Virgins and Whores

“Any girl who lets herself forget the fact that one important use of an education is to help her toward achieving a happy marriage, a home, and family – the things she really wants – is being a very foolish virgin indeed.”

– Wainwright Evans

The College Girl’s sexuality has always been strictly scrutinized. From early logic against coeducation because it would lead to premarital sex (as Lynn Peril discusses in College Girls) to the supposed shame of arriving at college with virginity intact (as portrayed in films like American Pie and Superbad), there has always been a high level of cultural concern for the college girl’s sex life.

American Pie and Superbad have the same basic premise: average high school senior boys racing to get laid before they head off to college, lest they be forced to bear the humiliating label of “virgin.” I think it’s really interesting that both of these films focus more on men’s virginity than women’s. I don’t think this demonstrates a cultural implication that women should still be pure upon arrival at their alma mater (after all, these presumably heterosexual guys must be having sex with someone). American Pie does devote some attention to female sexual pleasure, even though the emphasis is overwhelmingly male. Female sexuality is being displayed in the media: ABC Family’s “Greek” includes key story lines involving sorority sisters sleeping with numerous frat boys, while the CW’s “Gossip Girl” discusses high schoolers taking the SATs in the same voyeuristic tone she uses to describe their overly active sex lives.

At W&M, The Flat Hat includes a regular sex column, condoms are freely distributed, and sex workers do performance art. Today’s college culture is certainly more open about sex than it was in the early years of coeducation. However, portrayals of college students, especially girls, in over sexualized situations objectify women’s education by explicitly linking education and sex. Just as the original coed was looking for more than a husband at college, today’s college girl is looking for more than between-the-sheets action.

-Cate Domino