http://eclectic.wesleyan.edu/ In case you were wondering what Eclectic looks like in the light of day.

The Carnal Cardinal: The Sex Party Sans The Sexy

I didn’t go to the Sex Party this year. I felt a little negligent, perhaps even guilty, as a sex and dating columnist for not going. That guilt led me to try to call in a few favors to get myself a ticket (and one for a friend so I wouldn’t be…er…“reporting” alone.) But I didn’t try that hard—really, I barely tried at all. What’s critical here isn’t that I didn’t go, because for those of you who did go, or know through the WesGossip mill, it wasn’t much of a sex party so much as a scantily clad riot. I didn’t really want to go to Sex Party, because I also felt I didn’t need to go to Sex Party.

I once was all into Sex Party. The first time I went to Sex Party, I had just transferred to Wesleyan from Smith College. Going to Sex Party was an experience I was excited to have because it seemed so Wesleyan—provocative, liberal, and extroverted. The following year, I went not because I had such a great time the year before, but because it felt empowering. I was feeling good about my body and was into the idea of wearing revealing, yet tasteful, lingerie in a forum where everyone else was in their skivvies too. I wore my hot pink, silk, short robe—loosely tied to show just a little bit of the ridiculously frilly bra purchased at a novelty store—and high heels. It was like sexy Halloween, but perhaps even more celebratory because it wasn’t a substitute for trick or treating—it was fairly quintessential collegewoohoo. With my then-boyfriend 3000 miles away, I just wanted to feel sexy.

I’m fairly sure my experience of Sex Party and my reasons for having such a strong affinity for it are not the same reasons why the student body at large attends it. For the average Wes kid, Sex Party isn’t about self-sexual discovery, aided by some “liquid courage.” I wish it were that. Instead, it’s about being pretty naked and super drunk really early in the school year. And going ‘cause it sounds cool (for the record: it does sound cool).

Sexual identity, be it straight or queer or questioning, is something that can be comforting to explore, somewhat anonymously, though, in the company of peers. And alcohol lowers inhibitions: attention to body image issues, concerns about “looking gay,” and whatever else it is that keeps us from being true to ourselves in the context of sex. Sex Party certainly has the potential to help Wes kids address these legitimate issues—while also showing them a damn good time and a lot of bad pornography.

My proposal: let’s have Sex Party, annually, at Eclectic. Let’s let Eclectic set the décor they desire: by all means, plaster the bathrooms with print pornography, screen porn on the walls, display the society’s artistic talents with large and undeniably impressive paper-mâché phalluses all you want. But perhaps, delay the Sex Party a month or two. Or, a semester. Because as the event stands, it's not really about sex, it's more about underclassmen trying to be cool and trying to be drunk at college. It's about vomiting near, but not quite in, the toilets of Clark. Gross.

As the sex party stands, learning limits of alcohol in college, college identity and sexual identity, are conflated into a single event. By delaying the festivities, students could enjoy Sex Party more responsibly. It could be less about trying to party hard for the first time at college, and be more about what you, as an individual, and we, as a collective, find sexy.

So why didn’t I go? I’m not a “fully formed sexual being” yet. If I were, I wouldn’t be writing this column. But, I need not explore myself sexually in the dark under the influence of alcohol with the rest of the student body. My sexual developments are at this point between my heart, head, erogenous zones, and partner. Right now, I’d rather do that discovery sober, and with the lights on.

By Lily Louise, Blargus Sex and Dating Columnist
Friday, September 25 2009, 3:10 pm