* Yalesex

Letter: A different discussion about sex at Yale
Published Tuesday, March 2, 2010
The Yale Daily News

Last Friday’s article on the sex@yale initiative (“Dean’s Office Web site to host essays about sex”) received a slew of comments, and we are grateful for both the positive and negative feedback. As members of sex@yale’s steering committee, however, we wish to make a few clarifications.
First off, we want to differentiate ourselves from Sex Week at Yale. While we respect and support the mission of that project, we don’t think sex@yale belongs in the same “too much sex” category. Many people have expressed concerns about pornography, arguing that fumbling sexual exploits have no place...

#1 By dandelion 5:08a.m. on March 2, 2010

One psychological theory is that young people think about sex unconsciously every 20 seconds. That leaves 19 seconds for the rest of life. It is certainly appropriate to spend one week out of 40 on what the mind spends one second out of 20.

Why would Nature create a 20 to 1 ratio(actually 19 to 1)?

Look at a dandelion about ready to lose its wig.

PK

#2 By @PK 2:06p.m. on March 2, 2010

i've always wondered how people determine figures like that. wouldn't you have to rely on self-reported data about "how much time do you think about sex?" seems wildly unreliable to me.

#3 By yadda 4:28p.m. on March 2, 2010

Not to mention thinking about it "unconsciously," whatever that means.

#4 By saybrook997 7:58p.m. on March 2, 2010

Sex@Yale,
"This is where we’d like to intervene."

I don't want an intervention by a selected group, who want to tell 70-80 sex stories out of 5,280 Yale student sex stories.

Can you compromise? Put them on maybe a YDN Web site instead of the Dean's yale.edu site?

Topics on "the sexual culture, "our Saturday night hookups," "sexual assault," "traces of sexism," and "a culture of respect." Anyone can see where that is going. They are op-ed pieces like the "I am That Girl" essay/op-ed.

PK, first, the Shanor study (from Intro Psych), which I don't believe, found that 12-19 year-old males think of sex 20 times per hour, and males 30-39, 4 times per hour. A married male under 40 thinks of sex 6 times per hour, or only 600 times for each time he has it (1.5 times per week). That must be when a guy has not much else on his mind, which at Yale is mostly Fri. and Sat. nights, class sections, afternoon walks on Broadway, and reading YDN. Sex probably means lips, eyes, etc. This project would have an essay on the female health reasons that women put on lip gloss, cheek stuff, darken upper and lower eye lashes, drape hair over shoulders, use fingernail polish, just to start with. Could it be....

Second, you have as many YDN comments as the number of sex stories you want. They include comments from parents, alums, and both. None of them likes the sex essay idea. These are the Watergate, war protest, sexual revolution students/parents. Unlike Yale adm. and English prof., they have become right wing types about their daughters attending Yale or who may apply in 2 or 3 years.

This idea has not yet made it to alumni news. Check with the Alumni House and Yale endowment before the Dean and President sign off on yale.edu for this stuff.

Third, all the general PC phrases make comments of a Yale nerd sound like a frat boy. If by sexual assault, you mean making out, without prior consent, then as in Animal House before the college disciplinary committee, "My response is, yes, we have taken liberties with our female guests." If you mean rape, Yale men do not rape Yale women. Like the incest taboo, even a fleeting fantasy of it requires self-punishment and running or swimming additional laps. Yale parents and students don't need essays about rape fantasies.

During junior year, my roommate's girlfriend lived off campus and was followed along Howe Street by a Cadillac with an open door. They thought that she was a hooker. I guess because of her clothes or makeup. Since her boyfriend was out, my roommate and I went over. Hearing the story and never having seen a Yale woman cry (usually nothing terrifies a man like a woman crying), I started laughing and tried to bite my tongue hard. She cried more, and I couldn't stop laughing. My roommate settled us both down. Maybe Yale parents or freshmen would want that story. Or maybe just put what you want on YDN, and leave the Dean's office free to deal with other crises.

#5 By Sophocles/Shakespeare and Bloom 9:11p.m. on March 2, 2010

#3:

Unconsciously?

How about this line from Oedipus Rex as an intimation of the unsconsciopus: "These words thrill through me".

As Harold Bloom points out, it was not Freud who discovered the unconscious, it was the Greeks and Shakespeare.

Apparently "yadda" is more the quality of #3's thinking, than simply his/her pseudonym.

PK