Wild nights of sex. Constant partying. A life of risky behavior without worrying about the consequences.
When I read descriptions of the lives of American college students in the news, I was suddenly overcome with anger. Why hadn’t anyone bothered to include me in all the fun?
Here I had been slaving away nights at my desk studying and column-writing, when there were better times to be had elsewhere.
It’s amazing I didn’t notice it. The media has been hyping our radical lifestyles for quite some time. Tom Wolfe’s latest novel, “I am Charlotte Simmons,” which chronicles the life of a small-town girl whose innocence is destroyed in college, received a lot of attention in 2005 for highlighting the practices of drunken college sex maniacs.
At about the same time, the Chicago Sun-Times ran a three-part series about the intricacies of partying and hooking up at the university level. They even included a “college sex glossary,” which defined terms such as “dormcest” (sex with someone residing in the same dorm) and “jukin’” (sexually suggestive dancing).
More recently, columnist and Media Research Center President Brent Bozell wrote that a university atmosphere encourages sexual promiscuity by providing majors in LGBT studies and putting on productions of “The Vagina Monologues.” He also added that these sinful lifestyles were reinforced by the television popular on college campuses, such as MTV and Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim.
I immediately ran out of my dorm room and asked everyone in sight to point me in the direction of the nearest orgy.
I was met with silence, and more than one stare. Most of the students I talked to did not, in fact, regularly go to parties. “I barely have time to do my own homework,” said Linda Kit, a first-year psychobiology student.
This didn’t make sense. I approached two other first-years. Hadn’t entering the college atmosphere radically altered their ideas of sex, drinking and partying? “No,” both of them answered simply.
Every student I spoke with did agree that the UCLA student body is not exactly angelic. “I’ve heard tales of the worst debauchery,” Mike Loeffel, a second-year marine biology student, said with a laugh.
But for the most part, all the information students provided as evidence for the stereotype was strictly hearsay. Of course, interviewing people I just happen to bump into on my quest for an orgy does not qualify as a scientific study, and the students at UCLA are a tad more studious than most.
The trend of college students having an exaggerated perception of their peers’ lifestyles has been suggested by research findings. In fact, most undergraduates greatly overestimate the sexual activity of their peers, according to Columbia University’s health services Web site.
This stereotype of sex-crazed college maniacs is so pervasive that we’re even beginning to believe it about ourselves – brainwashing in its finest form.
But how did the media develop this perception in the first place?
According to Mike Males, a lecturer at UC Santa Cruz and the author of “The Scapegoat Generation: America’s War on Adolescents,” baby boomers like to pin problems on youth in order to preserve their own image, which is not as pristine as it may seem.
“Middle-agers now have the highest violent death rate of any age group,” Males said to the Los Angeles Times. “The typical drug addict today is a middle-aged white opiate addict. But the focus has stayed on teenagers and 20-agers.”
Ah. So it’s all just a ploy to conceal their own shortcomings. My next step was to confront an actual member of the baby-boomer generation. I called my mom.
“I know what you’re hiding!” I told her. While she stubbornly refused to admit that she is not currently a white male or an opiate addict, she did say she thought it was silly to believe that college created an atmosphere that encouraged promiscuity. “Kids learn from what they see at home, not queer studies or ‘Family Guy.’”
How frustrating. She didn’t attempt to make a single unfair generalization about me and my peers.
These stereotypes of reckless youth and accusatory baby boomers also ignore a lot of positive contributions that these two generations are making to the world.
UCLA is home to the Community Service Commission – the largest completely student-run, student-initiated community service organization in the country. Just a few days ago, college students participating in UCLA Dance Marathon raised over $265,000 to find a cure for pediatric AIDS. This act exemplifies generosity at its finest.
Like the critical importance of the results of “Dancing with the Stars” or what Britney Spears does with her baby when she drives, the disgusting immorality of college life is just another exaggeration of the media.
Granted, college students do engage in a fair amount of depravity, and I’m sure there are a few people who take it a little too far, but as my mom pointed out, “They can’t be worse than my generation.”
It’s time for us to end the generational divide. We must join hands, work with, accept, and – most importantly – love each other. We are all equally screwed up in our own unique ways. Let’s embrace it.
If you think sleeping with a Stewie Griffin novelty doll has corrupted Strickland’s innocence, let her know at kstrickland@media.ucla.edu. Send general comments to viewpoint@media.ucla.edu.