Porn again

Porn is a controversial topic. As it exists today, it sits at a crossroads between a whole lot of notions: sexual liberty, capitalism, patriarchy and artistic expression. To discuss it, we must first establish what pornography is.

If porn is in the eye of the beholder, anything can be porn, depending on your cultural and personal background. For the sake of argument, I’ll call porn whatever has been made to sexually arouse a person – even if it is yourself.

Sexual liberty

I first want to tackle the notion of sexual liberty. I believe that no sex act in which all participants involved have given their enthusiastic consent (and are mentally capable of doing so) is immoral. This includes making pornography. As such, porn, in itself and of itself, is not immoral.

Pornography that has been produced with reluctant or unwilling participants, however, clearly would not be ethically sound. I’ll get back to that idea in another section.

A male industry through and through

It’s not surprising that the porn industry is controlled mostly by men and that their target audience is also (heterosexual) men. While there is a huge variety in porn – in terms of female body type alone, much more variety than on catwalks and fashion ads – almost all of it follows the idea that men are dominant, somewhat dim aggressors and that women merely exist to satisfy the urges of said men, either passively or faux-passively (by taking precisely the type of initiative in line with dominant male expectations).

It’s not enough to say that porn should be more diverse and cater to a more differentiated audience, especially not because we’re talking about an industry worth billions that is influencing the way a lot of people – and especially young men – see sex. If you’re only exposed to a certain type of fictitious sexuality, it’s a pity for the development of sexual imagination, and might even leave some people feel left out, weird or unwanted.

The early bird catches the worm

As a personal aside, I discovered porn at the ripe age of 9. Because I’d been given good sex ed by my parents and later, at school, I was always able to discern between fact and fiction, and somehow knew that porn was a glorified way of depicting sex, just like action movies were glorifying violence that was in no way glorious in real life.

Pornography probably influenced a number of desires that I developed in later life, but some porn did absolutely nothing for me – even as a teenager, porn where the female actresses looked miserable, fearful or bored turned me off, and so did the stuff that was clearly created by malevolent misogynists such as the infamous Max Hardcore.

No automatic slippery slope

The plural of anecdotes is not data, obviously, but I wanted to break out this personal story to demonstrate that early access to pornographic material is not a slippery slope (pun not intended) to creating a sex addict, rapist or someone who can only get off when someone has been reduced to a piece of meat. Even before I discovered feminism, enthusiastic consent has always been a huge deal to me.

Context is important. I can imagine that if you grow up as a boy without any reliable sex education, in an environment that more aggressively pushes negative images and ideas about women (unsurprisingly, lack of sex ed and misogyny nearly always go hand in hand!), porn could become a nefarious influence. The consequences may be far-reaching.

Do we need gatekeepers?

Especially for vulnerable young people with untreated mental problems, the exabytes of free porn on the Internet are problematic. But, so are the violent movies and video games, the pop culture that equals status to how much money you have, or the authority figures that surround them that are nearly always men.

Age ratings clearly aren’t helping. You click away that warning on a porn site, and off you go. Even if those websites adopted a reliable age identification system (which would be problematic in itself, given the uneasy status of some sexual minorities and proclivities even in the West), there would still be file sharing networks. In addition, restricting access to something makes it more desirable to a segment of the population.

There's no right to porn, but if we're going to have porn, then...

To forbid certain types of extreme pornography because it is consumed by violent and unstable individuals to ‘charge themselves up’ prior to committing atrocities is a seductive idea, but I think it misses a beat. It’s precisely the type of logic that has haunted violent video games. These media (alone) do not create criminals. Besides, there is plenty of mainstream media that is very violent.

While I agree that pornography that simulates rape, for instance, or BDSM pornography, operates in a potential minefield, I also agree that people who are into BDSM and people who like rapeplay should, in principle, be treated no different from people with vanilla tastes and desires when it comes down to porn.

More extreme needs more safeguards

Obviously, just like a healthy BDSM relationship is navigated by means of open conversations, boundaries and exchange of ideas (and the more extreme, the more important it gets), its porn mirrors should be subject to the same kinds of safeguards.

