—only drunker? This week: G.W. student fucks Marine; UMD students are bitches, dicks, or pussies; American University issues a Very Special sex column. It must be sweeps week:

Read More “University Sex Columns, Reviewed: Chivalrous Hook-Up Edition” »

In a staff editorial, George Washington University newspaper the Hatchet reacted to two recent incidents of on-campus violence by calling for a “shared responsibility for safety.” In the first incident, a stranger approached a graduate student in the bathroom of an academic building and hit him in the head with a hammer. In the second, a stranger approached several sleeping women in a Freshman dorm and sexually assaulted them.

“Both of these incidents exemplify ways that GW can improve security on its campus,” the Hatchet editorial informed students. According to the camps paper, the bathroom hammering reveals how the university needs to “better expedite information in response to major security threats on campus.” The sexual assault, meanwhile, “shows that students have a responsibility to keep themselves safe.”

Perhaps it was not the best choice of words.

Read More “G.W. Paper Criticizes Sexual Assault Victims’ Lack of “Responsibility”” »

Early this morning, George Washington University police apprehended a suspect who had been seen attempting to “touch several females while they were sleeping.” According to a campus alert, a male student helped the suspect access campus dorm Thurston Hall at 19th and F Streets NW around 4:30 this morning. A security camera then recorded the male student “leaving the building alone soon after signing in his guest,” leaving the suspect unaccompanied in the freshman dorm.

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College sex columns: So wrong, they’re . . . boring.

This week, the Nation’s Alex Dibranco declared that the college sex column represents “a radical progressive movement in the sense of pushing against traditional silence and the status quo.” That might have been true when sex columns first popped up on college campuses in 1996, but now, fucking and telling is a normal campus activity for radicals and right-wingers alike. At this point, simply rehashing your heterosexual, vanilla, and gender-role-informed Saturday night hook-up through the campus press does not a sexual revolution make—even if you publish under the pseudonym “Buster Darkhole.” Sady of Tiger Beatdown and I talk about where the student sex column should go from here.

References: George Washington University’s sex column, penned by “Mr. Darcy” and “Layla” [Exhibits A & B]; Georgetown University’s sex column, penned by Colleen Leahey [Exhibits C & D]; American University’s sex column, penned by “Amber Sparkles,” “Maxwell Hillcrest,” and our pal Buster [Exhibits E & F].

Read More “Sexist Beatdown: “Buster Darkhole” and the Conservative College Sex Column” »

This week, the Nation’s Alex Dibranco provided a brief history of the “Student Sex Column Movement.” The college sex column, Dibranco argues, is “a radical progressive movement in the sense of pushing against traditional silence and the status quo,” she writes. “Challenges to the columns stem from a conservative mindset . . . Given that the Republican Party has become increasingly dominated by the religious right and the issues of the conservative culture wars, with sex smack at the forefront, these columns become politicized in a way the columnists themselves don’t necessarily intend. . . . the statement that ’sex is OK’ becomes even more politically charged when the sex in question is generally unmarried and occasionally queer.”

Criticisms of D.C.-area student sex columns, however, rarely take the form of the right-wing, anti-sex diatribe. At local colleges and universities, sex columnists are more likely to catch heat for furthering sex-negative sentiments, antiquated gender roles, or sloppy writing.

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When American University students returned to school this fall, student newspaper the Eagle greeted them with a warning. In a piece titled “Sex-perimentation defines Welcome Week,” three anonymous sex columnists presented a nightmare college sex scenario:

It’s three in the morning. You have it inside you right now. It kind of hurts. You’ve had one too many cups of jungle juice. You think his name is Andrew, but you’re not really sure. You thought you would never be that girl, but there you are, in your drunken haze.

You wake up the day after to an unfamiliar ceiling, some guy who smells like booze, AXE body spray and, well, something else. He wants to cuddle and you’re starting to think maybe this drunken hook-up [ ________ ].

Reader: How did the AU Eagle complete that sentence?

a. You’re starting to think maybe this drunken hook-up was rape.

b. You’re starting to think maybe this drunken hook-up was a product of society’s shaming of female sexuality, which encourages women to resort to dangerous, heavily intoxicated, and painful sex with strangers instead of openly pursuing empowered, respectful, and satisfying sexual experiences with desired sexual partners.

c. You’re starting to think maybe this drunken hook-up could turn into something.

Read More “You’re Drunk. It’s Inside You. It Kind of Hurts. Is It Rape?” »

The Catholic University of America (CUA) this summer revised its student rules to clarify that the school condemns sexual assault more strongly than consensual sex. The change to the policy, which became official July 27, comes in the aftermath of litigation questioning the propriety and effectiveness of the university’s longtime regulations.

Prior to the change, the CUA campus code performed an awkward lumping operation when it came to sex: Its sexual misconduct clause outlawed “physical conduct of a sexual nature that is unwanted by either party and/or that is disruptive to the university community, such as any sexual expression that is inconsistent with the teaching and moral values of the Catholic church.”
Read More “Catholic University Gets Tougher on Sexual Assault, Remains Tough on Sex” »

Date Rape Anthem: Asher Roth’s “I Love College”

Relevant Lyrics:

I can’t tell you what I learned from school but
I could tell you a story or two, um
Yeah, of course I learned some rules
Like don’t pass out with your shoes on (get the sharpie)

And don’t leave the house ’til the booze gone (no we’re not leaving)
And don’t have sex if she’s too gone
When it comes to condoms put two on (trust me)
Then tomorrow night find a new jawn

Why It’s So Rapey: On the surface, Roth’s love-letter to undergraduate debauchery condemns date rape (”don’t have sex if she’s too gone”). So why would this Village Voice detractor call the Morrisville, Pa. rapper’s first album “nothing more than a soundtrack for date rape”?

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Notoriously anti-gay Westboro Baptist Church came to town on Monday to protest homosexual sin, George Mason University’s gay male homecoming queen, and “the Anti-Christ” (President Obama). When the protest moved on from GMU and Embassy Row to land in front of the White House, Westboro members were met by dozens of George Washington Univeristy students who had come to protest the protest with a punishment reserved for only the most insufferable of bigots: College girls kissing each other.

The counter-protest was organized by Colin MacDonald and Ian Goldin, GW students who were joined by “between 80 and 100 people” in raising signs, chants, and face-locks against the church. At the height of the action, Freshmen Paige Medley and Lauren LaMonte kissed “to show their support for gay rights.” It looks like there might have been some tongue, but it’s too close to call.

For those also interested in, ahem, showing their solidarity, check out Hatchet photographer Marie McGrory’s shot of the kiss here.