Generation Sex: Promiscuity Makes the Grade on Campus

CBN News ^ | Mar. 19, 2005 | Paul Strand

[Crackingham]

One book that President Bush has apparently been recommending to fellow readers is Tom Wolfe's "I Am Charlotte Simmons", an R-rated behind-the-scenes look at just how wild today's universities have become. Wolfe details how sex is frequently reduced to heartless hookups and binge drinking, which leads to many risky, almost-anonymous sexual encounters. CBN News checked in with students at several top campuses to see if Wolfe got it right.

Wolfe is known for doing exhaustive research, and for "I Am Charlotte Simmons" he spent many months interviewing students and hanging out on campuses, absorbing the atmosphere.

Students that CBN News talked to admit that Wolfe captured a stark truth: that many college kids throw themselves into soulless sex, a series of meaningless sexual encounters, often fueled by almost killer amounts of alcohol.

Wolfe's book has put a spotlight on what many parents might consider an alarming decadence on many modern American campuses.

Sarah Longwell lectures at dozens of campuses a year, often talking to students about sex. She read Wolfe’s “I am Charlotte Simmons,” and said, "If I were a parent and I were reading this, and I had a child either about to go to college or in college, I'd say 'that's it; we're home-schooling you until you're 22.'"

[Sender]

I must have missed the promiscuity party when I went to UK back in the '70s.

[PAR35]

what many parents might consider an alarming decadence on many modern American campuses.

They said this with a straight face? The parents of this generation were the post-pill, pre-HIV, in most cases pre-Herpes free love pot smoking generation. (By that point, pot had migrated from the leftover hippies into the frat and sorority houses). Any parents who claim to be shocked are deeply in denial about their own generation.

[GSlob]

"Although this is disturbing, I'm not sure it's much different from when I was in college—or even before!"
Haven't the students been always known for libidinous and Bacchic propensities for as long as there were universities? Remember Chaucer's students, and vagantes tradition before them?
Thus one ought to pause before giving it a "disturbing" characterization - that's how it has always been, and the world is still standing.

[SuziQ]

Although this is disturbing, I'm not sure it's much different from when I was in college—or even before!

It was harder to arrange when there were still single sex dorms with strict visitation policies. Of course kids always found a way at Frat or Sorority houses or in off campus housing, but nowadays, they don't have to go out of their way to make it happen. You could hook up with the boy or girl in the room next door, no problem. You could have a full floor orgy. Who's going to stop them? All moral authority left the college campus in the late 60's and early 70's when college administrations started giving in to student protesters and letting them essentially run the colleges. The idea of in loco parentis is LONG gone.

[buwaya]

Yep, thats pretty much true.

The only difference today is that the proportion of kids going to college is much higher, and the fact that better than half of them are girls.

In the old days it was mainly wealthy young men who did a bit of wallowing in depravity.

The consequences of this sort of thing for so many people are uncertain.

[Palladin]

Speaking of herpes, I just heard a college health nurse say that right after spring break, the number of students she sees with herpes DOUBLES!

Why don't these kids care about their health? Are they so low in self esteem that they deliberately practice such self-destructive behaviors?

[cloud8]

> Remember Chaucer's students, and vagantes tradition before them?

Quidam ludunt, quidam bibunt
quidam indiscrete vivunt...

[Palladin]

Back in the fifties, every college town had their local preferred house of ill repute. For Dickinson, in Carlisle, it was Bessie's House.

Nowadays, the boys don't even have to pay--their female classmates are so easy. And these girls are not monitored for STD's, as would be the case in a well-run whore house.
They've been sexually active since eighth grade, and bring a passel of diseases with them to campus.

Homeschooling until 22 isn't such a bad idea.

[Ruth A.]

One book that President Bush has apparently been recommending

I am never at ease with this type of writing. It is nothing more than a rumor being used to promote this book and make for an exciting lead for the article.

[gotmatt]

i'd say they are more lacking in role models... who do kids look up to? Fathers are bumbling idiots according to the new hit sitcom, Mothers are neurotic headcases according to the new hot comedian, and religious figures are whack-jobs out seaking global domination and child molestation according to the mainstream media.

their only role-models left are hollywood/music and political leaders... which one do you think they are going to choose? and is there that much of a difference?

[GSlob]

"In the old days it was mainly wealthy young men who did a bit of wallowing in depravity."
Hmm, IIRC, 12th -13th centuries students were so wealthy that they continuously complained about being penniless (see Hugh the Primate of Orleans' poetry on the subject). They - or at least enough of them - were begging in the streets, in between drinking and whoring binges, according to that same Hugh and others after him who left the written testimony. From then to the times of Chaucer and later Villon not much changed, and so it has continued even unto this day, with minor variations. Thus we are looking at an ancient tradition, with pedigree about as long as mortarboards and gowns at students' graduation. Probably, that's how it should be.

[Awestruck]

"Although this is disturbing, I'm not sure it's much different from when I was in college—or even before!"

Exactly! I don't see this as news... I come from a small town where the only activities were drinking and sex! Drinking and sex in college? Who would think???

[CatoRenasci]

In loco parentis was the model on which American, and to some extent English, colleges were built, whereas the concept was unkown in Europe: European universities provide only the academic education and students are on their own for everything else, including living arrangements and behavior. It's always been that way, from the middle of the 11th century when the University of Bologna was founded.

My grandfather, who studied at Bologna in the 1890s, always said it a place easy to misspend one's youth. My father, at UC Berkeley in the 1920s, said that the fraternity and sorority parties he attended -- not only the houses, but at major hotels in the Bay Area -- were often bachanalian. Marijuana was legal then, though booze was not. He said -- and others there in those days have confirmed -- there was at least as much pot, sex and booze as there was in the '60s when I was at the university. His comment was that the only things that seemed to change were the music (jazz gave way to rock, each considered equally shocking in its time), the names of the cars (he had a Stutz), and the quality of Cal football.

[chudogg]

I go to the number 3 (or something like that) partying school in the nation, and I dont see anything nearly as bad as the comments being made in this forum. I think there is deep sense of envy by individuals who somehow feel that life passed them by and they missed a certian excitement that they read about, or a deep case of denial of what they took part in during the 60's and 70s.

[squirt-gun]

Decadence on the accent....education on the decent.

After graduation, "Let them eat cake".

[nmh]

It really depends on how the PARENTS RAISE the CHILD.

Allot of this goes on, no doubt.

I have two nieces who I dare to say haven't had sex with anyone yet. They are very pretty. Their grades are excellent and one just graduated as a Physical Therapist. She was captain of her soccer team and lost herself in sports because she was on a scholarship. The other one is on a Math scholarship. My one niece who studied Physical Therapy went for her license immediately following graduation with her Masters in it (She went five years to get that) and is happily employed and loves her job. The other one was one more year to go.

[Thebaddog]

My experience of college life was at the UoM in the late seventies and those chicks were head cases. If you could get close, you had to just about shoot yourself to not have to listen to the angst load from the coeds.

Needless to say, I enjoyed Chicago in the eighties a lot more. And five children keep the old boy at home these days.

[unfortunately a bluestater]

I have read the "Charlotte Simmons" book----it is disturbing and, based upon what I know from recent college graduates, very accurate. I graduated in 1968 and, believe me, what is going on on campuses now is far worse than it was then---in terms of promiscuity and binge-drinking. I highly recommend the Charlotte Simmons book. Someone posted that this is a way to promote Tom Wolfe's book. But with Mr. Wolfe's history in writing, his book doesn't really need promotion. He may be the greatest American writer of our time.