The Student Sex Column Movement
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20091012/dibranco?rel=emailNation
By Alex DiBranco
September 28, 2009
The 1996 launch of "Sex on Tuesday" at the University of California,
Berkeley--birthplace of the 1960s national student activist
movement--triggered the campus newspaper sex column phenomenon.
Within a few years, the sex column had spread to campuses across the
country, becoming the "most publicized, electrifying, and divisive
phenomena in student journalism," in the words of Dan Reimold,
leading expert on the student newspaper sex column.
Reimold estimates that "during any given semester more than 200 sex
and dating columns are being published in U.S. student newspapers,
magazines, and online outlets.... What's most important here is
perspective. In the mid-nineties, the number of student sex columns:
zero." In addition to increasing student readership, the
proliferation of student sex columns has drawn national attention,
like a 2002 New York Times profile of student journalism's most
famous sex columnist, Yale's Natalie Krinsky, whose most popular "Sex
and the (Elm) City" articles drew hundreds of thousands of hits.
"We're not Generation X--we're Generation Sex," one student columnist
quipped to Reimold during the course of research for his upcoming
book, Sex and the University: Celebrity, Controversy and a Student
Journalism Revolution.
The attraction of a sex column is simple: most college students--
honestly, most people past puberty, period--are either a) having sex;
b) talking about having sex; or c) all of the above. Entertainment is
usually a key reason behind the publication of sex columns, but the
writing is not all about fun. These controversial pieces have proved
battlegrounds for the rights of the student press and "appropriate"
subjects for publication (ironically, only increasing their
popularity and fueling the movement).
Frank LoMonte of the Student Press Law Center points out that "sex is
one of those red-flag subjects," especially on conservative or
religious campuses, whether in the form of sex columns, explicit
pictures or other writing about sex. At private institutions where
students lack First Amendment protections, this can lead to direct
censorship--hundreds of copies of a Wagner College newspaper running
a sex column in 2003 were yanked from the stands, as was a 2004
publication at La Roche College, a Catholic institution, that
advocated teaching safe-sex practices.
Other times, the controversy at a private or public institution is
confined to angry letters to the editor or university administration,
such as a letter from a parent (self-described as "no shrinking
violet and certainly not a prude") expressing his shock at "the whole
total lack of any self respect, self worth or religious morality" he
felt was exhibited by a University of West Florida sex columnist,
whom he also believed to be "emotionally disturbed and quite possibly
mentally challenged."
Despite the constitutional right to freedom of the press,
occasionally state universities and even state legislators have
attempted to put a stop to sexual content they've found
inappropriate. Reacting to cover art depicting a woman's breast and a
column on oral sex in publications on two state-funded campuses, in
2005, Republican Arizona state legislator Russell Pearce, added a
provision to the state budget that would deny funding to student
newspapers. Mark Goodman of the SPLC told a local paper that, in
twenty years of work on student press issues, this case about sex in
the student press was the first time he had ever seen a state
legislature attempt to bar student newspaper funding.
In the most recent incident, this spring University of Montana law
professor Kristen Juras attempted to get the Montana Kaimin"Bess Sex"
column censored, even contacting state legislators in her efforts to
get the paper's funding pulled.
Reimold told me that for 90 percent of sex columnists, the only
"political" point they are trying to make is that sex is OK and
something we should talk about. Bess Davis of "Bess Sex" agrees that
"sex really has nothing to do with politics...that's just an
impression built up by the media," and views her column as serving a
purpose in opening up discussion in an underreported subject. Yet her
column attracted the ire of Juras, who "has a history of advocacy for
extremist Christian and right-wing causes," writes Bill Oram, former
editor in chief of the Kaimin, such as her position as adviser for
the student Christian Legal Society, which sued in 2007 when the
Student Bar Association denied it funding due to the group's
exclusion of gay students from leadership positions and voting. And
in Arizona, it was Pearce (described as "ultraconservative" by a
Democratic representative) and his Republican colleagues attempting
to censor student papers, with vocal dissent from Democrats.
Politics are part of the equation, yet it's not an issue of a simple
left-right political divide--liberal media beyond the campus level
have done comparatively little quality sex journalism, while even the
comprehensive sex education courses the right wing loves to hate are
rarely particularly progressive, sex-positive or comprehensive.
Reimold conceptualizes the resistance to student sex columns as an
authoritarian and protective parental mindset that reacts against
"the student generation taking back control of the sexual messages
targeted at them." This rings partially true; after all, the Berkeley
Free Speech Movement of the '60s was also about student activism
versus the control of the administration and older generation.
But--again, as in the '60s--antagonism stems from fellow students as well.
