Anyone else read Rolling Stone's "Duke Sex Scandal"?

Is this a nationwide phenomenon, or is the culture at Duke particularly perverse?

I'm so thankful my daughter went to college with a bunch of sweet nerds. And married one.

She would have hated Duke.

on DU for too long.

of current events.

the word was out for a long time that the lacrosse team was the wild child of the athletic program. The basketball program is continually one of the top in the country. Like what Notre Dame used to be in football. And I've never heard of systemic problems like this in that program.

..but the lacrosse team is. Those guys are outta control and have been for some time. No one did anything about it until now...

SNIP

"Sex at Duke is a sport most students participate in, on some level or another. Boys report that it's still a little tough to get a girl to get freaky -- anal sex, for example, is still rare enough that ''any Duke guy could look at a lineup of girls and point out the one who likes it,'' notes one male student (''usually the girl who's drunk and coked out of her gourd at a party at 4 a.m.,'' he adds). But traditional intercourse is common, and oral sex nearly ubiquitous, regarded as sort of a form of elaborate kissing that doesn't really mean very much. ''Everybody gives blow jobs now,'' says Naomi. ''Before,'' she adds -- meaning a pre-Monica/pre-Britney ''before'' -- ''it used to be you'd have sex and then give one.'' But now, girls give them freely -- on their own initiative, she says. (They also tend to get as much as they give, at least according to Duke men.)

"Whatever sex goes on, the girls say, is done in the context of the ''hookup,'' which describes anything from making out to full-on intercourse. Much to the disappointment of many students, female and male, there's no real dating scene at Duke -- true for a lot of colleges. ''I've never been asked out on a date in my entire life -- not once,'' says one stunning brunette. Nor has a guy ever bought her a drink. ''I think that if anybody ever did that, I would ask him if he were on drugs,'' she says. Rather, there's the casual one-night stand, usually bolstered by heavy drinking and followed the next morning by -- well, nothing, usually. ''You'll hook up with a guy, and you know that nothing will come out of it,'' says Anna. The best thing you can hope for, she says, ''is that you'll get to hook up with him again.'' Some girls they know have managed to score a regular hookup -- meaning consistent sex -- but others play the field, bouncing from one guy to the next.

"The vagaries of sex on campus have created a specific ''hookup culture'' at Duke, one that Charlotte Simmons fans might quickly recognize. As one male student describes it, it ''exists in a whirlwind of drunkenness and horniness that lacks definition -- which is what everyone likes about it it's just an environment of craziness and you don't have to worry about it until the next morning.''

SNIP

"World War III is hardly the only party like this at Duke. Another fraternity hosts an annual ''Playboy'' party, where the boys get the same girls who attend WWIII to dress up in Playboy-bunny outfits and walk around carrying trays laden with cigarettes and shots. There has also been a ''Dress to get Lei'd'' party, a ''Presidents and Interns'' party, a ''Give It to Me, Daddy, I Want It'' party, a ''Secs and Execs'' party, a ''Snowjob'' party (''Work Hard, Play Hard, But Bring your Lingerie?''). Even Duke's Africa organization has had a party: ''Pimpin' All Over the World.''

SNIP


Based on the article, the culture looks pretty perverse to me. But that's my question. Is this just college today, or is Duke an extreme example? Or are the authors of this article, rather than the students, all wet?

...but it isn't. They made their entire team look bad. They made the university look bad. They should have been tossed off the team and out of the school LONG ago (after one of the previous 16 or so arrests/problems with neighbors complaining about underage drunken parties/etc. etc...). They were out of control.

There are numerous articles about Duke out there. The ones which paint the place as 'elitist and white, rich frat-kid heaven' are as inaccurate. What happened there has (and does) happen at other universities (and high schools for that matter) and in other university towns daily.

Some students chose to talk openly about it. They could have been from UNO, Princeton, Yale, or your local high school. Young folks do sex...everywhere. Fact of life. From the article:

_ _ _ _ _

'I'm just horny and I want to have sex,'

''The idea is that you come to these parties -- they put women in a subservient role, to say the least -- dressed as some fantasy, right?'' says Lisker, who points out that this is not just a phenomenon at Duke but a fairly common experience at campuses across the country.

