Margaret Mead Presents: The Sexual Anthropology of the Ivy League
Many emails land in our inbox, though most are Viagra or stock-tip related. However, we recently received a fascinating inquiry all the way from France, where apparently Hotmail is still in vogue. Monsieur's [name redacted] blunt truth-telling struck us as just a little too close to home:
[name redacted]@hotmail.fr>
to ivygate
Jun 2
Ok. Cornell is part of the Ivy league.
I'm french, and going to study there.reading US blogs, it sounds like : Cornell sex life sucks... Am I right ?
Thanks.
Bien à vous.
[name redacted]
After the jump: where babies come from.
It seems Monsieur [name redacted] is actually headed off to Cornell, as he's given the universal Sign of the Cornellian: despite the Big Red's ever-sagging reputation and hilariously small endowment, Monsieur [name redacted] reassures himself that it is, in fact, "part of the Ivy League." He's a genuine Cornellian if we ever saw one.
Unfortunately, Monsieur [name redacted] hit the nail on the head. In our experience, it's not just Cornell whose "sex life sucks"; it's a problem endemic to the Ivy League. When, like Hal and I, you didn't touch a girl until you were twenty, things get weird pretty quickly.
To help Frenchmen intent on conquering our sexually-starved campuses, we're proposing a new feature: Nerd Love, or the Sexual Anthropology of the Ivy League. This will be a reader-driven venture, so please send in your tips about the weirdest hook-ups you've heard of - or experienced yourself - to ivygate.guest@gmail.com. Best to describe the setting ("a really lame frat-party at Dartmouth, lame even by terribly lame Dartmouth standards" is almost always a good introduction), the participants ("a beautiful French graduate student and a terribly ugly nerd-boy named Jacob Savage") and the act itself (hopefully unspeakable).
And please tell us about any other strange phenomena, customs, or rituals involving sex. Don't let us down, Brown.
We're awaiting your tips with bated breath.
--JACOB SAVAGE
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July 3rd, 2007 at 2:44 pm
Why stop there? Make it scientific and do a full-blown sex survey, sometime during the year. Boston’s Stuff@Night just did one which was particularly hilarious, I have to say.
July 3rd, 2007 at 4:11 pm
What a smug bastard you are!
Why the hell did IGB hire this dope?
July 3rd, 2007 at 4:25 pm
I was going to say this was your first good blog post (finally), then you bashed Dartmouth. I went there as an undergrad and not only is there plenty of sex, but I challenge you to find a student in any school who’s happier to be there. On the other hand, there’s this slow Princeton fool in my accounting class who apparently has never had any friends/sex/life. Are you two bloggers like that also?
July 3rd, 2007 at 5:19 pm
pardonez-moi, but you seem to allege that cornell is not part of the ivy league? if thats true, then the ivy league is certainly not worth all the fuss. and i think its ridiculous that a bunch of suny bing or potentially even suny oneonta (whereever the fuck that is) should have the nerve to comment.
and yeah, sex at my lovely ivy league campus is few and far between compared to when i come home to nyc. must agree with your state-school asses on that.
July 3rd, 2007 at 6:37 pm
fuck you! i hate you. your ‘eating clubs’ suck and your tap water tastes terrible. it’s an experience akin to drinking drinking a wet ball of cotton, the water is that dry.
sure the dartmouth frats are gross and disgusting, but you have them beat in terms of sheer douchebaggery. cornell’s ok.
princeton, alas, sucks.
July 3rd, 2007 at 10:44 pm
The sex life at Cornell really isn’t THAT BAD. Like most things there, it all depends on how you make it. You can be a walking advertisement for abstinence or a walking STD, the ball is in your court (no pun intended). To the french guy: I’m sure you’ll find some desperate skank who will give you a BJ in the stacks. Promise.
July 4th, 2007 at 12:51 am
you can just copy/paste from the boredat sites, really.
July 4th, 2007 at 2:08 am
http://cornellsun.com/user/2412/track
not THAT bad.
July 4th, 2007 at 4:09 pm
Guys, let’s try to keep things a little accurate. If there is one thing that Dartmouth is good at, it’s throwing amazing frat parties.
July 4th, 2007 at 9:02 pm
It seems like these summer editors are straight out of a comments thread.
July 5th, 2007 at 9:57 am
These new editors are terrible. Dartmouth = best undergraduate experience ever. The funny thing is that I’ll be teaching Yale students in two years. If they had gone to a place like Dartmouth, they wouldn’t be taught by an unqualified fool like myself.
July 7th, 2007 at 9:56 am
“despite the Big Red’s ever-sagging reputation and hilariously small endowment, Monsieur [name redacted] reassures himself that it is, in fact, ‘part of the Ivy League.’”
Dude, seriously? That’s just tacky. There’s good-natured teasing, and just cattyness, and cattyness never looks good on a guy.