At its core, the sex column phenomenon is a radical progressive
movement in the sense of pushing against traditional silence and the
status quo, which is a source of concern for many administrators,
parents and even students. Challenges to the columns stem from a
conservative mindset--whether that be political, religious or
cultural. 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. With abortion, abstinence programs and same-sex marriage
making up three of the right's key issues, the statement that "sex is
OK" becomes even more politically charged when the sex in question is
generally unmarried and occasionally queer.
Though Dartmouth College is a private college, its liberal speech
policies and commitment to free expression have allowed sex columns
to flourish uncensored in both the mainstream daily and progressive
alternative newspaper, presenting an opportunity to look at columns
published on the same campus in one politically neutral and one
explicitly liberal venue. Furthermore, Dartmouth (known as the
"conservative Ivy" and also known for the far-right newspaper the
Dartmouth Review) demonstrates the storm fellow students can cause.
The sex column entered the pages of the Dartmouth Free Press in 2004,
when senior Sheila Hicks, sexual leftist and host of the campus radio
sex talk-show, "In Your Pants," encouraged readers to send "the
questions you probably wouldn't ask your parents or your clergy
members" to Dartmouth's liberal, progressive and alternative
biweekly. Clint Hendler, Free Press editor in chief during the latter
half of Hicks's tenure, saw the column as "a way to put a thumb in
the eye of campus elements who found a ready outlet in the Dartmouth
Review for rather churlish and reactionary takes on steps taken by
the administration and others to support safe sex and LGBTQ culture."
Unsurprisingly, given the aesthetic of the paper, sex columnists for
the Free Press tend to be more clear about having explicit political
and activist motivations than those on campuses in general.
Heather Strack asserts in the Free Press, "A sex column is a
significant statement of female rights. Not only am I a female
columnist, but I am writing about a topic considered taboo and
improper for a woman." Women are the main target of abstinence/purity
movements; thus, even if most columnists do not state this as
unambiguously as Strack, the campus sex column is not only about
students seizing control but about hearing underrepresented voices.
Though men are readers in equal numbers, the sex columnist is a
(straight and queer) female-dominated profession, with a small
minority of queer men.
Sex columns vary widely and don't always include feminist
motivations; some focus on love and relationships, while others have
more casual concerns. They can promote exploration of gender and
sexuality, or reinforce a heteronormative mentality. However, by and
large, student sex columnists have higher standards for inclusive,
woman-positive sex journalism--and better access to a venue willing
to publish this material--than their off-campus counterparts. Isabel
Murray, feminist columnist for the Free Press, takes Cosmopolitan to
task for its heteronormative, male-pleasure-oriented approach, while
pointing out that it and similar women's magazines are nonetheless
the only noncampus media addressing female sexuality (explaining why
until recently it was the most read magazine among college women).
People are downright uncomfortable with the concept of female
sexuality: even at Dartmouth's SexFest, where Murray managed a table,
she was struck by how "hesitant and disturbed" people seemed by her
dental dams and a two-dimensional model of a vagina--far more so than
by the condoms and three-dimensional plastic penis. The most
controversial Dartmouth sex column took heat for dealing too
explicitly with female sexuality.
The Dartmouth, the campus daily, jumped onboard in 2007 with a sex
column in its student life pullout, the Mirror. Reaching a wider,
more varied audience, the launch of Abi Medvin's "The Friday
Quickie," followed by an installment of Zachary Gottlieb's regular
column in the Dartmouth on "Sex-ploring the Sex Fest," quickly
sparked a guest student column condemning the "unwholesome discussion
of sex" as attacking his and other students' values. The author
further denounced progressivism's practice of bringing "into the
limelight everything once deemed taboo." (Ironically, unlike the Free
Press columnists, neither Medvin nor Gottlieb identify as progressive.)
Despite this early hostility, Mirror sex columns mostly avoided
attacks by steering clear of touchy subjects--little queer content
and certainly none of the discussion of fetishes found in the pages
of the Free Press. In retrospect, "Sandra Himen," the last Mirror sex
columnist, regrets steering away from serious issues due to concerns
that she might "ruffle feathers." But Himen can be forgiven since she
followed on the heels of a columnist who showed how severely
Dartmouth feathers can be ruffled when you don't shy away from the
graphic--Aurora Wells quite literally drew a diagram of a vagina for
her fall 2007 how-to column on oral sex, "Aurora's Guide to Eating
Out." One letter to the editor from an alum expressed "extreme digust
[sic], displeasure and disappointment at your choice to print the
obscene and borderline-pornographic article."