I would also like to note that not everything of this sort should be lumped together. While the mainstream media thoughtlessly accepted ’50 Shades of Gray’ as a novel about BDSM, the BDSM community hated it because it depicted a lot of practices and situations that were dangerous and abusive.

No kinkshaming

In concluding, my point in this section is: people do not automatically have a right to pornography, but if pornography is legal, anything that can plausibly occur in a sexual relationship where all parties consent, should be able to be made. Anything else is no better than kinkshaming.

You may not like the idea of people enjoying pissing on each other. But if you don’t personally have a problem that people do it in their bedrooms, you would be hypocritical to say that you don’t think that kind of porn should be made.

Porn and exploitation

People sometimes draw parallels between prostitution and porn, or say they’re the same: it’s paying someone to perform sexual or intimate acts. I do feel there is a difference between the two, because by the same token, you could also call mainstream actors in romantic movies prostitutes.

There is of course another similarity that binds both professions. Porn actors are often treated in less than stellar ways, to say the least, and ex-stars regularly speak out about abusive practices in the industry. The picture is more nuanced than a blanket “everyone who participates in porn is exploited” as there are plenty of counter-examples, too, but defenders of porn seem all too eager to bring these up to dismiss legitimate and troublesome stories from within the industry.

Capitalism and patriarchy: still best buddies

Casting porn performers as victims, always, is riding roughshod over a legitimate desire for sexual self-expression. Some may enter the industry because they want to (though may end up wanting to get out because of the reality on the ground). However, that doesn’t take away the legitimate criticism that almost all pornography is an expression of an enduring culture of misogyny. One might also argue that the good aspects, such as the greater variety in types of women that perform, are merely an unintended consequence of pornography’s capitalist setup, i.e. it’s a good thing to cover as many niches as possible.

At the end of the day, the patriarchal overtones still trump the capitalist drive behind pornography. If porn really wanted to serve all possible audiences, it would focus way more on women as consumers and agents. In that respect, the porn world again shares a parallel with the world of gaming, where women have long been a sizable minority among consumers, but rarely among the creators or those who control the levers of power.

Art and freedom of speech

Pornography has existed for as long as people were able to depict sex. There are penises on Greek vases, the walls of Pompeii are littered with dirty talk, and the Canterbury Tales include libidinous adultery and fart fetishes. This in itself is no argument for its continued existence, but it goes to show that involving sex in self-expression might well be one of our enduring instincts as a species. In fact, we owe it to our ancestors’ sex drive that we are alive at all.

Like I said that restricting certain kinds of pornography that doesn’t already violate the informed consent of the performers is unlikely to change the demand for it, censoring it entirely – which is a position only a handful take, but might be a logical conclusion – is doomed to fail as well. Whether we like it or not, porn matters to people. It’s part of who they are. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t change anything about it.

Pornification?

Pornography has increasingly become mainstream. Some lament this. I don’t. I actually think it should become even more mainstream, because it will encourage frank and mature discussion about how we want our porn to be. There’s no shame in consuming porn or performing in it, just like there should be no shame about liking whatever you like doing with your partner(s) in an atmosphere of consent.

Why not include pornography in sex ed? Talk about its history – in production as well as reception – and how it takes its cues from dominant culture, either by reinforcing existing values (such as patriarchy) or existing as a force of taboo by subverting these values (e.g. the huge popularity of gay porn in areas where homosexuality is not accepted), and in turn influencing how we think about sexuality. Analyse it. Discuss it. Let’s not pretend teenagers don’t know what it is or how to find it.

Cast the net wide

That I feel porn should be discussed in sex education classes ties in with a broader discussion on gender that is now largely absent from the classroom. History classes sometimes focus on the plight of women in times past, but often treat feminism as a relic of times where women were ‘truly’ oppressed, as if they face no ‘real’ difficulties right now.

It’s good to teach kids about the danger of STDs or how sex works in a biological sense, but there ought to be more discussions about consent, too. One may argue that discussion about things like these start at home, but many homes don’t provide that sort of atmosphere. After all, if the task of education is to prepare young people to be an educated and responsible citizen, then gender and sex are definitely a part of that responsibility to themselves and others around them.

