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.

Last month, the American University Eagle's anonymous sex column was criticized for trivializing rape, ignoring LGBT students, and discouraging women from pursuing sex. Also this month, Georgetown University student journalist Juliana Brint accused her campus' sex columns of being "backwards, anti-feminist screeds" based on "outdated, belittling generalizations about the female psyche." How progressive are our local student sex writers?

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Student Paper: The G.W. Hatchet

Columnists: Mr. Darcy, an anonymous heterosexual male; Layla, an anonymous heterosexual female.

Areas of Coverage: In Darcy's inaugural column, the male sex columnist posed an Austenian dilemma: Shall he choose the nice girl who gives a satisfying blow job, or the freaky one into semi-public window sex? Answer: Looks like he's sleeping (with both of them) on it for a little while longer. In Layla's latest go-around, she describes her unorthodox relationship with a "best friend" from out-of-town: They do it all the time, but they're not dating or anything, and it's awesome!

Progressive Score: 6. Both Darcy and Layla describe their personal experiences with casual sex with multiple partners—and they do so with respect for themselves and for everyone else involved. In college, that can be difficult—it's hardly edgy, but I'll take it. The problem with first-person sex columns from two heteros, though, is that the LGBT experience is completely shut out of the paper.

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Student paper: The American University Eagle.

Sex columnists: Three anonymous writers—one female, two male, sexual orientation undisclosed. Their porny bylines: Amber Sparkles, Buster Darkhole, and Maxwell Hillcrest.

Areas of Coverage: The trio got off to a controversial start last month when they posited this hypothetic sexual experience—"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"—as a normal AU hookup. In their follow-up column, Sparkles, Darkhole, and Hillcrest winked at the controversy as they moved on to another taboo campus topic. "It’s 3 a.m. and he has it in you right now. It hurts," the column read. "You are two sober, consenting adults who have just embarked on the journey of anal sex."

Progressive Score: 7. While the first column from the threesome was extremely ill-advised, this servicey anal sex primer—don't use silicone lube with silicone toys!—imparted some helpful and open-minded advice for dorm-dwellers embarking on an anal excursion for the first time. It also made a stab at inclusiveness: "Gay, straight, bisexual—it doesn’t matter," the column reads. "Anyone can enjoy the feeling that comes from anal stimulation, no matter their gender or sexual orientation."

But while the column worked to dispel the "taboo" against straight men enjoying ass play, it failed to tackle the pressure many straight women feel to do anal. It also only addressed the anal pleasure derived from massaging the prostate. Not everybody has a prostate!

On the other hand, the threesome managed to stir up some conservative ire for the column—always a good sign. "I am appalled at the content of the Eagle’s new column," wrote one commenter. "I find this particular article vulgar."

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Student Paper: The Georgetown University Hoya.

Sex Columnists: Colleen Leahey

Areas of Coverage: According to Brint, who writes for the Georgetown Voice, Leahey's "backwards, anti-feminist screeds" come from a long line of conservative Georgetown sex columnists (Julia Allison was the first). In Leheay's first column, she declared that "The quest for 'Prince Charming' consumes the lives of most 20-something females." The odd advice in her second column wasn't so much gender-specific as it was stalker-specific: "After shouting their name, you wait for them to come running into your arms. Instead they ask, 'Why are you following me?'"

Progressive Score: 4. Leahey may very well have her hands tied at this particularly conservative student rag, which is lucky to have a sex column at all. "“[V]ulgarity is discouraged through all sections in The Hoya,” Hoya Managing Editor Marissa Amendolia explained in an e-mail to Brint. “[W]hen it comes to editing for style, vulgarity—and, depending on the situation, this may include sexual explicitness—is subject to editing as long as the editor maintains the author’s viewpoint.” That being said, Leahey doesn't have to get vulgar to become a bit more open-minded. It would behoove her to direct her columns to all members of the campus community, not just heterosexual females she deems "desperate."

