34 minute read
SPORTS STATEMENT..........INSERT
from 2022-12-07
NICHOLAS STOLL Managing Sports Editor
In sports, one thing is put above all else: winning.
Excuses are made for cheaters and gamblers on the tame end, and domestic abusers and sex offenders on the extreme end. But as long as they help your team win, it’s OK. Because in sports, that’s all that matters, right?
Right?
And Michigan is winning.
The football team just claimed its second straight Big Ten Title — accomplishing the feat for the first time since 2003-04 — and secured consecutive College Football Playoff appearances for the first time in program history. The men’s basketball team has made five straight Sweet 16s. The women’s basketball team reached unprecedented heights, making the Elite Eight in last year’s tournament. The hockey team made it to the Frozen Four once again. The gymnastics teams bring home banners, individual wrestlers have claimed titles and the suite of other varsity sports have found great success.
That success across the entire athletic department has been forged by hard work, dedication and — of course — moral compromise.
Because who needs accountability when you’re winning?
First, turn your eyes to the Big Ten Championship MVP and sophomore running back Donovan Edwards. After retweeting antisemitic rhetoric, the athletic department didn’t muster a very strong response. Edwards eventually apologized, only after saying it was a “glitch” — an unlikely scenario given the steps it takes to retweet something. University President Santa Ono put out this indirect statement, which fails to address Edwards himself or his actual actions.
Beyond that? Excuses.
You don’t know Dono like we do.
We heard.
Dono didn’t mean it.
They said.
Dono’s a great guy.
The line went.
But “Dono” helped them win. That much is evident. So his actions were brushed under the rug.
Just this week, senior defensive tackle Mazi Smith faced felony gun charges. The incident dated back to Oct. 7, but the charge was filed Wednesday, and athletic director Warde Manuel left this lackluster statement:
“We are aware of the charge against Mazi from a traffic stop back in October,” Manuel said. “Mazi was honest, forthcoming and cooperative from the very beginning and is a tremendous young man. He is not and never has been considered a threat to the University or community.
“Based on the information communicated to us, we will continue to allow the judicial process to play out. Mazi will continue to participate as a member of the team.”
The Wolverines would’ve been hurting without their star player and team captain in the Big Ten Championship game. Of course he was going to play.
I know that Smith was in the process of getting his concealed carry license and the other facts of the case. I’m not here to say whether he is guilty or not. I’m here to say the athletic department failed to give substantive reasoning why a player charged with a felony wasn’t suspended even a game — instead being lauded in the press release — or why the news wasn’t disclosed sooner.
Had the athletic department known about the incident since Oct. 7, this becomes all the more complicated and all the more damning. There’s no way to know, but the past doesn’t look favorably on the athletic department’s track record.
Another star athlete — former point guard Zavier Simpson — also faced charges after a vehicle incident with police in 2020. Simpson, unlike Smith, was suspended one game. The issue in his case wasn’t the suspension, but the way the athletic department failed to properly address Simpson lying to police that his name was “Jeff Jackson,” how he was driving a vehicle owned by Manuel’s wife and how bodycam footage indicated an impaired state of mind.
Winning took priority over teaching lessons and molding young athletes — over being the “leaders and best.”
But passing over serious incidents doesn’t end there.
In former Michigan hockey coach Mel Pearson’s case, there was a slew of disgusting infractions that Manuel and the department had known about for months before firing him earlier this year. It took public outcry before the facts of the case were deemed severe enough to result in action.
Because Pearson was a winner. His players were top prospects at NHL squads and the Wolverines were in the Frozen Four. Firing Pearson would likely result in a rough year for the Michigan hockey program.
That simply isn’t enough to excuse inaction — and there’s really no other explanation for it.
Really, this feigned ignorance and false moral high ground stretches much further back than the past couple years. Look at what’s happened with Bo Schembechler and the chilling accusations, corroborated by his own son, levied against him.
Still, Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh praises him, and his statue still stands outside the hall given Schembechler’s namesake on athletic department grounds.
Why?
Because he was a goddamn winner.
And that should not be enough to pardon any kind of behavior.
Not every incident needs a suspension, firing or sweeping address, but athletes and coaches need to be held accountable for their actions. It’s not Manuel and the athletic department’s job to cover up its pupil’s failures — it’s their job to handle them properly.
And if Manuel and his department can’t, they’re the ones who should be held accountable.
Winning programs don’t excuse that.
Stoll can be reached at nkstoll@umich.edu and on Twitter @nkstoll.