Change from within

Education probably isn’t enough. There’s a basket of measures that could be considered for the porn industry as well: quality assurance labels, audits and quota to diversify the type of porn that is being made as well as who makes it. Mandatory warning messages that contextualize the more extreme porn to the viewer are also a good idea – such things already exist, kind of, but they could be made mandatory.

The point is here not to censor pornography, but to diversify it and assure that it is safe. This can be regulated just like any other business. This, and not treating it as if it is somehow a shameful pastime to consume it or to make it, would already go a long way on setting its course straight.

At the core

I’ve seen few issues that are more divisive than pornography in socially progressive circles, feminist discussion groups and among allies. The problem is this: the rhetoric of those who argue against porn or want to restrict it dangerously sounds like the language of reactionaries who, for one reason or another, can’t bear the idea of sexual expressions that are alien to them. Conversely, the argumentation of the pro-porn camp is all too familiar to those against it; insisting on the positive side of the narrative sounds like people who used to argue that women were perfectly happy as homemakers. Some undoubtedly were and still are, but many more had no choice.

A last word of warning: sexual liberation should not be flown as a flag for those who merely wish to continue the status quo of the patriarchy and appropriate ‘freedom as expression’ to perpetuate an aggressively misogynist culture of rape. Neither, however, should feminism be abused by closeted cultural conservatives who want to constrain expressions of human sexuality and introduce a new form of hypocrisy that we are still fighting to subdue.

Summary

Do you think there are sexual acts that do not violate the principle of informed and/or enthusiastic consent that are nonetheless immoral? Do you think pornography – media created to sexually arouse its consumers – should be forbidden?

If you answered no to both, that means you accept that – at least in an ideal world – there is room for pornography that caters to all tastes that abide by the consent principle, providing the material itself also abided by these rules. That still leaves us with a whole hot mess to disentangle if we truly want to move towards a culture where we can enjoy pornography without shame and the people who make it are neither so aggressively focused on one particular side of sexuality, nor vulnerable to abuse and exploitation. Therefore, I’d propose the following action points, though I suppose more might be included:

• Stricter business accountability, auditing and controls
• Unionization along the lines of the Hollywood Screen Actors’ Guild
• Compulsory signatures on script to prevent ‘sudden changes’ during filming
• Discuss pornography during sex education
• Gender discussion as an integral part of sex education
• Boards of industry networks need to contain at least 50% actors, chosen by actors
• Subsidies for pornographers who want to deviate from the male-centric pornography
• Discuss consent and kink during sex ed and how it differs from abuse and exploitation
• Introduce a license for pornographers that they may lose if they violate certain principles
• Extreme porn needs both warning and quality labels, and additional licenses to make

What's wrong with 'Nice Guys'?

Over the past few years, 'Nice Guy' has picked up steam as an epithet of ridicule on the Internet. The type of person that is meant by 'Nice Guy' has existed for a much longer time, however, and the term itself still generates confusion. After all, what's wrong with being a nice guy*? Why the ridicule?

As my first coherent pro-feminist thing was about 'Nice Guys', and apparently it's still being read (I'm not going to link to it because I kind of like my online identities to remain vague), I thought it would be a good time to revisit the topic.

Let's break it down.

1. What's a 'Nice Guy'?

Straight from the bowels of bash.org:

A woman has a close male friend. This means that he is probably interested in her, which is why he hangs around so much. She sees him strictly as a friend. This always starts out with, you're a great guy, but I don't like you in that way. This is roughly the equivalent for the guy of going to a job interview and the company saying, You have a great resume, you have all the qualifications we are looking for, but we're not going to hire you. We will, however, use your resume as the basis for comparison for all other applicants. But, we're going to hire somebody who is far less qualified and is probably an alcoholic. And if he doesn't work out, we'll hire somebody else, but still not you. In fact, we will never hire you. But we will call you from time to time to complain about the person that we hired.