Nevertheless, I give Leahey and the Hoya major points for refusing to hide their sex coverage under a pseudonym (even a pseudonym as inspired as "Buster Darkhole"). The Hoya's sex talk may be low on the sex, but at least they own it. If there's nothing wrong with talking about casual sex and anal experimentation, why keep your identity under the covers?

Note: I couldn't find any current sex columns at the UMD Diamondback, the Howard University Hilltop, or, uh, Catholic University. If you know of any other local student sex writers, let me know!

According to D.C. police, a sexual assailant known as the "Cuddler" has been terrorizing dorms and townhouses around Georgetown University since January 13, 2008. But when did that other scourge of the Georgetown campus—the suspect's creepily innocuous nickname—first hit the Hoyas? No one knows for sure. Below, track the moniker's rise in the campus lexicon. (Suspected "Cuddler" assaults are marked in red).

! January 13, 2008. According to D.C. police officer Helen Andrews, as quoted in Georgetown Voice blog Vox Populi, "The first incident" in the string of sexual assaults "occurred on January 13, 2008 in the 3700 block of R Street, NW."

* March 4, 2008. University of Maryland's student newspaper, the Diamondback, attributes two similar sexual assaults near the UMD campus to a "City Cuddler." Kevin Litten, the Diamondback's editor-in-chief at the time, sources the nickname to a phone conversation he had with Major Kevin Davis, a commander with the Prince George's County Police Department. Litten says that Davis called the Diamondback with a tip about a new incident in a series of assaults where a man would enter a female's residence, lie down next to her, and in some cases, sexually assault her.

"[Davis] called us up, and I recall him saying, 'Our Cuddler has struck again.' As soon as I heard him say 'Cuddler,' I knew that we were going to be using it in the headline," says Litten. "I had never heard it around campus before we put it in that headline," he says. "We expected that we were going to get some criticism for using the name from people who thought it was not appropriate . . . but as soon as I heard the police use the name, I thought, 'that's such a perfect descriptor for what this is.'"

Evan Baxter, an officer with the Prince George’s County Police Department, denies that PG County police originated the nickname. "We were not the ones that coined the term, and we’re not particularly fond of the term," Baxter told me. "My understanding is that it got started by local media."

! May 16, 2008. According to Officer Andrews, a "second incident occurred on May 16, 2008 in the 2400 block of Huidekoper Place, NW."

* May 2008. By now, the nickname has hit the Georgetown campus—having either jumped from the University of Maryland attacks or arisen on its own. According to a column in the Georgetown Voice, a group of Georgetown students named their wireless network the "Club Cuddler" in May of 2008 as an homage to the campus assailant.

View Suspected "Georgetown Cuddler" incidents in a larger map

! June 1, 2008. According to Vox Populi, another sexual assault "took place on the 1900 block of 38th Street, and the MPD has identified it as a crime."

! June 26, 2008. According to Vox Populi, this sexual assault occurred "in the 2400 block of Tunlaw Road NW."

* Aug. 20, 2008. A Washington City Paper story on local college newspapers commends the Diamondback for its "Cuddler" scoops. Georgetown newspaper the Hoya is also profiled in the piece, which was widely circulated among undergraduate journos.

! Sept. 5, 2008. According to a Georgetown campus alert: "during the overnight hours of Friday, September 5, an unknown male entered her bedroom, got into her bed, and put his arm around her. She awoke and got out of the bed. The suspect then left her room and exited the apartment."

! Sept. 25, 2008. According to a Georgetown campus alert: "an unknown hispanic male entered [the victim's] apartment through an unlocked and ajar door. The suspect took a blanket from a bedroom and put it on top of the complainant, who was sleeping on the couch. He then laid on top of her. The complainant screamed and the suspect immediately left the premises."

* Oct. 7, 2008. The nickname hits Georgetown newspaper the Hoya's Web site, via the comments section. On a news report on the sexual assaults, a commenter writes, "Hall Directors and university officials KNOW about the legend of the creepy cuddler, and yet they do absolutly nothing to ensure the safety and well being of resident after resident over the years."