_ _ _ _ _

The men's lacrosse team, however, were PARTICULARLY wild, disrespectful, violent, and out of control (both in and out of town, apparently). Their other sports teams don't have that problem (or at the very least not to THAT degree). Why did the lacrosse team get away with it? I don't know. They shouldn't have. They probably won't again, if the team is reconstituted.

Here's the link for anyone who is interested:

http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/10464110/sex__scandal_at_duke/print

to occasionally do stupid things. I think Rummy has it right on this one- there are a few bad apples... doesn't mean that all dukies are/act like this. In fact, I know quite a few Duke grads who are wonderful, considerate, brilliant people. I know some that I don't want anything to do with. Same is true with my Alma Mater (UNC-Chapel Hill). Almost all schools have their fair share of nerds, scholars, slackers, and jerks attending. It's just a matter of finding people with whom you feel comfortable.

Because they make it seem like it's not a few bad apples -- it's a pervasive culture, which is particularly demeaning to the female students.

When my daughter looked at colleges, she was really turned off by the snobby, preppy atmosphere of the famous three (Harvard/Princeton/Yale). Couldn't bring herself to apply. I think she would have felt the same at Duke. The advantage of the nerdy schools is that the students who go there tend to really enjoy their actual studies (i.e, math & science). And engineering nerds don't usually spend a lot of time worrying about their appearance, or anyone else's.

Maybe I'm wrong, but it seems to me like the older the school, and the more Southern it is, the more it has lingering issues with racism and sexism that didn't all go away just because it's modern times and people are different now.

Fifty or sixty years ago, from what I understand, college women in the South were being rated on their attractiveness and whether they belonged to the "right" sorority and were able to attract a man from the "right" fraternity. They could be the most studious bookworms on campus if they wanted to, but that wasn't what was going to get them ahead in life. What was going to get them ahead, both bookworm and airhead, was looking attractive and put-together at all times; following the social rules; joining the right sorority; and getting pinned, then engaged (before graduation; to leave campus with a degree and not a ring was a tragedy) to the right kind of man from the right fraternity so you could marry him, have his children, and move on to a life of genteel wealthy Southern ladyhood.

Of course, this whole society was predicated on others calling the shots. The women didn't choose the sorority. The sorority chose them, and to get in they had to fit in. The men chose them for dates; they didn't choose the men. The men chose to offer them a pin or a ring. Their role was to sit and wait to be offered. The only power they had was in the form of keeping their virginity and keeping any kind of sexual behavior off limits until the proper tokens of affection were produced. Any woman who lost her virginity before this time was a "slut" who quickly developed a "bad reputation." Rape might as well not exist; if a man forced himself on a woman, surely it was because she "asked for it" or "let him." It was never considered to be about violence, but about a woman failing to perform her role of guarding the milk until the cow was bought and paid for.

Today, the only big difference between then and now seems to be that, well, the clothes are more revealing, no promises are made to anyone, and sex is OK! It's still all-important for a woman to be in the right sorority. It's still all-important for her to attract a man from the right fraternity. It's still all-important for her to look impeccable at all times. The men still do the choosing--not the women. The only difference is that the women now know that sex will be expected as a routine part of the relationship, with no commitment implied in return. As a result, men are rated and valued according to how much sex they can get, because how much sex they can get is based upon how many women they can "hook up" with. Any man who belongs to the right fraternity, or the lacrosse team, apparently, has no problems in that department.

If this is so, it's little wonder that the women of Duke feel no empathy for any woman not of their own social class who cries "rape" and points the finger at a lacrosse player. Because, of course, they know better. They know that, I mean, come on, a lacrosse player doesn't have to go "slumming" to get sex...he can get that from nice girls of his own social class! In fact, he can get it from anybody! And when you can get sex from anybody, it makes it impossible for you to even be guilty of rape!