This is more or less an assumption most 'Nice Guys' share: that they are perfect relationship material, but somehow never get a relationship (or sex). In other words, "I'm a nice guy, why can't women see that?"

As a take on the actual comparison drawn above, any person with a normal amount of self-esteem would kindly ask said company never to call them again unless they're calling with a job offer. It immediately reveals how weird and masochistic this 'Nice Guy' line of thinking is.

To get back on track, the core sentence that already shows the fatal flaw in the way they think about relationships and sex. It's that being a nice person entitles you to date or be in a relationship. Their parents probably brought them up with the idea that they should respect women and whatnot, but might not have told them why. Hollywood and popular media have fed their idea that by merely being nice, some woman is bound to fall for him. Obviously, the world doesn't work that way.

A term that goes hand in hand with the ‘Nice Guy’ Syndrome is the concept of the Friendzone or the Ladder Theory, both of which are quite misogynist. The Friendzone is basically a way to blame an insincere friendship on the person who feels no romantic interest in the complainer, yet the complainer somehow feels entitled to that relationship, or sex.

A major difference between a 'Nice Guy' and a plain old asshole - more about assholes in a moment, I promise - is that assholes are at least somewhat aware of what they are. 'Nice Guys' genuinely think they are nice people. Here's the thing, though: being nice is not a great human accomplishment, and describing yourself as a 'Nice Guy' is just another way of saying you wish to be as inoffensive as possible. It really is a red flag. It’s kind of like saying “I don’t beat women” unsollicited, or saying how much you “hate drama”.

Before I go any further, I want to note that I realise most 'Nice Guys' are probably young men with a low self-image. That makes it all the more tragic, but it doesn't really excuse their behaviour.

2. Typical hallmarks of 'Nice Guy' behaviour

2.1. Manipulation

‘Nice Guy’ behaviour is manipulative. ‘Nice Guys’ basically do everything they can to 'make' someone fall for them or sleep with them, all under the guise of friendship. It makes every 'nice' thing a part of the effort to get to that point. They do it so automatically that it becomes a second nature and they're not even conscious of it. It goes beyond the mere point of remembering what your love interest likes.

2.2. Objectification

A ‘Nice Guy’ ultimately reduces women to objects, not in an aggressive 'all women are whores' way, but more like 'this is my perfect princess and I will put her on a pedestal'. While they would vehemently deny it, ‘Nice Guys’ project all their romantic fantasies on one (or sometimes multiple, or successive) girls, which blinds them to the fact that these women are independent people and do not exist to fulfill his romantic or sexual fantasies.

2.3. Insincerity

‘Nice Guys’ are not nice for the sake of being nice. They're nice because they think they'll get something in return. Granted, many people do this, but for the ‘Nice Guy’, it's a way of life. Sometimes, this behaviour even veers straight into a type of co-dependency or creates a massive entitlement complex.

2.4. Ineffectiveness

Most women and many men can sense that you're a 'Nice Guy', and they think it's creepy. To make matters worse, as a method of getting sex or a relationship, its success rate is appalling. That leads many 'Nice Guys' to seek out different methods and turn to PUA workshops for advice, which is merely the other side of the coin, but operates on the same basic assumption that women can be, or should be, manipulated into sex.

2.5. Anger at other men

This quote speaks for itself: "Women always end up dating douches." Nobody likes assholes. A women who says she prefers bad boys past age 25 is probably sort of broken herself. However, most women who end up with guys that have glaring flaws don't date them because of their flaws. They end up dating them/sleeping with them because they are self-confident, have interesting stuff to say, are attractive or act like actual people instead of a scripted doormat. In addition, the 'asshole' in question may not be an asshole. He may simply be on as to what the 'Nice Guy' is trying to pull off.

2.6. Passiveness

'Nice Guys' will typically not go in against the opinions or tastes of the woman they are trying to woo, unless they somehow feel threatened. For women who are vulnerable or have questionable decision-making skills, this is sometimes enabling behaviour. At worst, it's self-serving and sycophantic. A second aspect of this passiveness is that they usually do not ever make an actual move or declare their love because they are deathly afraid of rejection. This only gets worse over time because of the emotional investment they’ve made. When the woman in question realises all of this, it’s also hard for her to say no – after all, no question has been asked, no move has been made, so it’s awkward to bring it up.

