It's quieter than you think on the Wellesley College Senate bus.
September 23, 2007 3:07 PM   Subscribe



 
I understand what it's saying, but that has to be the most statistically inane headline I've ever read.
posted by OrangeDrink at 3:13 PM on September 23, 2007


50% of headlines are below average.
posted by Foosnark at 3:15 PM on September 23, 2007 [1 favorite]


But the math works out to only 1.35 hookups per semester -- and remember, some of these incidents are merely make-out sessions.

I'm not sure if this makes me feel better or worse.
posted by CitrusFreak12 at 3:16 PM on September 23, 2007


Probably they are having average amounts because they spend too much time counting ?
posted by elpapacito at 3:19 PM on September 23, 2007


On average, college students are having more sex than you are.
posted by Poolio at 3:29 PM on September 23, 2007


This is obviously a good sign; it means more students are going into science and engineering and bringing the average down.
posted by backseatpilot at 3:36 PM on September 23, 2007 [3 favorites]


Yes but , F(x)=[1/[(2ps)^(1/2)]]e^-[(x-mi^2)/(2s^2)]
where -inf<x<inf , s=sigma , p=3.14

Which pretty much proves my point and also why I am not getting too much laid these days !
posted by elpapacito at 3:47 PM on September 23, 2007 [3 favorites]


My own research trends higher but it relies on oral history.
posted by hal9k at 3:49 PM on September 23, 2007 [13 favorites]


Wow, 21 tags for an 11-word single link post for a widely available Washington Post article. Hot stuff!!!
posted by bunnycup at 4:05 PM on September 23, 2007


On average, college students are having 0% of their sex with me.
posted by Meatbomb at 4:09 PM on September 23, 2007


your mom goes to college.
posted by bam at 4:15 PM on September 23, 2007 [2 favorites]


Wow, 21 tags for an 11-word single link post for a widely available Washington Post article. Hot stuff!!!

On the bright side, the abundance of tags should lower the chances this will be reposted.
posted by Poolio at 4:24 PM on September 23, 2007 [1 favorite]


My experience at college was similar. Of course sex is being had, but it is by far the den of debauchery that conservative media would like you to believe it is.
posted by HighTechUnderpants at 4:29 PM on September 23, 2007


Hahahah. Whoops. That should read "but it is by far NOT the den of debauchery that conservative media would like you to believe it is."

Oops.
posted by HighTechUnderpants at 4:30 PM on September 23, 2007 [1 favorite]


I REFUSE to believe that every SINGLE student's experience in high school and college throughout this country is not one long, unending, drunken game of rainbow, whatever HighTechUnderpants may say.
posted by bunnycup at 4:33 PM on September 23, 2007


Oh no, they're at it like knives, the filthy little fuckers! They're just liars as well as fornicators!
posted by Abiezer at 4:44 PM on September 23, 2007 [1 favorite]


Having recently graduated, I must say that 1.35 hookups per semester is a bit low for pretty much everyone I knew in my department.
posted by lazaruslong at 4:55 PM on September 23, 2007


From my experience, the crazy college hookup parties come from the small percentage of people at universities that get it on with anything that moves. They skew the averages for the rest of us.
posted by Anonymous at 5:14 PM on September 23, 2007


I obviously wasted my college years with my relentless boning of the ladies.
posted by Astro Zombie at 5:17 PM on September 23, 2007


When I was a college, a friend of mine was a resident adisor. He said that as a part of his training he was shown statistics for how much sex students have and how much sex they think other students have. The answer is that just about everyone thinks everyone else has 3x the amount of sex that actually happens. This applies to both number of partners and number of instances.

On an unrelated note, saying "number of instances of sex" sounds about as dorky as "marital supplies".
posted by blindcarboncopy at 5:20 PM on September 23, 2007


Having recently graduated, I must say that 1.35 hookups per semester is a bit low for pretty much everyone I knew in my department.

Not an engineer, were you?

Sadly, I was.
posted by Justinian at 5:26 PM on September 23, 2007


Beam and Summers: Too Stupid For A Glassing?
posted by docpops at 5:44 PM on September 23, 2007


This reminds me of the time my brother and I went overseas and everyone seemed to be expecting a live version of 'Ferris Bueller's Day Off' from us wacky, wacky American kids. Still the memory stays for always. My heart says danke schoen.

but lyk omg u guys have no clue about wut we do in kollege its lyk totally hoTT
posted by zennie at 5:46 PM on September 23, 2007


Rainbow parties are hard to find, news at 11.
posted by caddis at 6:15 PM on September 23, 2007


In addition, the sex they are having is neither rare nor well done.

