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Is Columbia Too Sexy?

Over the weekend, the Daily News had a story with the following lede: "Famed as a hotbed of debate over academic freedom, New York's most elite school is also a playpen for sexual hijinks, sophomoric antics and the wacky indulgences of the children of the rich." Ooh, we wondered if it would be about Dalton or some other fancy prep school. But then we took into account the "academic freedom" part and realized, uh, it's about Columbia.

There were the reporter's saucy details of a female student voluntarily being "flogged...repeatedly with leather whips, rubber hoses" and a quote from the Columbia Spectator's sex columnist, Miriam Datskovsky: "Having sex in the stacks of Butler Library is one of the ultimate Columbia experiences."

And then there were ways to rile up less prudish readers:

Consider the party scene. But it's no reason to get dressed up. In fact, there's no reason to get dressed at all: The merrymakers of Morningside Heights host naked parties, lingerie-only parties - and the more bourgeois "clothing-optional parties with naked rooms."

And taxpayers indirectly foot a chunk of the tab because bond offerings and loans from the state Dormitory Authority and federal Department of Education partially fund the renovation of dorms where naked frolickers muster.

Not our tax dollars! Luckily, Ivy Gate had some reassuring comments from current Columbia students about how often Columbia students get laid:
- once every six months. columbia is a rough world for single people."
- "the average in the engineering school is probably like once a semester"
- "i would say within the first week of a new class, then consistently for 3 weeks, then it would get ugly"
- "either I missed out or everyone else in college isn't having sex at all."
- "i can't make a funny comment about it at the moment...i'm too tired. watching 5 episodes of veronica mars in a row has exhausted me"
- "Random hook-ups do happen, but it is probably rare for most students. At night people just go back to their rooms and finish their homework or maybe heat up a hot pocket"
Disclosure: Our idea of a Friday night was watching The X-Files and Homicide. Sigh, those were the days.

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By Jen Chung in on November 28, 2006 1:10 PM

Comments [rss]

  • Publius

    The arrangements with DASNY aren't even like government maintaining streets. The only involvement the state Dormitory Authority has is to make its Aaa rating available to the institution. Columbia is responsible for repaying interest and principal on the bonds, not DASNY.



    Overall, that's the kind of great reporting work that reminds me why I never read the Daily News.

  • LM
  • Stevennnn

    Damn. I need to get laid by some college girls.

  • just saying

    Yup. Gothamist is right. Columbia is way too sexy for its students.

  • Jackson

    Wow, sexual hijinks and sophomoric antics? They almost make columbia sound like college.

  • Damn, I miss college.

  • lede is the correct spelling in that context. anachronistic, sure, but what isn't these days?

  • wanker

    not unless we're all easily confused printers



    I keep coming across a word that doesn't make it into the dictionary. It is very specific to the journalism world and dates back to earlier days of newspaper publishing. The word is lede, and it refers to the opening lines of a newspaper article, also called the "lead." It is used in alerting the printer to them but distinguishes them from the word "lead" (Pb), since that metal was used in the printing of the ink.

  • t

    actually, spelly. "lede" is correct when it comes to the first line of a newspaper article.

  • spelly d

    that's because the co-founders of gothamist went to columbia...



    and yet they still gave us this gem:



    Over the weekend, the Daily News had a story with the following lede:



    another seed change, perhaps

  • laf

    deja vu:

    that's because the co-founders of gothamist went to columbia...

    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

    Gawker beat you to it, and didn't use the royal "our."

    [1] Posted by: deja vu | November 28, 2006 1:38 PM

  • Rufus

    "At night people just go back to their rooms and ... heat up a hot pocket"



    If that's not a sexual euphemism I don't know what is.

  • waefawef

    There's a good sell for Columbia - the school where piles of pasty, flabby nerds get their shit off.

  • Yeahhh

    This guy also penned some articles a while back criticizing Columbia as being anti-semitic for the controversy in the Middle Eastern Dept. He has some obvious vendetta against the school. Seriously, I know only one or two people who have even been to one of these naked parties (I'm a Columbia senior) and I promise you there are very few overly-sexed people on this campus. Have you seen how ugly we are???



    That argument about dorm funds applies to any school and is probably the funniest argument I've seen in a while. That's like saying our tax dollars contribute to drug trafficking because we pay the taxes that fund the roads that support the cars that support the drug dealers.

  • brooklynbee

    Somebody going to make a joke about Barnard women? Anyone?

  • brooklynbee

    Somebody going to make a joke about Barnard women? Anyone?

  • deja vu

    Gawker beat you to it, and didn't use the royal "our."

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