* Oct. 28, 2009. The Georgetown Voice employs the "Cuddler" nickname for the first time, in a post on Vox Populi. In the same post, writer Will Sommer kicks around ideas for a more appropriate moniker: "The Voice was bandying around the Crapist (cuddle/rapist) earlier, and while accurate, that’s too close to grapist. Ideas?"

* Oct. 31, 2008. A "Cuddler" Halloween. At least one Georgetown student fashions a costume based upon the sexual assailant. Reports of the disguise's particulars range from the literal—pajamas, pillow, and blanket for laying on people—to the lazy—a plain, white T-shirt marked “GEORGETOWN CUDDLER.” Anna Bank, who interviewed one "Cuddler" costumer for the Georgetown Voice, says that the "Cuddler" costumes raised a red flag for her. "To go through the process of making a costume—even a really simple one—indicates that you're putting time and effort into belittling and disrespecting a thing that happened to people," she says. In the interview, Bank says that the student "said something about how he hoped that nobody who was a victim of the cuddling actually saw his costume, because he thought that that might be upsetting," she says. "I thought that was weird, because if you're actually aware that a victim might see the costume, maybe you shouldn't wear it?"

! Jan. 30, 2009. According to a Georgetown campus alert: "[A] student living in the 1200 Block of 35th Street was awakened to find an unknown male in her bed. The suspect left the bed and headed for the bedroom door as the complainant asked, 'Who is that?' The suspect did not respond and left the residence."

* Feb. 17, 2009. The Sexist suggests alternate nicknames for the "Cuddler," including the "Georgetown Blanketlayer," the "Georgetown Entrygainer," and the "Georgetown Rapist."

! Feb. 26, 2009. According to a Georgetown campus alert: "an unidentified male entered a student's residence in the 3400 Block of N Street by an unknown means. The suspect crawled into the complainant's bed while she was asleep. She was startled awake. The suspect subsequently left the bedroom and exited the residence by the front door."

* Feb 28, 2009. The "Georgetown Cuddler" jumps on the Twitter bandwagon. The first Tweet from @thegtowncuddler:

! March 18, 2009. According to a Georgetown campus alert: "At approximately 4:20 a.m. on Wednesday, March 18, 2009, an unidentified male entered a student's residence in the 3300 Block of Prospect Street by an unknown means. The suspect lay down on the couch with the student, at which time she was startled awake. The suspect subsequently left the residence."

* April 1, 2009. The Hoya prints a mock interview with the suspect in its April Fools Issue called "Georgetown Cuddler: Why I Do It." In the piece, the "Cuddler" character said, "A girl can never reject you when she's comatose. As I see it, my success rate is 100 percent."

* April 9, 2009. The Washington Post rejects a diorama submitted to its annual "Peeps Show" contest inspired by the sexual assault suspect. Peeps Show judge Dan Zak explained why the entry didn't make the cut: "It was removed at the last minute after editors raised a red flag out of—as Robert Gibbs would say—an “abundance of caution.” We apologized profusely to the dioramist, and she was very understanding." The diorama, entitled “Peeping leads to cuddling," was created by Annette Lee, and featured a sunglasses-wearing Marshmallow Peep "Cuddler," a sleeping Lavender Peep Bunny victim, and a Twilight film poster.

* April 2009. The Georgetown Heckler, a campus humor magazine, publishes a satirical piece on the phenomenon entitled, “Mysterious Georgetown Coddler Leaves Students Shaken, Pampered.” "Obviously, sexual assault itself is not funny," Heckler editor Jack Stuef wrote in an e-mail. "It's just a pretty good pun that then derives humor from the weird situation and the nature of some students around here who are not exactly self-dependent."

* April 24, 2009. The Hoya uses the “Cuddler” in a news story for the first time, in an investigative report dating potential“Cuddler” attacks back to 2005. The paper employs the nickname only once in a story of 1,350 words. Hoya editor-in-chief Kevin Barber says that the question of when to drop the "Cuddler" preceded him. "For a while before I became the editor, the question of whether to acknowledge the use of the nickname was up in the air," he wrote in an e-mail." In the end, my decision to mention the nickname in the April 24 story was motivated by my belief that we had an obligation to acknowledge the use of it by members of the campus community—the use of that term is extremely widespread here at Georgetown."