2.7. Lack of other defining personality traits

‘Nice Guys’ often describe themselves as being 'nice' – hence the term. So do many people around them. The problem is that if the first thing that comes up in your mind, if you need to be described, is 'nice', then you're probably selling yourself short. If other people see you as a 'Nice Guy', you definitely have a problem - you're seen as someone who has no particular personality.

3. Typical excuses of the 'Nice Guy'

3.1. "But I am genuinely a friend."

If you are, then why are you moping how girls only "want you as a friend"? Another variety are 'Nice Guys' who go out of their way to not do anything or act on their feelings as long as their object of desire is in a relationship, but prefer pining in the shadows. That just isn't healthy.

3.2. "But in that movie..."

Popular culture tends to feed the idea that the ‘Nice Guy’ thing is somehow cute, worth sympathising with or even truly romantic. Like so many clichés about love and relationships in pop culture, it couldn't be further from the truth. Pop culture loves exploiting ‘Nice Guys’ because it tugs on a few heart strings and is good for drama. It doesn't make this sort of behaviour mentally healthy or advisable.

3.3. "If she doesn't like it, why doesn't she say anything about it?"

I’ll use a quote from one of the people who responded to my initial post:

‘Nice Guys’ make an advance that cannot be rejected in a socially acceptable way. If a guy says, "Hey, how about a date?", then it's perfectly socially acceptable to say, "Nah, I'm not interested." But instead he might say, "Oh, you're moving? I'd love to help. When? Hmm, I'm working that day, but I can call out sick. It's really no problem! I don't own a truck, but I could rent one of those ones from the Home Depot." Is this guy really helpful just generally, or is there some subtext there of him trying to impress you? Should you say, "That would be really helpful, but since I am not attracted to you, I am honor-bound not to accept your offer of assistance"? Of course not. So you don't say it, and then there's this weird THING sort of hanging in the air in your dealings with that person in the future. You're like 85% sure that he's into you, but every time he has an opportunity to actually say it, he passes it up. Eventually, you relax a little, and then one day one of your dumber girlfriends lets on in front of this guy that you have car trouble. You try to hiss at her or step on her foot or something, but you're too slow or she's too clueless, and his eyes brighten. "Can I look at it? I'd be happy to help!" Ugh.

3.4. "Welp, guess I should become an asshole then!"

Apart from being a non-argument/false dichotomy (it's not one or the other), in fact, ‘Nice Guys’ are already assholes, but with a mask of niceness. You can certainly be a nice person without the deeper layers of manipulation, self-pity and self-entitlement. By the way, I’d like to note that PUAs also display all these negative characteristics, but are more overt about it, which why quite a number of ‘Nice Guys’ end up becoming PUAs: it’s the externalised conclusion of their internalised frustration, and operates along the same lines of reasoning.

4. How to stop being a ‘Nice Guy’

• Realise that the world doesn't owe you anything, and by extension, women don't owe you anything merely because you're ‘nice’ for all the wrong reasons.
• Stop being a passive-aggressive doormat and be more candid about your desires. This will mean having to take rejection, too.
• Don't pine. Realise that there are many, many potentially compatible partners that you could have while wasting time on projecting your romantic fantasies onto someone who will never reciprocate.
• Realise that there is no "manual" to women, no guaranteed rules, etc. If you're autistic or have a bad case of the 'sperg, seek therapy.

5. So are ‘Nice Guys’ the scum of the Earth then?

Of course not. One thing I want to make clear is that ‘Nice Guys’ aren't necessarily cold-hearted manipulators. The overwhelming majority of ‘Nice Guys’ probably isn’t even aware that their reasoning and what they're doing is flawed and disrespectful. Again, a quote:

It starts with men simply being intimidated by women. Many of these guys don't know how to effectively approach women and they aren't assertive or interesting, so they fall back on the fairy tale script that "as long as I'm an amazing and great friend who is always there for her, she'll eventually see how wonderful I am and we'll live happily ever after, etc. etc." It's pathetic and undesirable, but not necessarily malicious.

