The infallible New York Times just proclaimed a revolution in the annals of college journalism. The Times reported that columns devoted exclusively to frank and explicit discussions of sexual issues and even techniques are burning up the pages of leading university newspapers hotter than a stream of clap-infested urine. So let's shed those taboos like a beer soaked sorority formal dress, bust out those cotton swabs and latex gloves, and delve into the writhing cesspool of ASU sexuality.
Obviously the easiest thing to do is to traffic in wild, licentious and utterly fallacious generalities that lead to false characterizations. For instance, if a muckraker tells me an urban legend about a frat-party date rape, who's to stop me from telling everyone I know that frat row cranks out Rohypnol (aka Roofies) with all the efficiency of a Taiwan sweatshop?
Or freshmen may hear that Manzanita is to disease what Van Buren is to…disease, initiating a hysterical wig-out culminating in a steadfast refusal to attend UNI 100 classes in the Manzanita lobby unless they first encase every exposed inch of their body in three layers of Glad wrap.
Like two middle-school students playing chicken, we can methodically inch closer to ASU's pulsating sexual epicenter only if we categorically reject piss-poor inductive logic and faulty stereotyping.
The Times article focuses primarily on the journalistic exploits of a certain Natalie Krinsky, Yale's prodigal sex columnist. Yale, needless to say, operates on a wholly different demographic level than ASU. For starters, it is a much smaller school. Second, and equally important, Yale's insanely stringent application standards mean that the Yale community actually becomes an isolated, self-induced intelligence and careerist ghetto.
ASU, on the other hand, is public and 50,000 strong, so it exemplifies the type of demographic mayhem that causes sociologists to carry an extra pair of underwear in their briefcases. While Krinsky can safely depict Yale's student body as "generally governed by a nerdy neurosis that places sex subservient to career and study," I can't make such broad statements about ASU. What I can do, however, is examine how the ASU administration and media institutionalize sex.
Arizona is a polyglot state. We're a mixture of indigenous cowboys, libertine Californians and conservative Midwesterners. School administrators, therefore, respond just as strongly to these overarching political and cultural threads as to the multifaceted demands of the student body.
Finally, the policy decisions along with the general administrative vibe put forth are carefully tailored to keep corporate, research and alumni cash flowing. Using these criteria, I'd like to examine the institutional responses to two sexual fiascos, both dealing (as with any good sexual fiasco) with porn.
Without intending any puns, let's not beat around the bush in regards to the frat/porn debacle. Any male, much less a frat boy, who wouldn't leap at the chance to participate in sexual dalliance with a professional porn star should be shipped off to Tibet to become a eunuch. Conversely, any university board that permits its student body to stage such chicanery on school property isn't fit to administer the Tijuana Institute of Technology.
I simply wish the administration hadn't defiled our intelligence by parroting that idiotic snippet of student-code doctrine with all the self-righteousness of an Islamic militant quoting Quranic verse. The damage was done to ASU's image, not to our moral sensitivities. Sleazier (but lower profile) activities are probably going down in dorm rooms right now. Unless the administration wants to deputize a cadre of Residential Life "boner police," it should have kept this issue in the realm of public relations where it belonged.
Next, Playboy ranks ASU the No. 1 party school and Michael Crow is haunted with "worst case scenario" nightmares of fidgety fathers forbidding their tender corn-fed daughters to attend ASU, or images of the student health center mandating herpes vaccinations.
I gotta hand it to Crow on this one though. He jumped this bomb with all the agility of a superstar shortstop, stating simply that ASU is a premier research institution making huge education strides. If parents are too crotchety to send their kids off to a large cosmopolitan university with thousands of people and a correspondingly wide array of sexual practices, then that's their loss.
In such a diverse population, the ASU media and administration is wise not to broadcast the ostentatious sexual information with which Krinsky deals. Sexual messages are best communicated through subtle winks and nods, letting the sexual literati receive them and sexual puritans ignore them. It's simply unfortunate that, as of now, there isn't a venue for the mass of the student body to receive sexual information via a mainstream media source.
Solomon Rotstein is a humanities sophomore. Reach him at solomon.rotstein@asu.edu.
