{"id":431,"date":"2003-11-08T08:07:22","date_gmt":"2003-11-08T16:07:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.amptoons.com\/blog\/archives\/2003\/11\/08\/oberlin-orgies\/"},"modified":"2003-11-08T08:07:22","modified_gmt":"2003-11-08T16:07:22","slug":"oberlin-orgies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/?p=431","title":{"rendered":"Oberlin Orgies"},"content":{"rendered":"

Oberlin, one of the colleges I’ve attended, was given a spanking <\/a>in the far-right Frontpage Magazine<\/i>. Frontpage’s <\/i>problem? Oberlin is a left-wing school. Well, duh! In addition, the writer seems really bothered by Oberlin’s acceptance of queers and transsexuals:<\/p>\n

None of this is surprising when you consider that Dye, the school’s president, has vocally supported students’ efforts to officially charter a BDSM (Bondage, Discipline and Sadomasochism) Club at the school, which would qualify the group to receive school funds like other campus clubs. Dye considered chartering the club to be a “free speech” issue.<\/p>\n

At Oberlin, gay faculty wear their homosexuality as a badge of honor, championing their commitment to adding a “queer focus” to their subject matter in their personal biographies, which are displayed on the college’s official website for all to read.<\/p>\n

Many of the paid, on-campus speakers at the school in recent years have been gay or transgendered and\/or promoted promiscuous sex in some fashion.<\/p><\/div>\n

My god, students exercise free speech! (Why does FrontPage<\/i> put free speech in scare quotes?) That some faculty members are gay is acknowledged where all can read it! And they pay on-campus speakers even when those speakers are trans or queer!<\/i> Oh, the humanity!<\/p>\n

The article goes on to be appalled that students at college have sex. I was reminded of a year ago, when certain right-wing bloggers <\/a>gloated that leftists don’t have any fun. I mean, which would you rather have, wild sex and high living at Oberlin College, or FrontPage Magazine’s <\/i>spare lifestyle relieved only by anti-queer, anti-trans bigotry disguised as moral superiority?<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the Curmudgeonly Clerk<\/a> curmudgeons:<\/p>\n

I doubt very much that anyone requires institutional assistance with his or her sex life. One of the featured activities at Safer Sex Night was a live demonstration of homosexual oral sex. Funny, I seem to recall that homosexuals were successfully engaging in oral sex before Oberlin appointed itself their mentor.<\/div>\n

What Curmudgeonly misunderstands is that this was a demonstration of safe sex<\/i> techniques, something that might not come so naturally without instruction. And apparently, students – even the homosexual ones – do learn from the demonstration. As Oberlin student The Bitter Gay Grinch reports<\/a>, “I was introduced to uses of rubber and other synthetic materials that I didn’t know to exist.”<\/p>\n

* * *<\/p>\n

I’m sorry to report that I didn’t have loads of sex as a college student (shy, conventionally unattractive folks generally don’t, even at Oberlin), although I certainly had more sex at Oberlin than I did in high school. Still, my (relative) lack of sex seemed to me a grevious injustice (hey, I was 18). Under the circumstances, my friends who talked about having a lot of sex quickly became tiresome.<\/p>\n

Even at the time, the people who did<\/i> have lots of sex seemed to be having a lot of soap opera, as well – the emotional baggage did not fit under the seat. I admit, I took some satisifaction in this where a better person would not have.<\/p>\n

In retrospect, I don’t think it matters much; having lots of sex can be a good college experience, like traveling to Rome or taking lots of LSD. But in the long run, the Obies I know who had lots of sex (or at least talked as if they did) don’t seem any happier or wiser than those who didn’t.<\/p>\n

* * *<\/p>\n

The FrontPage <\/i>article did raise one sex-related issue that’s of interest even to those of us who aren’t prudes or bigots:<\/p>\n

While the school’s administration likes to present itself as promoting Oberlin as a “safe and tolerant space,” it has done little more than brush aside increased reports of sexual assault connected with the two events by the campus’ Sexual Assault Prevention Team and local law enforcement authorities.<\/p>\n

After an alleged staff-on-staff rape outside the 2001 “Drag Ball,” even students protested what they saw as a dismissive attitude on the issue by the administration, which is very protective of the two events. Rather than ban the parties entirely, administrators backed the Student Union’s decision to ban alcohol at the events, under the assumption that those who attend the parties couldn’t legally or morally “consent” to sexual activity if they were drunk.<\/p><\/div>\n

But it’s not clear that the administration has brushed aside these concerns. The Oberlin Review <\/a>reports that the organizers have added “peacekeepers” to patrol the event. And, given the number of studies (including FBI statistics and studies by feminists such as Mary Koss) showing a correlation between alcohol and rape, eliminating the alcohol seems like a serious and appropriate response.<\/p>\n

Banning popular campus events (and no party at Oberlin is more popular than the drag ball), on the other hand, would be a stupid response. Oberlin students are quite capable of organizing their own parties; it’s better that the party remain above-ground, since the underground version would doubtless include drinking and exclude the peacekeepers.<\/p>\n

Finally, even if there are increased calls to the campus rape crisis center following an educational party about safe sex and consent, it doesn’t follow that the party causes rape. It’s plausible, for example, that there are increased calls because the parties succeed in making students more aware of the rape crisis line’s existence.<\/p>\n

I’m not saying that Oberlin has necessarily done enough to combat rape on campus. However, I’m not silly enough to think that “banning parties” is a serious anti-rape measure; nor am I convinced that FrontPage would have any concern with rape at all if they weren’t able to use anti-rape concern as a front for homo- and trans- phobia.<\/p>\n

Anyhow, I much prefer Oberlin’s “orgies” – emphasizing as they do safe sex, consent and screwing with gender conventions – to the drunken frat house moron-fests that are found on more conventional campuses.<\/p>\n

* * *<\/p>\n

For more discussion of Oberlin Orgies, check out Begging to Differ<\/a>, Crescat Sententia (here <\/a>and again here<\/a>), The Curmudgeonly Clerk<\/a>, The Bitter Gay Grinch <\/a>and Naked House<\/a>..<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Oberlin, one of the colleges I’ve attended, was given a spanking in the far-right Frontpage Magazine. Frontpage’s problem? Oberlin is a left-wing school. Well, duh! In addition, the writer seems really bothered by Oberlin’s acceptance of queers and transsexuals: None … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-431","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-lesbian-gay-bi-trans-and-queer-issues"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/431","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=431"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/431\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=431"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=431"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=431"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}