In short, the only kind of man these women would ever see as guilty of rape would be a creepy man from the wrong social class, or a nerd or a freak, who couldn't get sex any other way. That, they could understand as rape. Anything else flies outside their radar. As does the concept that rape might ever be a crime of violence, a crime committed by the relatively powerful against the relatively powerless as a means of reinforcing their place in the world.

There's probably not a female student on the whole Duke campus who would give a moment's thought to the idea that SHE might be a powerless or repressed person, despite her wealth and privilege. Nor a moment's thought to the idea that maybe not everyone has it like she herself has it, yet that such a person might still have value.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but that's the vibe I get from some of these Southern schools. That not much has changed there since the old days--only the clothes, the music and the variety of acceptable sexual behaviors. Otherwise, socially, things are the same in 2006 as they were in 1956.

I guess there's nothing left to teach you. You've got us all figured out. :sarcasm:

And it would explain some younger relatives of mine in the south. I thought their mother was poisoning their minds (and behavior) with her obsession with her appearance, but the whole culture there is probably reinforcing it for all of them.

Reading the article, though, there were some moments of self-awareness among at least a couple of the female students. I didn't reread the whole thing, but here's one of them:

"Allison confesses, ''I have done things that are completely inconsistent with the type of person I am, and what I value.'' She hooked up with a guy in a high-profile fraternity for more than a year, a guy who was 'very traditional' -- meaning that 'he could go to a party with all of his friends and do whatever he wanted, but God forbid I ever went anywhere without him.'

"She went along with it, she says, out of 'a constant fear of losing.' She explains: 'When you're in a relationship with somebody, especially with somebody in the frat scene, you're lucky to be with him.' It's never the other way around, she says -- no matter how smart or attractive the girl.

SNIP

'''I found myself falling into this thing,' says Allison. 'It made me very uncomfortable and unhappy, because it's not a way to live. But if I didn't do these things and he broke up with me for some reason, two days from now he'd have somebody else. That's just how it works.'

SNIP

Allison looks at her friends. 'If my mother ever knew,''she says, ''I mean, she would smack me across the face. I was not brought up in that kind of environment.'

were not from "the south," if I recall. Duke students come from all over the world. I've attended a number of events at Duke, and while most of the students look like "normal" college students, there is this other group that oozes snottiness and downright meanness. And just as stated in the article, they do look perfect - in a plastic sort of way. They have this air of superiority (at age 20) that absolutely disgusts me. Entitlement? I'm not sure what it is. (And just think - they'll be out in the work force soon - lucky us!) Another poster mentioned a vibe at old, southern schools. I've visited other schools in the area, and nothing comes close to Duke as far as that 'tude.

As far as the casual sex, all I can say is that the article really disturbed me (and I'm no prude, trust me). In the age of Girls Gone Wild and Craigs List Casual Encounters, dating does seem to be out and hooking up in. At what point does the switch go off? Are they prepared for "real" relationships? I'd say for a woman hooking up repeatedly with a number of guys over the course of a couple of days, perhaps therapy is in her future. It raises questions of empowerment - kind of like porn. Who is in control? Are women allowing men to demean them, or are they doing it to themselves? I certainly don't have the answers, but reading about men who can pick out the girls on campus who enjoy anal sex just makes me sad. I don't think this is what the protesters of the '60s had in mind when fighting for equality.

Here's another article that might interest you:

Too busy for love
Young adults say commitment takes time they don't have right now

http://www.newsobserver.com/716/story/442519.html

lately about her friends being "too busy."

But it seems to me that some of these Duke girls could spend less time having their nails done and going to drunken parties and more time pursuing positive relationships . . . if they really wanted to.

I've heard that there is another interesting culture at SMU . . . perhaps lower on the drunken orgies (I'm guessing) but just as high on the dress-to-impress scale.

Rumsfeld has never been right about anything. If Rumsfeld told me it was sunny outside I would be grabbing for my galoshes. The man is a congenital liar.

Don