<p>This article on the party scene at Duke got a brief going over on another DU thread recently. I think the topic warrants wider discussion. It’s not even the “hook up” culture that’s so riveting – I remember college in the days before AIDS. But I don’t want to set the table too much. Read the article and post what you make of it.</p>
<pre><code> Sensationalized nonsense?
Accurate depiction of sex on campus in the 21st century?
What if anything does this say about modern American culture?
And what, if any, advice can a parent give to a 17-year-old about to enter this new world?
</code></pre>
<p>What hit me after reading the article was most the power of frats. Several times in the article it mentioned that these guys would not be looked at twice by girls if they were not involved in one of the prestigious fraternities. I heard a college boy say the other day that he wouldn’t join a frat because he didn’t need it----he said the frats in his opinion were for those who needed them to either score alcohol underage, make them appear “cool”, or attract girls they couldn’t get otherwise. After reading this, he may have a point.</p>
<p>As to advice? If I were sending a daughter–watch your drink at all times; for both S. and D. don’t do casual hook-ups (remember you are having sex with everyone that person has had sex with in the past)</p>
<p>Accurate? Yeah, probably so for some groups on some campuses. Just watch spring break on MTV! For the majority of the kids–no, I really don’t think it is the usual behavior.</p>
<p>I think the anonymous hook-up scene is disgusting and that’s why I’m transferring to a school renowned for its lack of “social life” - because if social life is AIDS, I don’t care for it.</p>
<p>What struck me was not all the alcohol - there was plenty of that around (and drugs) back when I went to school back in the dark ages. Nor even the sex per se. No - what surprised me (and continues to surprise) is the rather “hardness” and “meanness” of attitude that I honestly and truly don’t remember from back in the dark ages, and this was something that we saw or sensed on our college tours at several places (including my alma mater) three years ago: the second-place status of women in defining campus culture. The campuses were 50% women, but one got the sense (and my d. got the sense), that at some of these places, women were almost an afterthought, both in the classroom and outside of it. I don’t have a reference for that from my time frame, but I do know one thing: the differences were saw from one campus to another, even those with similar academic quality, were HUGE. They weren’t all the same - not even close, even when they accepted students from the same cohort of applicants. Their campus cultures were differently defined, and the experience, especially the experience of women, from one campus to another, could vary quite widely.</p>
<p>Mini, I agree that the sex and alcohol and drugs were a plenty back in our college days as well. So, that part is not so so different. I agree also that each campus’ culture differs. Obviously, I am not a college student with first hand experiences. But when I was reading the things that the women in the DU centered article were talking about…the frat/sor stuff…the attitudes, goals, etc…it seemed very different than what I have observed or heard about my two D’s schools…Brown and NYU. I just can’t even imagine them discussing or thinking the way the girls in that article were about their social lives at Duke. I am not saying all of Duke is like they were depicting (nor would I know, but kinda doubt it), but I am just commenting on the culture of the subset of students being discussed in that article. Even the part about the girls who felt honored to do that sexual hazing stuff at the frat…just isn’t anything I have ever heard my kids discuss, nor do I believe their friends are involved in anything like that. Then again, they don’t go to those wild spring breaks depicted in the news either. They are not nerds or anything…quite not the case but definitely their own attitudes, along with their own campus cultures seems very different than what the article was discussing. Still sex and alcohol are around all campuses but this article went beyond just the use or activity but involved certain attitudes that I am not so sure are common everywhere. I agree with Mini that these experiences vary widely from one campus to another and perhaps within one campus if large enough.</p>
<p>That is a VERY disturbing article. The sex doesn’t bother me, but the cavelier way sex is treated, does, and I am very disturbed by the girls choosing to give up their power to the men- and the way the guys treat them like meat… it makes me shudder. Couldn’t happen like that at Oberlin, or a place where people respect each other as people first and foremost. Needless to say, I’m not encouraging my DS to apply there.</p>
<p>neverborn: I should have worded that better. I meant in another Parent Cafe thread about DU. </p>
<pre><code>The most riveting aspect about this article to me was the young women talking about how their behavior in this social scene was basically out of character for them. They are accomplished, beautiful, athletic, bright women in all other aspects of their campus life, yet they let the men dictate the rules in their social world.
</code></pre>
<p>This is fascinating to me. Is it the power of frat/athlete culture or some sort of extension of the high school hierarchy for these college students? </p>
<p>Is this unique to the campus that is known to be defined or even dominated by the fraternity/athletic culture? Or is this culture present in some form even on campuses where students say only a small number of students join frats? </p>
<p>If this is simply an indication that young women are now sowing their wild oats as young men have long done, why don’t they seem to be enjoying it more? </p>
<p>The other aspect I found interesting was the pressure these women felt to be perfect – perfectly dressed, perfectly coiffed, perfectly toned, perfectly upbeat and fun. Is this a campus where no women walk around in sweat pants or are we getting a glimpse at a very narrow segment of the Duke campus community?</p>
<pre><code> This article has me quite flummoxed because I’ve always urged my son to be respectful to the girls he’s gone out with, to offer to pay and to hold the door etc. And mostly, to obey her wishes regarding any “hands on” activity he may have in mind. I think he must have “no means no” tatooed on his brain, I’ve said it to him so often.