! July 25, 2009. According to an MPD report recovered by Vox Populi: "[The victim] was in her bed when an unknown subject entered her room, disrobed from the waist down, leaving his shoes on and climbed into the bed with her ad hugged her. [The victim] never look at [the suspect] because she assumed that it was her male friend that frequents her home. . . . [She] did not realize until an hour or so later that [the man]was not a friend of hers when he attempted to touch [her] while climbing on top of her placing his penis on her inner thigh. [The victim] further states that her male friend is gay so once [the man] started to touch her she instantly knew that it was not her friend in the bed with her."

* July 30, 2009. The Georgetown Voice publishes a hoax letter from a man claiming to know the true identity of the "Georgetown Cuddler": University President John DeGioia.

! Aug. 30, 2009. According to a Georgetown campus alert: "On Sunday, August 30, 2009 at approximately 6:30 a.m., an unidentified male entered a student's residence in the 1200 Block of 33rd Street, NW, and lay down on the couch with her. The complainant was startled awake, at which time she told the suspect to leave, which he subsequently did."

! Sept. 1, 2009. According to a Georgetown campus alert: "On Tuesday, September 1, 2009, at approximately 4:20 a.m., an unidentified male entered the residence of a student in Village A through a ground floor window. The suspect climbed into the bed of the complainant while she slept. The suspect began to sexually assault the complainant, whereupon she screamed and the suspect left the residence through the front door, fleeing in an unknown direction."

* Sept. 1, 2009. Women's blog Jezebel announces that the "man known only as the 'Georgetown Cuddler'" is officially "even creepier than Edward Cullen," the stalking-prone vampire hero of the Twilight series.

* Sept. 2, 2009. Feminist blog Feministing tackles the nickname, saying that its continued use "excuses the attacker, dismisses violence as acceptable, and condescends to survivors."

* Sept 3, 2009. The "Cuddler" hits A1 of the Washington Post—almost. Reporter Paul Duggan refrains from printing the nickname until after the jump, when the story delves into street interviews with Georgetown students. Their quotes are peppered with "Cuddler."

"Oh, yeah, 'the Georgetown Cuddler,' " said Clara Zabludowsky, a 21-year-old senior, invoking the commonly used nickname for the assailant or assailants — a moniker that police say is inappropriately cute given the nature of the crimes.

Said Eugenia Sosa, also 21 and a senior: "For April Fools' Day, my friends knew I'd been thinking about it, so one of my guy friends was going to sneak into my bedroom and cuddle me. That's how it's being taken, I think — like it's not that serious."

. . . Tuesday's incident occurred just four days after [Katherine] Everitt moved to Georgetown from her home in Los Angeles. "Before I came, I heard about 'the Cuddler,' " she said. "It sounded like a joke, like some guy comes in and lays down next to you or whatever. . . . Now the whole reality of it comes into effect, and you don't know if it's a student or who it is."

* Sept. 4, 2009. Gawker compares the widely differing descriptions of the suspect to confused racial stereotyping of President Barack Obama.

* Sept. 4, 2009. Georgetown University finally invokes “Cuddler”—in a campus-wide letter telling students not to use the word “Cuddler.” "Descriptions that refer to some suspects as a ‘cuddler’ can detract from the serious nature of these incidents,” the letter read.

* Sept. 16, 2009. Staffers from the Voice discuss the use of the nickname in campus media—and why replacement names like the "Crapist" have failed to catch on.

Photo by NCinDC

On Sept. 4, Georgetown University told its students to stop calling him “The Cuddler.”

Because cuddle is far too soft a description for what the suspect does. In a typical attack, a man enters a student’s residence through an unlocked window or door, lies down next to her, and attempts to sexually assault her. He’s been accused of everything from laying a blanket atop his victim to placing his penis on his victim’s thigh. According to D.C. Police, the episodes span a 20-month period stretching back to January 2008.