It's when this plan fails again and again, that frustration and resentment builds up and the guy begins to think that he's entitled to a woman's love as a transaction for being the target of his affection and care. He isn't aware of the sick flaw in his reasoning because in his mind it's innocuous: "I'm a nice guy, why don't women like me?" and "It's so true, nice guys do finish last." But he really does behave as though a woman's rejection is a breach of contract. The Nice Guy is delusional and wrong, just not consciously so.

6. But wait!

Just like the intimidation tactics of PUAs of overly aggressive men, ‘Nice Guys’ can, in fact, be quite intimidating in their own right.

One of the keys to understanding the Nice Guy vs. the clueless innocent is that the Nice Guy's definition of himself as such is usually the result of repeated romantic failure and a resulting, crippling bitterness. The clueless innocents eventually bumble their way out of that stage. That's the difference.

I don't want to make this into more than it is, but I think many men fail to grasp exactly how uncomfortable and, potentially, vulnerable a woman can feel in the face of persistent attention, flattery, and the like.

It flies in the face of years and years of social conditioning to tell an outwardly "nice" man - one who has in no way technically threatened, harassed, or intimidated you - to "get the fuck away, I'm not interested." It's one thing to tell off the drunk who's trying to cop a feel on the subway (and even that isn't always easy). But rejecting the friend who just won't stop hanging around looking for more? It's not a simple situation.

So, many women just don't do it. Especially confident and assertive women can do it easily, but even a woman without self-esteem problems could understandably find it difficult to be ruthlessly direct in that situation. All too often, we opt for subtlety instead.

And that's where the real problem with Nice Guys comes in. A regular guy would get the hint, see it as a matter of compatibility and not take it personally, then move on to someone more likely to return his interest. A Nice Guy, on the other hand, will stick around and attempt to wear you down. Often Nice Guys will pursue "'hard luck' cases" - women who are perhaps not the best-prepared to stand up for themselves.

And in the end, if the Nice Guy doesn't get what he wants? He invents a scenario that makes his wasted effort a noble quest to overcome (what he tells himself) is his target's shitty taste in men. Because admitting that he wasted his time pushing for something that was clearly never going to happen is just plain cognitively uncomfortable.

To sum up, the "perfect storm" that goes into creating a self-described Nice Guy is a mix of a sense of entitlement, a mark who is too kind and/or passive to outright reject the NG, and the NG's persistence in the face of what many other individuals would recognize as subtle signals of mark's disinclination to mate.

* or girl, though I’ve yet to hear the first story about a girl who mirrors ‘Nice Guy’ behaviour in every way

About speaking up

All changes in society come from people who decide to stand up and say "well, this is not okay". Paradoxically, even the most bitter reactionairies begin that way. But when standing up for a progressive cause (i.e. towards a more inclusive, more egalitarian and less prejudiced society), you go against the established hierarchy. That can be kind of scary.

Recently I submitted something to the Tumblr 'Men Against Assholes & Misogyny' started by the comedian Jen Kirkman, who had grown tired of all the internet sexism and the people who didn't speak out against it. Submitting something seemed like a no-brainer. It's just the internet, the safest space of all if you've got something to say, right?

Actually, as I was writing, I considered that it might be read by those same vile sexists that throw out casual rape threats and exclusively judge women by their appearance. I wasn't sure if I was prepared to, at best, roll my eyes at the number of people that would suggest I was gay, would surely be able to beat my ass in a fist fight or thought I was making a clever ploy to reel in all of the internet's sweet pussy. I also started worrying a bit about portraying myself as too much of a feminist - you know, a misguided progressive can harm their own cause much more than a malicious reactionary ever would. To paraphrase Nietzsche: "the most insiduous way to undermine a cause is to defend it with the wrong arguments."