FILE PHOTO/Daily
FOOTBALL
Despite second straight Big Ten championship, Michigan’s focus lies on the national title
KATE HUA/Daily
SPENCER RAINES Daily Sports Editor
INDIANAPOLIS — At this point, it’s a moment you’ve probably seen before.
The confetti raining down in Miami Gardens, the best season the Michigan football team had in almost two decades coming to one somber and unceremonious end.
Red populated Hard Rock Stadium as Georgia’s players, coaches and faithful all stuck around to soak in a dominating Orange Bowl victory. All of the Wolverines had left the field, except for a few who stood off to the side, watching the Bulldogs celebrate what Michigan so desperately wanted.
That contingent included two then-freshmen: quarterback J.J. McCarthy and running back Donovan Edwards.
Fast forward to now, and the scene after the Wolverines captured their second straight Big Ten title was quite different: Players were grinning, the confetti was maize and blue, but one thing remained the same.
McCarthy and Edwards once again stood right next to each other. Although this time, it was at the podium after the tandem of budding stars carried Michigan to another Big Ten trophy. They shared bright smiles, but something about their celebration felt hollow.
The memory of last year’s Orange Bowl still lingers.
“I feel like (the Georgia loss) drove me so much that this victory tonight doesn’t really feel like anything,” McCarthy said after the game. “That’s something that’s really hard to come by. I mean, back-to-back Big Ten Championships is amazing, but just that feeling that we had last year, this is just in the way of making sure that feeling never happens again.”
It’s a difficult position to be in, but it’s also an enviable one. For McCarthy and Edwards, they’re at a point where accomplishments like Saturday night don’t mean all that much to them. They want more, the Wolverines want more.
Michigan just captured its 13th victory, its most wins in a season in program history. And yet, there is no trophy for that accomplishment, no banner to hang — it’s simply what’s expected of college football’s elite. It’s obvious that the Wolverines want to be in the upper echelon of their sport. Edwards proclaimed that much to everyone inside Lucas Oil Stadium, moments after accepting the Big Ten title game MVP trophy.
“I mean it’s kinda self-explanatory what our goals are,” Edwards said. “I believe we’ve talked about it all year. And it’s not really much more that needs to be said. … Let’s go do what our main goal is.”
Michigan’s goals have been to beat its rivals, win the Big Ten, make the College Football Playoff and win the National Championship.
The Wolverines have been very upfront about those goals all year, they’ve worn them unabashedly on their sleeve. But now it’s different. Now, they are on the doorstep of their hearts’ desire — they’re just two wins away from a national title.
Michigan’s dreams of winning a national championship are tangible. And McCarthy recognizes that.
“I love our chances,” McCarthy said. “Last year it was kind of the bright lights, everything was new, Big Ten Championship, College Football Playoff. Going into the offseason it gave us so much momentum, and we knew that we could get there, and we could get back. Ultimately, this whole offseason it was about winning it.
“Everything is great that happened today. But job is not finished. We’ve got a lot bigger plans in mind.”
It’s really that simple. The Wolverines want to win a national championship, and they believe that they can. Everything that has happened over the past year has just brought Michigan closer to its end goal.
Maybe that’s a rematch with Georgia for the national championship, maybe it isn’t. Just whichever team it plays, the Wolverines hope that they aren’t, once again, the team learning what it’s like to play with the big dogs. Or the team taking moral victories instead of taking a trophy.
Michigan wants to be the team celebrating. And if there’s one thing to take from the Wolverines, it’s that they unequivocally think they will.
FOOTBALL
Michigan earns No. 2 seed, to play TCU in Fiesta Bowl
JARED GREENSPAN Managing Sports Editor
For the second consecutive season, the Michigan football team is headed to the College Football Playoff.
On New Year’s Eve, the second-ranked Wolverines will take on No. 3 seed TCU in the Fiesta Bowl. The winner of that semifinal will advance to the national championship against either No. 1 Georgia or No. 4 Ohio State.
The game will mark Michigan’s second ever appearance in the College Football Playoff. Last season, the Wolverines earned the No. 2 seed and lost to Georgia in the Orange Bowl, 34-11.
Michigan is in the midst of a historic season, having won 13 games for the first time in program history following its second straight Big Ten championship, a title it captured with a 43-22 win over Purdue Saturday night.
The Horned Frogs, meanwhile, sit at 12-1 and will look to rebound from a 31-28 loss to Kansas State in the Big 12 Championship Game.