Despite the disturbing MO, “Georgetown Cuddler” persists as an on-campus nickname for this criminal. When two assaults were reported days before the start of the fall semester, the university attempted to put an end to the moniker. “Descriptions that refer to some suspects as a ‘cuddler’ can detract from the serious nature of these incidents,” a letter to students read.

Beyond the warning against the popular nickname, Georgetown’s campus alert was conspicuously short on descriptors. “As you may know, our campus and surrounding neighborhoods have experienced incidents over the past year, and several in the past week,” the university hedged. Students who may not know about the history of sexual assaults around campus—including incoming freshmen—were afforded no further elaboration on the nature of the “incidents.”

Molly Redden, who has covered the beat for campus publication the Georgetown Voice, recognized the university’s decision to invoke the nickname even as it denounced its use. “Referring to the suspect as ‘The Cuddler’ does detract from how serious the incidents are,” says Redden. “At the same time, I wouldn’t be surprised if the university used the nickname as an indicator of which specific crimes they’re actually referring to.”

While administrators view “Georgetown Cuddler” as an inaccurate and inappropriate nickname, it provides students a helpful—even necessary—shorthand for covering an ongoing campus safety risk. Georgetown’s letter denouncing the nickname was the school’s most transparent response to the string of attacks to date. But the Georgetown Voice has been publishing the nickname for nearly a year—and alerting students to the school’s sexual assault problem each time the “Cuddler” is invoked.

“When I write something that’s ‘Cuddler’ related, it gets more attention on campus,” says Voice projects editor Will Sommer. “I would never make it seem as though something is a ‘Cuddler’ attack when it isn’t. But when you associate the ‘Cuddler’ thing, it lends a narrative to it.” That narrative, Sommer says, has been missing from Georgetown University’s previous response to the assaults—a series of “Public Safety Alerts” (PSAs) which fail to address the incidents as a campus trend.

Sommer says he was likely responsible for debuting “The Cuddler” in campus media last fall, in a post on Voice blog Vox Populi. Looking back on the coverage, Sommer says, “I thought, Oh my God—did I come up with the Cuddler? What a disaster. But if you look at the post, you can see that I’m not making clear what ‘Cuddler’ even means. By that point, it looks like it requires no explanation.” By the time the term migrated from the student body to the student press, it had already inspired editorial backlash. In his inaugural post referencing the “Cuddler,” Sommer suggested that Georgetown stop referencing the “Cuddler.” “Given the seriousness/scariness of the Cuddler’s attacks, we need to get this guy a new nickname,” he wrote. “‘The Cuddler’ just sounds way too sweet, like he’s a child scared of the dark and in need of affection.”

Over the next year, Voice staffers continued to rally against the nickname’s use—while marking off suspected assault locations on its Google map, “Suspected ‘Georgetown Cuddler’ Incidents.” In November 2008, the Voice published a piece debating the appropriateness of Cuddler-based jokes which included an interview with a student who dressed as the “Cuddler” for Halloween. In February, Redden lamented the term’s stickiness, writing, “I can’t keep using quotes around ‘Cuddler’ to try to mollify my discomfort in using the term forever!”

Possible alternatives to the “Cuddler” have been discussed. “We talk about it a lot. Everyone wants a different name, but we can’t find something good,” says Sommer. “The ‘Cuddler’ is a very catchy thing.” So far, Voice staffers have failed to alight on a viable substitute for the “Cuddler.” “We came up with ‘Cuddle-Rapist,’” says Sommer. “Doesn’t really roll off the tongue, does it?” Even “The Cuddler” has proven more sensitive than some alternatives. “We’ve tried ‘crapist,’ but it sounds too much like the people who make pastries,” says Juliana Brint, the editor of Vox Populi. “There really are no good nicknames.”

