Sitting around the field in front of Converse Hall, my freshmen orientation squad chatted about the groups we were bombarded by at the club fair. “Hey,” one of my squadmates giggled, “What was up with the kink club?”
The group broke into laughter, and shared highlights from the list of kinks on the club’s table. Our squad leaders looked vaguely uncomfortable and sat in silence.
Going from high school to college, people warn you about a lot of different adjustments: More drinking, more drugs, and, of course, more opportunities to spend the night with someone. I’ve found that sex itself, however, isn’t the weirdest component of college for us freshmen– talking about it is.
Many of us came from high schools and towns where talking about sex was taboo; some of us didn’t even receive formal sex ed in high school. And it shows. While upperclassmen raved about the hilarity of the Student Health Educators’ mainly sexual skits, most freshmen gave it the review of “funny but awkward.” Freshmen redden when their RCs tell them to “take what [they] need, not what [they] want to need” from the bathroom condom baskets. Friends even exchange jokes about the prevalence of consent posters on campus while walking to parties.
If freshmen are going to the socials, or drinking, or even interacting with other people in an environment with more freedom, we need to get more comfortable talking about sex. Of course, college itself will help with this, but we can’t wait for our comfort levels to catch up to our social lives. In the interim, we need to be as self-aware of our inhibitions as possible, maybe even talking to upperclassmen friends more frankly about sex. Who knows? I might even join the kink club.