Posts Tagged ‘sex columns’
University Sex Columns, Reviewed: Chivalrous Hook-Up Edition
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:
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Sexist Beatdown: “Buster Darkhole” and the Conservative College Sex Column
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].
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University Sex Columns, Reviewed
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.