(apologies to Ernie Kovacs)
posted by yhbc at 6:20 PM on September 23, 2007 [3 favorites]


When I was a college, a friend of mine was a resident adisor

you were a WHOLE FRACKING COLLEGE? ye gods, you must have got laid like crazy.
posted by vrakatar at 6:29 PM on September 23, 2007


50% of headlines are below average median.

Fixed.

Aside from that, I'm sure there'd be a lot more sex on campus if that fusty old dean wasn't always trying to shut down all the fun.
posted by UbuRoivas at 6:32 PM on September 23, 2007


This article seems to overstate the case about as much as students' false expectations do. While it may not be a scene from I, Claudius, college "chastity" levels are not high.

And while the media is in love with hookups, most of my college sex was with friends who became more or after a proper (usually second) date. Every time I read one of these articles, it seems my circle had less random sex but more sex (including partners). Of course, my examples are just as anecdotal, but it's just another case of the college experience described by commentators being completely alien to mine.

But what he doesn't mention is how the hyper-commitment of college life means that kids end up doing everything but "it." For one thing, there's the time factor. As one male friend told us, in response to our query about the Daily News expose, "I've kind of got a girl right now, but we're both too busy to actually have sex. I think a lot of people are in my boat, and they deal with it by commoditizing and scheduling time for sexual pleasure as they would a meeting with their adviser."

Well, that's just terrible. What a weird generation that's being raised; constantly praised but not often treated like actual persons who might need to make *gasp* mistakes to grow as real people. If you don't have "time" for sex, man, time to reevaluate.
posted by spaltavian at 6:40 PM on September 23, 2007


I've been in college forever and my median is waaaay below 1.5 hookups per semester.

Note to self: study less, fuck more.
posted by Avenger at 6:57 PM on September 23, 2007 [1 favorite]


God damn story of my life.

There was nothing I hated more than going to the health center and getting the "sex questionnaire". Then I would say I wasn't currently having sex so I didn't need the endless STD tests, that they were so eager to perform. Then they would say, you know you are considered "sexually active" if you've had sex or oral sex in the last six months. It was like thanks for your optimism, but yeah, no.
posted by whoaali at 7:00 PM on September 23, 2007 [11 favorites]


Remember the guy in college who was never getting any? That's me. How are you?
posted by antipasta_explosion at 7:03 PM on September 23, 2007 [1 favorite]


On an unrelated note, saying "number of instances of sex" sounds about as dorky as "marital supplies".

On an even more unrelated note, Petsmart has an aisle for "stool management," hilarioĆ¼s.

I don't know how that umlaut got there but I'm leaving it.
posted by danb at 7:08 PM on September 23, 2007


This article seems like a sham. Hell, I was in college just a few years ago and everybody was just shooting their DNA at each other all the time. Shit, nearly everyone needed a wheelchair to walk at graduation.
posted by nonreflectiveobject at 7:09 PM on September 23, 2007 [1 favorite]


I'm in college right now, and this article is depressingly true.
posted by OverlappingElvis at 7:16 PM on September 23, 2007


The type of action they're likely to get is more hanky than panky.

Hi-yo! That is not the sort of line you expect from the WaPo. But I admit I laughed.
posted by George_Spiggott at 7:18 PM on September 23, 2007


This is why merely being around a college depresses me.

On the one hand, I was the guy who never got laid for most of my sentence there.

On the other, I met my wife. And promptly left, sans degree. Oh the lustmanity.
posted by localroger at 7:20 PM on September 23, 2007


On average, college students are having more sex than you are.

Disagree. Married people have more sex than single people. Most college students are single. Q.E.D.

As far as college goes, I always had much more sex when I had a steady gf. Random hookups were rare, yet always appreciated. ;)
posted by mrgrimm at 7:21 PM on September 23, 2007


Having double-majored in Biotechnology and Applied Pornography at Caltech, I find this article highly inaccurate.
posted by spiderwire at 7:41 PM on September 23, 2007 [1 favorite]


Having double-majored in Biotechnology and Applied Pornography at Caltech, I find this article highly inaccurate.
posted by spiderwire at 9:41 PM on September 23


No, it's just that what you Biotech/App. Porn majors consider "sex" is just so freakin weird.
posted by Ynoxas at 7:49 PM on September 23, 2007 [2 favorites]


What's sex?
posted by spiderwire at 7:53 PM on September 23, 2007


elpapacito, why are you using a normal distribution when n is so small? Also, the students, even in engineering, are not having negative amounts of sex. It should totally be a Poisson distribution, dude.
posted by sebastienbailard at 7:57 PM on September 23, 2007


What's sex?