I wonder if the “rules” in college are so completely different from what I’ve tried to teach him.
</code></pre>
<p>It presents a worry for college-bound high schoolers like me, too.</p>
<p>The article disturbed me too, for the same reasons as the above parents have expressed. I’ve been brought up to be a gentleman, and I plan to stay that way. But the picture of the college social system in this article brings questions. Namely, would I stick out if I attempted to maintain my current values? Would I be the social outcast if I avoid this scene? Would there BE a dating/relationship scene for me? It’s enough to make me seriously consider compromising my beliefs.</p>
<p>Tetra: I haven’t compromised my beliefs. I also have the disadvantage of having morals and not believing in fairy tales. As such, I was looking for a female who was the same - found one, luckily. It seems females are either in some religion club or are into the AIDS scene.</p>
<p>Wow, the scandal didn’t make me discount Duke as I believe it could have happened at so many colleges, but this article makes me very happy I declined their offer (and merit money left on the table). The culture sounds horrific. Why do such smart girls willingly participate in being marginalized? Please, if anyone knows this goes on at other schools do tell!!</p>
<p>I find this sort of social scene disgusting.</p>
<p>And I must tell you that I am in favour of casual sex (if that’s what you want). I see nothing wrong with it, so long as it’s consentual. Nor do I have anything against alcohol. It’s delicious. People call me socially liberal. </p>
<p>But this sort of thing is ridiculous. I wonder, first of all, how these people don’t drop dead of exhaustion; second of all, what nasty things it does for their emotional and mental health; and third of all, how on earth anyone could think it fun.</p>
<p>I mean, party if you want. But not all the time, and not like this.</p>
<p>Didn’t they change the names? That’s what the article said, no?</p>
<p>Sometimes that bothers me, actually. I say, if you can’t attach your name to it, don’t do it.</p>
<p>I mean, I do risque things sometimes, but I’m shameless enough to admit to them freely and stand behind them. I try to avoid doing those things I wouldn’t want the world to know about, because if I feel so ashamed of them, then clearly I must actually think they’re a bad idea, deep down somewhere. Which means I clearly shouldn’t do them. This just makes sense, no?</p>
<p>They always have been. Even when I was a teenager at prep school a million years ago and had never seen the sport, the lax guys were tall, handsome, strong, and fun. More so than football, hockey, or hoops … and of course most of them played other sports … there’s something about having a little catch in the quad that’s different from a football catch in the quad or a little pickup basketball in the driveway.</p>
<p>And after games, the guys don’t disappear directly to the locker room. They strip off their gear and thread it onto their stick, much like a hobo, talk to their parents, friends, and reporters, and <em>then</em> head across the fields to the locker room. They’re more approachable.</p>
<p>I must say that there was a scene much like this at the university I attended. I know a number of people like those described in the article, including one roommate who was always hooking up with strangers, she said it was better if she didn’t know his name. I didn’t party much but that was only half due to the fact I am inherently a nerd, the rest was that I didn’t want to participate in this kind of party scene. Yes, there were people who didn’t party ilike that and other types of social activities, but it seemed like in any case everything revolved around getting as drunk as possible. It is funny, all my parents’ friends ask me about I Am Charlotte Simmons and whether college is really as bad as the book suggests, and I have to tell them that, in my opinion, the reality is actually far worse.</p>
<p>One interesting thing in the article that hasn’t been pointed out yet: It says that Duke has “rules about no alcohol on campus”, but a hotel located on campus grounds, the Washington Duke Hotel and Golf Club, serves martinis, and students can use meal points to buy them. How bizarre is that?!</p>
<p>Deplorable as we may find the behavior of our adolescents and young adults in cases such as this, we must ask ourselves: “How different are they from us, their elders, had we been brought up in the same world of “anything goes”, that seems to be constantly bombarding their senses?”</p>
<p>While there is little, if anything, we can do to make the young change their patterns of activity, we may yet have some effect on the CULTURE that applauds the “no tomorrow” mentality. But, short of a most unlikely, mass effort on our part to improve things (though a “revolution” of that kind may be the only far-reaching remedy), we will probably have to content ourselves with small, indivdual actions (like communicating effectively with our children!) to see even a glimmer of light at the end of the proverbial tunnel.</p>
<p>It does sadden me to think that while we have (apparently) come a long way in awareness and equality among the sexes, the manifestations of such progress show that the opposite effect still holds sway. That women still feel a sort of subservience to men and that men take advatage of that fact seems to indicate that “the more things change, the more they stay the same”.</p>
<p>There was a time when religion helped keep a large majority of the young (and not so young) in check. Yet, religion was finally exposed for the man-made, flawed institution that it is (what isn’t?!) and so was thrown out, baby and all. What have we to take its place?</p>