July 8th, 2007 at 11:57 am
eh, I thought that was the only funny part of the whole post.
July 10th, 2007 at 12:18 pm
Yeah, agreed. It’s really funny to hear Cornell people cling to their ivy league membership as the only redeeming quality of their school. Cornell: The Easiest Way Into The Ivy League.
Also, Dartmouth does throw the best parties. We’re not called the Alcoholic Ivy for nothing.
July 10th, 2007 at 12:19 pm
Yeah, agreed. It’s really funny to hear Cornell people cling to their ivy league membership as the only redeeming quality of their school. Cornell: The Easiest Way Into The Ivy League.
Also, Dartmouth does throw the best parties. We’re not called the Alcoholic Ivy for nothing.
July 11th, 2007 at 1:35 pm
Dart ‘10 exhibits the typical, elitist, snobbish attitude of the smaller Ivy League schools, discrediting Cornell’s Ivy status and once again harping that it’s the easiest way into the Ivy Leauge. True, Cornell does have a higher acceptance rate than the other Ivy League institutions, but it’s not because we’re an “easy Ivy”, it’s because we have much larger undergraduate and graduate populations and the capacity to educate a lot more people. That being said, there are plenty of people who get rejected from Cornell and those who get in aren’t getting a free ride through the Ivy League either: they’re working their asses off through one of the country’s most rigorous academic curriculums.
But all that aside, let’s not forget what the Ivy League really is: an athletic conference, nothing more, nothing less. So drink up, Dart ‘10, because it’s arrogant obnoxious pricks like you that make people the Ivy League.
And besides, let’s not forget that Cornell has better food, better research facilities, and a larger endowment, you know, things that actually count towards a school’s standing and prestige.
July 11th, 2007 at 2:38 pm
I have no complaint about Cornell academics. I loved most of my classes, and love my job, which I got b/c I was a Cornellian.
Most of all, Cornell showed me how to enjoy life. I had great sex at Cornell. After an almost year long dry spell I got out of the library and got a life. My advice: get extracurricular. Risley is known for bed swapping, nakedness, and swinging. Women’s sports lead to “experimentation” and general fun. My favorite were the hockey fans. All that excitement has to go somewhere. They win and I win.
July 12th, 2007 at 2:50 pm
Wow, i just got accepted to a couple of Ivy League schools, but reading your comments makes me not want to go to any of them. Why are you guys so desperate to be special, and if I go will I be desperate to be special too?
July 12th, 2007 at 3:52 pm
ssf920: You really have nothing to worry about. I’m sure your college experience is going to be great. Being in the Ivy League just means that somehow we managed to impress somebody on the admissions staff of what are arguably the eight most elite American institutions of higher ed, and since we could accomplish that much, it pretty much makes us think that we’re hot shit. Some of us are, and some aren’t. If you do choose to go the way of the Ivy League, you might succumb to the temptation to begin to think much higher of yourself and instantly want to impress people right away by blaring your alma mater at all times (guilty on all counts), but fear not: there are levelheaded students here too. It’s all what you make of it.
July 12th, 2007 at 6:41 pm
“And besides, let’s not forget that Cornell has better food, better research facilities, and a larger endowment, you know, things that actually count towards a school’s standing and prestige.” Eh, that’s just not true, and such a prickish statement basically invalidated your entire argument.
July 12th, 2007 at 6:43 pm
That said, I’m sure that Cornell’s a great school, just like any other top U.S. university. Dart ‘10 is an idiot who doesn’t represent those of us who can be happy with Dartmouth without feeling the need to put down other institutions.
July 13th, 2007 at 11:15 am
eh: What can I say, I gotta represent when I can.
July 13th, 2007 at 11:27 am
But another thing: while the research facilities comment is arguable (although I don’t think Dartmouth has the land nor resources available to win that argument), Cornell definitely has better food and a larger endowment. A Princetonian even confirmed the latter, stating that 40% of our endowment is from New York State (although he couldn’t do that without re-inforcing the fact that it automatically makes Cornell a state school…typical douchey Princeton behavior). As for food, we are ranked #7 nationally according to the Princeton Review. Hell, we have our own on-site dairy, what more could you ask for?
July 14th, 2007 at 10:53 pm
Since when does IGB itself bash schools — instead of letting the subject do that for them? In the Ivy League, school is more what you make of it than what happens to be there. A lazy stoner at Harvard gets a shitty education.
But Mr. Savage would have us believe otherwise — and engages in telling instead of showing. I’ll return in the fall, when the real writers are back.
July 18th, 2007 at 4:43 pm
http://www.ivygateblog.com/blog/2006/11/risley_hall_cornells_raging_id.html
Sex at Cornell is freak’n sweet. Triple-fistings in the subbasement are where it’s at.
PS: Dartmouth totally blows, because Eleazor Wheelock is the worst name I have ever heard.
June 12th, 2008 at 3:57 pm
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