Even bad nicknames can produce good PR. “The discussion about the ‘Cuddler’ nickname has made people more aware,” says Sommer. “When someone dresses as the ‘Cuddler’ for Halloween, it makes people think about the fact that there are Cuddler victims out there who could see that costume. So it’s really given a lot of attention to the issue.” Despite the potential positives, other campus outlets have declined to devote much ink to the nickname. The Hoya, Georgetown’s student newspaper, first mentioned the name “Cuddler” in its 2009 April Fools issue, and again in an April 24 investigative report. In an e-mail, Hoya editor Kevin Barber said that Hoya staffers “always limit our use of the term to reference…the campus community’s widespread use of the phrase to describe these sorts of incidents.”

Despite its liberal use of the “Cuddler,” the Voice takes care to clarify the seriousness of each sexual assault incident it reports. It’s also criticized Georgetown University for employing other euphemisms in its reports on the attacks. Georgetown’s PSA alerting students to two similar incidents in April 2008 classified the offenses as “burglaries” instead of sexual assaults, even though one victim “awakened to find an unknown male in her bed.” In the most recent incident, the university PSA described a sexual assault against a student but failed to provide additional details. “I was a little irritated that, instead of giving details about the digital penetration, the university said that the suspect ‘began sexually assaulting her,’” says Brint. “That’s kind of a meaningless phrase. It didn’t indicate at all how serious the incident actually was. I do think that’s problematic.”

Georgetown says its PSAs announcing the sexual assaults were “based on information that is reported to the Department of Public Safety,” and that the assault reports were supplemented by the Sept. 4 letter “underscoring the need for students to remain vigilant.”

Brint says that she was “happy” to see the university finally address the incidents directly and to discourage the use of the nickname on campus. That doesn’t mean that she’s going to stop using it. “My guess is that it’s going to persist,” she says. “It’s hard to get these things out of the vernacular.” In lieu of a less offensive moniker, Brint says the Voice has adjusted how it will refer to the offender. “We’ve been trying to minimize as much as possible our use of that term,” she says. “But we will include it once, for clarification’s sake.”

RELATED: A "Georgetown Cuddler" Timeline: How the sexual assault nickname became a Georgetown institution.

Photo by Darrow Montgomery

Molly Redden from The Georgetown Voice is exhaustively covering the university's "Sex Positive Week" over at student blog Vox Populi. Some Hoyas are pissed off that GU is helping fund the week's activities. So—what exactly are they upset about? What does "Sex Positive" mean, anyway?

Unfortunately, I missed Monday's opening panel discussion entitled "SEX POSITIVE... WHAT'S THAT?," which I'm sure would have answered all my questions. Thankfully, Redden's blurb on last night's "Torn about Porn" event provides a working definition: She describes sex-positive porn as "affirming rather than objectifying or exploitative, like sex-negative porn."

At the "Torn about Porn" event, participants were asked to judge whether porn site No Fauxxx was sex-positive or sex-negative. "No Fauxxx" bills itself as "an authentic underground porn site fed on love, art, and above all—raw, dirty, sexuality." It claims to stand for "Arousal," an "All-inclusive casting attitude," "High Art," "Accessibility," "Safer sex and consent," "Breaking stereotypes," "A female-friendly perspective," a "worker-friendly perspective," a "female-friendly perspective," "Trans-friendly," and "Respectful."

But without the mission statement, does No Fauxxx's porn look any different? According to Redden, "While you can construe the ten or so images in the slideshow as ‘offensive,’ the conversation was grounded, with most students concluding that porn is porn, and these images in particular are just 'porn with hipsters in it.'"

So, what is sex-positive porn? Just like regular porn, just more obnoxious.

Photo by miniroom549

Will Sommer over at Georgetown Voice blog Vox Populi gives the Manliest Workplace treatment to the university's many campus rags. According to Sommer's calculations, the Georgetown Academy is the manliest of GU's publications, while the Independent scores lowest on the Manly Index with a mannish 13.

Sommer also notes that, as Vox Populi's sole editor, Sommer's maleness scores his outfit "a perfect ten out of ten in manliness." By that same token, The Sexist scores a big fat zero.

Will Sommer have the guts to blog this blog about the blog he posted about my blog? Stay tuned!