The opposition to Wells's column is oddly reminiscent of a similar
flurry over decency that occurred at Dartmouth... fifteen years
prior. In 1994 Spare Rib, a now-defunct feminist magazine, published
a special "Sex Issue" that included--oh déjà vu--diagrams of female
genitalia. Matthew Berry of the also-defunct student Conservative
Union at Dartmouth, which attempted to get Rib's advertisers to
withdraw their support, called the issue "soft-core porn" and posited
that "Spare Rib's staffers "will eventually mature and look back with
embarrassment." Sorry to disappoint: former editor in chief Claire
Unis (now Benjamine) has no regrets, and she still considers as
ludicrous the outcry over diagrams you could find in Grey's Anatomy
(the medical book, not the TV show). More disappointing is the fact
that the same debate is being replayed after the turn of the millennium.
Besides finding Wells's column unappetizing, Zachary Gottlieb and Lee
Cooper, another student columnist, complained about the double
standard that they allege would never allow a man to publish
instructions on giving blowjobs--even if the Mirror published it,
Cooper claims, the author would be accused of misogyny and sexual
harassment. As mentioned, college sex writing is female-dominated,
and Reimold and the female columnists interviewed agreed that one
reason for the dearth of male sex writers might be that women are
permitted to get away with more.
On the other hand, Cooper and Gottlieb did little to dispel
prejudices about male writers' misogyny, if one exists. Gottlieb
titled his idea for a potential article (perhaps in a poor attempt at
humor), "How to Blow Me Like a Well-Trained High-Class Prostitute,
Young '11 Girls," leading to a letter to the editor from a Dartmouth
medical student disturbed by "two male opinions screaming bloody
horror with undercurrents of misogyny." Moreover, Gottlieb's and
Cooper's assertions are not substantiated by any Mirror policy
decision or campus experiment; they simply assume this hypothetical
column (which no male was seriously attempting to write) would have
encountered such a reaction.
Furthermore, the rhetoric about double standards ignores the
importance of sex writing for women to assert themselves against
mainstream patriarchal sexual messaging. This commentary and the
reaction to Wells's article (which included comments on the popular
IvyGate blog that used "lesbian" as an insult) demonstrate precisely
why an article discussing female and queer sexuality serves a greater
need than one on girls' giving blowjobs. People complained about
being flat-out grossed-out by what in reality is a fairly vanilla
sexual practice.
Censorship attempts notwithstanding, student sex journalists have a
better platform from which to write what they choose for a general
audience than traditional, restricted "real world" media. They can
decide to thoughtfully address taboo topics like BDSM, fetishism and
orgies, as Virginia Dalloway did in her Free Press column, without a
conventional bias that automatically demonizes them as outside
"normal" sexuality. (Dalloway points out that 11 percent of men and
17 percent of women have tried bondage.) Shinen Wong, a Free Press
queer sex and sexuality columnist, says he received the most positive
feedback from straight men for his articles rejecting the macho
masculinity of the "tyranny of the dominant cultural script" as
"bullshit." These Free Press columns demonstrate the potential power
of a sex column for furthering a progressive agenda. While sex
columns can be whitewashed and heteronormative, they can also live up
to their subversive potential in having significant political and
social ramifications.
In addition, Reimold found that sex columns influence the rest of the
newspaper by "getting sex out of the closet." National and campus sex
and sexuality issues, such as LGBT rights, gender identity, abortion,
birth control, STIs and sexual assault, gain recognition as
significant, acceptable topics. After the sex column's introduction,
the frequency of these types of articles increased in the Free Press
and the Dartmouth; examples include Mary Novak's "The Battle Over
Birth Control: Screwing Over Students"; Andrew Lohse's "Sexism,
Heteronormativity, and the Review," where the former Review-er
criticizes the right-wing campus paper's anti-sex "Sex Issue"; and
"The Sexually Passive Dartmouth Girl": "Sometimes you just wanna be
pounded. That's what it comes down to."
The right-wing culture war, with its interest in controlling sex and
sexuality, continues undiminished since Obama's election, meaning
that columns informed by a feminist or queer ethic still have plenty
to push back against. Reimold predicts that in the next years we will
see increasingly risque pieces becoming the norm. Already the
popularity of the sex column has spurred the development of entire
college sex magazines that provide a more in-depth, varied level of
sexual expression, expanding into poetry, art and extended nonfiction.
This summer Dartmouth saw the launch of a journal of gender and
sexuality, Sir & Madam (ahem... S&M), with articles and creative
writing covering YouPorn, being a drag queen, a preteen girl's
awakening of sexual desire, and the rainbow of gender and sexuality.
Regardless of accusations of unwholesomeness, sex doesn't seem headed
back into the campus closet anytime soon.
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