I got over these thoughts, of course, but it was then that it occurred to me that speaking up in real life must be very hard for a lot of people, too. As I wrote in my short piece, I'm getting better at it. It's still not easy to be in between a rock and a hard place. You don't want to always be That Guy who goes off on a social justice tangent in every setting. But you also don't want to get idiots get away with harmful opinions.

Student life and sexism

I posted about this on another forum, too, but I also wanted to share it on this blog. It's a reaction to the outrage on this article:

Last week, the Everyday Sexism Project received a message from a student about to start her first year studying physics at Imperial College, London.

The message included a forwarded email, which she said had been sent by the Physics Society to all first year physics students. It read "Freshers' Lunch...This will be mainly a chance for you to scope out who's in your department and stake your claim early on the 1 in 5 girls."

For female students to be sent an email from a university society marking them out as sexual prey before they’d even started their course seemed extreme and inappropriate. But a few days later, we received another email, this time from a freshers' week volunteer. He wrote of his distress at the "horrific normalisation" of sexist attitudes and sexual pressure during the week’s festivities.

He described a group of excited male first-years who told him about “slut dropping”. The process, they explained, involves driving around town with friends in the early hours of the morning and offering a lift home to a young woman they deem a “slut” (usually a woman in a “post-club state”). After asking her address, they drive as fast and as far as possible in the opposite direction before forcing the woman out of the car and using a camera to film her “standing by the side of the road as they drive away”.  It’s difficult to know how widely this has occurred but the concept is reminiscent of a disturbing new trend of ‘slut-shaming’. On one occasion, the first-year added, it had taken the girl eight hours to get home. When asked how he knew, he explained that they were ‘friends’ on Facebook.

Another message came from a student distressed about the inclusion of a “Slag ‘n’ Drag” themed club night as part of the freshers’ week festivities at the University of York. The university’s student newspaper, Nouse, describes the event as “the one night of Freshers ‘…where a girl can dress like a total slut and no other girls can say anything about it’”. It goes on to say that “the girls rock out in their best bra and French knicker combo [sic]”.

A quick Google search demonstrates that such events, where male students are given the opportunity to dress in a humorous way whilst girls are expected to dress sexually or arrive scantily clad, are far from rare fixtures on freshers’ week schedules. Themes range from ‘Tarts and Vicars’, ‘Rappers and Slappers’ and ‘Geeks and Sluts’ to ‘Golf pros and Tennis hoes’.

The Lancaster University Students’ Union website boasts an event entitled “Slut-droppers vs Moshers” and the Women’s Officer at the University of Sheffield Students’ Union wrote an open letter to complain to local club Carnage about a “Pimps and Hoes” themed night, which she said seemed to be “exclusively aimed at students”. This hasn’t stopped a “Pimps and Hoes” event being advertised on the University of Derby Student Union website, or the similarly inappropriately named “Cherry Popper presents…” event appearing on the University of Wolverhampton Students Union site, while Dundee University Students’ Union proudly announced its own “CEOs and Corporate Hoes” themed night.

Perhaps the intention is light-hearted. But it is sobering to consider that these fresh cohorts of new students, perhaps amongst them the CEOs of the future, both male and female, are being sent the message by their own universities that men are CEOs, Pros and Geeks – powerful, talented, intelligent, whilst women are condemned to derisive sexual valuation alone.

Meanwhile, female first-years at the University of Kent were “horrified” when their freshers’ week culminated in a show by a hypnotist who allegedly made them perform lap dances and told them “When you wake up, you will think he touched you up just now.”

When we asked about freshers’ week experiences on Twitter, responses came thick and fast:

“At our [Student Union]…girls had to suck the choc off a kit kat chunky placed between a blokes [sic] legs”.

“Contest where girls had to dance on stage. Most cheers win. Girls encouraged to take off items of clothing. No guy version.”

“I think sex acts are a big 'funny' thing at uni. My friend was asked to deep throat a hotdog for free drinks.”

One woman wrote to tell us that the sexual pursuit of female freshers was nicknamed “seal-clubbing” at her university, effectively highlighting the worrying dynamic of vulnerability added by the fact that many students are experiencing their first week away from home. Pressure to take part in sexual situations and ‘make a joke’ of serious issues impacts male students too, with one particularly disturbing report we received reading:

“Flatmate quit lacrosse team when given team 'rules' stating that members don't date - that was what rape was for.”

