Posted on 01/08/2007 3:50:10 PM PST by Palladin
Mon 8 Jan 2007
Birthday-suit parties all the rage for Ivy League students CRAIG HOWIE STUDENTS at America's prestigious Ivy League universities are rebelling against their colleges' stuffy reputations, casting off society's norms along with their clothes to hold naked parties.
The Pundits, a secretive society at Yale University, initiated the events - which profess to be non-sexual in nature - in the mid-1990s, open to a select few. The society claims that president George Bush's daughter, Barbara, attended a naked party during her second year, in 2002. The White House has always declined to comment.
But the naked parties are now fixtures among liberal students being primed to become the nation's elite.
While one campus source at Yale - to which Euan Blair, the Prime Minister's son, has won a scholarship - says naked parties are "the No1" thing to do before graduation, students who attend the six to eight parties held each year say it can be a life-changing experience, far from the "frat-house" bawdiness portrayed in films such as Animal House. Megan Crandell, a final-year Yale student who has attended six naked parties, said: "The dynamic is completely different from a clothed party. People are so conscious of how they're coming across that conversations end up being more sophisticated. You can't talk about how hot that chick was the other night."
Another Yale student, who did not want his name to become known by campus authorities - which do not try to stop the parties but do not encourage them - said: "Part of it is just the mystique of not knowing where you're going. It's become a hip thing to do."
The events are magnets for social-climbers at other top academic institutions, including Columbia, MIT and Brown. Students invited to a party at Columbia last year received this e-mail: "Compadres, join us in refusing to comply with a culture that tells us to hide our body, to be ashamed of its scents, secretions, curves and hair, to conceal those parts that have been dealt sexual connotations." Some students wear token items, such as hats; others bare all. Occasionally, parties charge $1 for each item of clothing worn. Some are even held in college libraries, though the early, underground events were often referred to in code as "bar mitzvahs".
Touching, beyond a salutary greeting, is not encouraged.
Of party etiquette, Mollie Farber, a senior student at Yale, said: "You're allowed to give everyone a quick once-over as you say, 'Hey, what's up?', but after that, you've got to maintain pretty good eye contact."
However, Alexandra Robbins, a Yale graduate who detailed secret sorority life in her book Pledged, warned: "It can be a rude awakening. It really comes down to the idea that if I shed my clothes, I will lose my inhibitions. But it doesn't always work that way."
Birk Oxholm, who graduated from Columbia in 2006, was not convinced of the liberating effect of the parties: "To pretend you're feeling great and happy to be overcoming the oppressiveness of clothing overlooks the more authentic feeling, which is, 'I feel kind of weird'."
Ha!
The parents of these kids an cut their clothing allowance in half right now!
I need a new birthday suit for my 66th birthday. This one is stretched and wrinkled.
Go burglarize Pelosi's house. She buys Botox by the gallon.
Just wondering why this thread was assigned to the "GOP Club" department.
Is there something about the GOP Club that I don't know?
Non ping!
Funny you should mention that.
Here is a Comment from The Scotsman website:
KellyR--TX, Texas / 8:33pm 8 Jan 2007
And these pretentious pinheads will be the elite of our country? My dad once attended a party in Arkansas where Bill Clinton and Hillary Rodham (much younger, and not yet in the White House) were in attendance. They all stripped naked, and my dad can only assume that they had an orgy (wife swapping was big back then), because he left. It wasn't very long after, my father changed from the democrat party to the Republican Party. Bill, however unaware, asked my dad to be his gubernatorial campaign manager, and Dad declined...How has life in the democrat elite changed that much?
Yikes! The thought of getting naked in front of a bunch of arrogant charlatans is beyond my comprehension!
Chaperone:
Thank you for the nightmare I will have tonight.
Can you picture this "human" Sharpei at one of those parties (don't drink while reading this)
"It" would put your eye out faster than a Red Rider BB gun.
Har! That's a great story and completely believable. It's probably why drug-use and heavy consumption of alcohol is also a favorite among the Democrat elite. I mean, if I were stuck in a room with Bill and Hillary, and everyone was striping down, I think I'd want to render myself unconscious.
That story makes you wonder if Chelsea knows who her father is?
No surprise. Pelosi and Reid promised
"A NUDE ERECTION FOR AMERICA".
You've never noticed how much Chelsea resembles Web Hubble?
My question: Was the Taliban Yalie invited to these, too?
This reply, from another bulletin board, made me laugh:
Reply 10 - Posted by: Landshark, 1/8/2007 11:24:37 PM
Having attended and taught at an Ivy and one low prestige State school, I can tell you I would pass on a naked party at the Ivy.
I'd be first in line at the State school, though.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.