[looks up from textbook]

Ah. How quaint.
posted by spiderwire at 8:04 PM on September 23, 2007


So, the author asked all of the hyper-dedicated, workaholic, nerds that he could find whether they were having sex. And they said, "Not Often." Shocking! I'm shocked. Did he also go to the nearby state school with the average SAT score around 1000 and the average graduation time hovering at around 6 years? I'm pretty sure that those kids are having sex a hell of a lot more than the engineers at Yale. (I'm at UF, I'm absolutely certain that the average is above once per semester.)

The next article is all about the lack attention paid to football teams at the Seven Sisters.
posted by oddman at 8:04 PM on September 23, 2007


Married people have more sex than single people.

Yep. Results from the largest national sex survey:

Sex 2 or more times a week/No sex for a year

                           MEN            WOMEN
MARRIED            43%/ 1%       39%/ 3%
COHABITATING   55%/ 0%       60%/ 0%
SINGLE              26%/ 23%     20%/ 30%

And perhaps the Pareto principle applies to college sex - 20% are doing 80% of the fuckin'.
posted by dgaicun at 8:10 PM on September 23, 2007


And perhaps the Pareto principle applies to college sex - 20% are doing 80% of the fuckin'.

I kind of have to agree with this. Freshman year (at one of the top ten party schools in the country), the floor I lived on in my dorm had about 25 girls. At least half were virgins, about another 10 were or had been in serious relationships and had sex with 1 person. Then there were 1 or 2 crazy crazy sluts, who seemed to be competing for who could have the most pregnancy scares in one semester. There were lots of drunken make outs at frat parties, but few went beyond second base. I think one girl lost her virginity the whole year and that was to a pretty serious boyfriend from back home. A couple girls broke up with serious boyfriends, only to replace them with new serious boyfriends, but really it was all pretty tame.
posted by whoaali at 8:21 PM on September 23, 2007


I've seen the local co-eds...

Anybody that wants them is welcome to them.
posted by Samizdata at 8:29 PM on September 23, 2007


Having been through UF, I think the engineers are still bringing down the average there.
posted by casarkos at 8:43 PM on September 23, 2007


I can't remember exactly and googling for this particular quote is a bitch...

"If there was a cure for AIDS *right fucking now* then if you weren't getting laid by tomorrow, there's something seriously wrong with you."

In some circles, the "you fuck, you get AIDS!!2lol!!!" message somehow got shoehorned in and stuck. The "don't do drugs" message didn't stick with this group, though. I never really understood and always kind of felt scorned by the self-annointing "smart/intelligent-but-counterculture" crowd.

Drinkers/druggies (without self-pretention)? We just don't remember doing it them when someone calls polling and we're high/drunk and making delicious and nutritious dinner.
posted by porpoise at 8:59 PM on September 23, 2007


Freak on omics.
posted by dhartung at 9:27 PM on September 23, 2007


I'm in college right now and I disagree with 50% of this article.
posted by Esoquo at 12:11 AM on September 24, 2007


When I was in college I had sex with lots of girls, they just weren't, in a purely technical sense, actually there at the time.
posted by maxwelton at 1:15 AM on September 24, 2007 [2 favorites]


porpoise
I'm sorry, the words you're using are English, and appear to be in some sort of grammatical order similar to English, and yet I have no idea at all what your post is trying to say.
posted by Sangermaine at 2:34 AM on September 24, 2007 [1 favorite]


When I lived in Austin, statistics show, a significantly high percentage of boys at UT were receiving casual, anonymous, oral sex. The others didn't know where to find me. But that's just what happens when you're an uninhibited gay teenager living 2 blocks from the Texas Union in 1973.

When I was in college? ::yawn:: By then, I'd calmed down.
posted by Goofyy at 3:54 AM on September 24, 2007


sebastienbailard writes "It should totally be a Poisson distribution, dude."

Thanks for the recommendations, I am quite an amateur in statistic, little practice :) !
posted by elpapacito at 5:46 AM on September 24, 2007


whoaali writes "I think one girl lost her virginity the whole year"

Damn gimme her number !
posted by elpapacito at 5:48 AM on September 24, 2007 [1 favorite]


"On average, college students are having more sex than you are."

Not likely. Long-term cohabitation rules!

(And according to this, I was above average, yet again because I was in a long-term relationship. I always vaguely regretted never having the crazy drunken hookup sex, but I also realize that the pure numbers were against me.)
posted by klangklangston at 11:13 AM on September 24, 2007


The study also found that males were having five to six times as much sex as the females, and were 300% more likely to copulate on the first date.

But seriously, folks. I'm sorry for anyone who wasn't getting laid in college. My experience was often everything your parents were worried about.

Who wants to touch me?
posted by Navelgazer at 2:29 PM on September 24, 2007


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