Another wrote: “men's hockey team had fancy dress party at Student Union bar. Theme was rape victims. So awful its [sic] unbelievable but its [sic] true”

A 2010 study conducted by the National Union of Students revealed that of a nationwide sample of 2000 female students, 14% had been seriously physically or sexually assaulted, 68% were subject to sexual harassment and nearly a quarter had experienced unwanted sexual contact whilst at university. Given the severity of these statistics, it might be time to try a new theme for freshers’ week.

Author’s note:  The third paragraph has been amended to clarify that there has only been one reported incident of 'slut-dropping'.

Student unions and associations all over the world seem to have a serious (image) problem with this. Allow me to weigh in with a little experience from inside such a union - I was a member for four years, and on the board for three years, one year of which as president. Of course, you may also take my opinions and experiences with a grain of salt because I'm a man, and maybe doubly so because I'm from mainland Europe (though I doubt the latter really matters).

- Media love, love, love to report in the grossest and most sensasionalist terms about young people and sex. Whether the take is that young people risk disease, sexual predation or a prediliction for unhinged experimentation, there's always an undertone of apocalytpic fervour about it. That's not to say excesses don't exist or some trends can't be worrying, but their proportional occurrence is usually overstated. For instance, a few years ago, local media reported a craze where girls would insert vodka-soaked tampons into their ladyparts to speed up alcohol absorption. The story was widely debunked afterwards, but it stuck with many people as an example of "degenerate youth".

- Student life in particular seems to carry that twisted undertone of being young and getting to have as much sex as you can or want, while for the majority of students, it's anything but. Most sudents are somewhat shy, not that experienced and yes, curious, but most guys certainly aren't embryonic rapists waiting to hatch from their Nice Guy shells, and neither are most girls okay with being objectified for the sake of social acceptation. I don't doubt that what the article says is all true, but in my experience, stuff like that was not the norm, and mostly occurred with student unions that were already populated for the largest part by guys (most unions here are co-ed), or unions that had a seedy reputation to begin with, and thusly only attracted seedy people. Not that it makes it okay or that it shouldn't receive any scrutiny, but I do want to point out that it's not the norm, at least where I'm from.

- Since 2002, the student union I was part of annually hosted such a 'pimps & hoes' party. One of the reasons for its success was that most of the girls who came felt comfortable with it was because they knew the majority of people there personally and as such, had a good idea in advance about which guys could be trusted and which were sketchier. The union kept doing it every year because of the huge success. In 2005, the union restricted it to members only (and only if they were dressed up), or early ticket buyers. We'd done this because the 2004 edition had attracted a lot of wrong people, mostly mid to late 20-something guys, not dressed up, who'd come to ogle scantily clad girls and did not know anyone there. I'm not denying that the whole party theme is open to criticism, but I'm saying that dress-up parties like that don't have to be a raunchy free-for-all. Since 2005, creepers never really had a chance, though I don't know what it has been in the last few years since I'm not a student anymore and too old to attend anyway.

- If you're in the middle of it, it's sometimes really hard to see your own privilege. I think we did a lot of good things (no hazing rituals, going out our way to make people feel welcome and not being exclusive), and my predecessor (who was a woman), myself and my immediate successor clamped down hard on the old school sexist attitude of a lot of guys, but I do also see that we let people get away with things that were definitely not okay. That's the flip side of that comfortable context: some people feel more at ease and less judged for experimenting and 'going wild', but some people are pressured into going farther than they really want, and that's not cool.

- I'm not sure whether there is an upsurge of misogyny in student life or not because I'm not part of it anymore, but it wouldn't surprise me. However, I think the fundamental discussion after this article should how society/media seem to be judge, jury, accused and defendant when it comes down to creating attitudes like that: create the impression student life is going to be all about no-consequences sex, then shame everyone involved for doing it by breathlessly reporting on the excesses of that attitude.