Get Messy!
by Naiya Patel-Kapka, EIC
Last Saturday, Gay Guy Friday hosted a Safer Sex Night revival party. The SIC used to host Safer Sex Night as a yearly event, where they educated attendees on safe sexual practices in a party setting, as well as practiced safer sex, orgy style, in a tent set up on the grass. That longstanding tradition had almost faded into legend until this revival—but would it live up to the old standard? Would people actually be on drugs, fucking, and getting messy?
I wasn’t so sure. If I know anything, it’s that the modern Obie is generally too afraid to put out, or do anything publicly that might affect their social image. The last time I went to a campus event that was even remotely sex-related was a “naked party” in freshman year. Where I had been expecting a house bursting at the seams with naked beauties, flashing lights, and loud music, I was met with a harsh reality: 15 strangers sitting in a lamplit village house living room, drinking boxed wine and collaging in their underwear, not looking at each other.
So this Saturday night I showed up to GGF’s reboot of Safer Sex Night with barely any clothes on, a few shots of vodka in my system, and a great attitude. I’d woken up that morning ridiculously happy for no reason, as happens to me every month a few days prior to ovulation. When I stepped into the party with my friends, my serotonin and dopamine levels raised EVEN HIGHER…because what did I see? A dance floor full of sexy people dancing to fire music. I joined my friends on the dance floor and became part of an out-of-control sea. The floor felt like a trampoline, curving under the weight of so many moving bodies. Shoutout Lucy, Z, Seiami, and Daniel for picking the perfect music for the night and being awesome DJs.
At a certain point I’d been basically suffocated on the dance floor (it’s hard being short in a crowd of tall people) and decided to go outside. People were smoking and flirting with each other on the porch and around the sides of the house, converging in a throng of people gathered around something in the backyard. I pushed forward and saw the lube wrestling station: a tarp spread on the grass, with a huge bucket of goo next to it. I watched as three of my friends slipped and slid on the tarp wrestling each other, and noticed in the crowd that even more of my friends were pairing off for the night, leaving in pursuit of hookups. Yay!
What wasn’t so great was that all of the lube wrestlers were then condemned to a fate of shivering in the cold, covered in slime and mud. It was hilarious to look at but probably not so hilarious to experience…then, they tried to get back on the dance floor and subsequently got lube and dirt all over the rest of us. As the weather gets warmer, though, I think there needs to be more lube wrestling at parties—it's a greasy cockfight for horny liberal arts students, and this time was pretty legendary. Someone even got a nosebleed.
GGF Safer Sex Night was a great idea that was perfectly executed and its success makes it clear that sex-themed parties are a hit on this campus. So many people left together, flirted, danced, and had new, fun experiences—a departure from the normal Oberlin party where most people just smoke outside and act too cool to engage with others. While it’s true that there was no sex tent, the party effectively sent the message that people should be more open about sex, and that message was received by many. People got messy, and in my book that is an absolute win for the nightlife scene.
Being “messy” is important at this age. By acting without fear of judgement, you open yourself up to new experiences, which might be wonderful, or will otherwise at least be a learning experience. I’ve noticed that Obies are scared to get messy, and in my first year here I wondered why. Then I realized that everything anyone does will be heard about by everyone else—one of the perks of living in a mile radius campus with less than 3000 students. You kiss someone at a party? Now people in your class are going to ask you slyly, smiling, “Sooooo what’s happening with that?” You tell a friend of a friend a secret while you’re drunk? A person you’ve never talked to will hear it the next day. At a small school, your business is not your own, which makes people (justifiably) scared to be talked about. But when we all live in fear of doing something stupid, then no one ends up doing anything at all, and the entire student body ends up stuck in a loop of predictable banality.
So take Saturday night as an example of how fun it is to be messy! At the next party, dance with a stranger, get sloppy drunk, get rejected by someone, maybe even end the night in someone else’s bed wondering how the hell you’re going to finish the work that’s due tomorrow evening. We are young people, not saints. Act like it! And I promise, the debrief with your friends the next morning will be the most rewarding part of it all. Besides the fact that we each only get one life to live, we each only get one college experience. Make the most of it!
