It feels like a given for our generation: we're entitled to explore and discuss sex as we please. Although it's easy to forget why we do so, it remains valuable to remind ourselves of what we stand to gain by sharing our experiences in bed and in love. After all, not talking about sex—refusing to acknowledge it—is probably the oldest form of sexual repression. Silence keeps us feeling alone and in the dark, whereas responding to the variety of sexual experiences and identities that surround us is reassuring (maybe others have the same questions we do) and liberating (if they did, maybe we can too).
Past generations fought tirelessly for our right to speak freely and unashamedly about our sexual selves. In that spirit, I want to provide an Orient column that explores the variety of experiences we have to share. I can't just talk about myself (what's to tell?!), so I'll need help drawing on our collective experiences at Bowdoin. More on that in a second.
In all this, my unabashed inspiration is Alfred Kinsey, Class of 1916. That Kinsey—despite his cover-of-Time status—hasn't been lionized at Bowdoin in the Hawthorne or Chamberlain tradition might hint that for generations, our college was concerned that this "sexologist," rumored to be queer, was bad press. A quick bio: Importantly, Kinsey was queer, and, just as importantly, he was a Darwin fanatic (his father was a crypto-Calvinist whose passion Kinsey inherited but whose message he reversed), a boy scout (think Outing Club), a zoologist (he encountered the idea of biodiversity in wasps), a psychologist (a double major in bio and psych, he personally conducted thousands of face-to-face interviews), and a kind of crusader. He gave us the "Kinsey Scale," by which science began to accept human sexuality as a continuum, along with the most unimpeachable and comprehensive statistics on female sexuality and male homosexuality.
"The living world is a continuum in each and every one of its aspects," Kinsey wrote, "The sooner we learn this concerning human sexual behavior, the sooner we shall reach a sound understanding of the realities of sex." To illustrate his thesis, the Kinsey Report called for anonymous "histories." It's what sex columnists have done ever since, and it's what I'd like to do here.
Please send your anonymous questions to SU Box #785: the more you can ask without detail that might be revealing for you or others, the better. Since it's a small school, if you're more comfortable posing hypothetical questions, friends' questions, or past questions, I'll welcome them.
For now I'll respond to a question raised in Bowdoin's own Speak About It (ah, Orientation). This is an example of the sort of questions I'm open to taking: both specific questions and more general questions about sex at Bowdoin:
Dear Dr. Kinsey (yes, I went there),
I've never kissed a boy sober in college and it's been a while since I brought somebody home that I've actally been proud of. Am I sexually active? Well, I am when I'm drunk. At brunch I'll laugh it off when my friends tell me the ridiculous things I was doing, but to be honest, it scares me sh--less that I can't remember part of my Saturday nights. What am I doing wrong?
-Too Drunk For Love
TDFL, you're probably getting drunk for a lot of reasons—some good, some bad—but I think one big one is to let yourself hook up with people you meet at parties.
Sometimes drinking allows us to do the things our inhibitions don't—in a good way, because our inhibitions are often overly controlling.
I'm getting the message that, at least on one level you do want to hook up with people at parties, but you've started to use the drink in your hand and the hangover in the morning as your licensing condition for doing so.
And that's where you're going wrong: your fueling a cycle where you don't meet the kinds of people you'd "be proud of" because you're the drunk girl at the party, or when you're sober, you're that drunk girl from the party (I agree that kind of labeling is unfortunate).
But, TDFL, before next weekend, you should ask yourself what you really want: if that's hooking up with someone you meet, give yourself permission to do it without blacking out, and you'll make a more careful selection (and have more choices).
Hopefully this will start a better cycle for you, but if the booze continues to be a crutch you're abusing, you owe it to yourself (on account of your safety and your love life) to seek help from campus resources like alcohol counseling.