SPORTSWEDNESDAY
A career in the making, McCarthy’s journey has led him to this point
INDIANAPOLIS — For the second consecutive year, the Michigan football team transformed Lucas Oil Stadium into a colossal celebration. And when the main event — a 43-22 victory over Purdue in the Big Ten Championship game — gave way to the afterparty, Donovan Edwards still found himself at the center of it all.
Edwards, standing on a makeshift stage at midfield, snaked his way to the front of the scrum as his name echoed throughout the stadium. The sophomore running back had just been honored as the game’s MVP, recognition of his 185-yard, one-touchdown performance. He accepted the trophy from college football legend Archie Griffin, hoisted it above his head and glanced upwards, a drizzle of maize and blue confetti falling from the rafters.
“I rise to those occasions,” Edwards said postgame. “I thrive for that. … I believe I’m made for the big moments, you know?”
After back-to-back commanding performances in the two biggest games of Michigan’s season to date, that much is clear.
“This guy comes alive in big games,” Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh said, his voice rising an octave to emphasize “alive.” “… This guy, when it’s a big game, I mean, his whole career, whether it was high school, college, now, he just hits another gear. He takes off to another level.”
Edwards’s ascent isn’t entirely unexpected. He is a former five-star recruit who, over the past two seasons, has shown brilliant flashes. A combination of injuries and a crowded running back room, though, have limited them to just that — mere flashes.
That complexion has changed, drastically. When Blake Corum injured his knee in the second quarter of Michigan’s game against Illinois on Nov. 19, the Wolverines’ season teetered. Yes, Michigan is a complete team, but Corum was their engine, their Heisman candidate, their bellcow. Filling his void seemed impossible, especially when the Wolverines struggled to move the ball against the Illini once Corum went down.
Only one player had the potential to change that. And Edwards — after missing two games himself with a hand injury — returned last Saturday in Columbus with a vengeance. On the heels of a mundane first half performance, he exploded in the second half, tallying 216 rushing yards and two long touchdown runs. He carved up Ohio State’s defense while cradling the ball only in his left hand, his right hand still wrapped in a soft cast.
Saturday unfolded similarly. Edwards took his first four carries for six yards. By halftime, he had 11 carries for just 37 yards, while Michigan clung to a 14-13 lead.
Then Edwards came alive.
Before a number of fans could even return to their seats
from the concession lines, Edwards opened the second half with a bang. On a simple run to the left, he drew a one-on-one matchup at the line of scrimmage with Purdue cornerback Reese Taylor. Edwards juked, sent Taylor to the ground and sprinted down the far sideline for a 60-yard run. Michigan scored a touchdown four plays later. On the next drive, Edwards took care of the job himself. Receiving a handoff at Purdue’s 27 yard line, Edwards pinballed his way off seven different Boilermakers, churning up the middle and into the endzone on a Marshawn Lynch-esque carry. Five minutes into the half, the Wolverines led by 15, with Edwards to thank. “That’s who you are,” Harbaugh said postgame, looking at Edwards. “401 yards in the last two games. Amazing.” Amazing and also necessary. When Corum injured himself, Michigan didn’t want to abandon the run. For two years, the Wolverines have dominated the opposition with a bruising, physical play style predicated on a bullying offensive line and talented running backs. It’s their identity — a smashmouth, wear you down football team — and it has propelled this stunning turnaround. But without Corum, that vision no longer seemed feasible. Few could have imagined the dominance that has followed. Harbaugh — who described Corum and Edward as “two supreme backs” — was one of them. “When this is the next man up, it’s that good,” Harbaugh said, grinning. A few moments later, Harbaugh left the podium, ducking back into Michigan’s celebratory locker room. Walking down the stairs, he pointed at Edwards and pounded his chest. Edwards reciprocated. In another world, it’s Corum at the podium, healthy and brilliant. But this is Edwards’s time now, his moment, and it felt like it as he hoisted the MVP trophy, did an array of postgame standups, ran over droves of defenders. And while unfortunate circumstances have created that, it’s clear that he’s ready. Last week, charging out of the Ohio Stadium tunnel after the win, Edwards proclaimed “damn, this my stadium.” This week, in the wake of a similar performance, Edwards struck the same tone. “I would say this is our home, too,” Edwards said. “We’ve been here last year, this year, and when we did our walk-through yesterday, it was just like, yeah this is our home right now. We were completely comfortable because a bunch of us have already played here last year. It was just another day in the office.” Edwards makes it seem like that sometimes, undeterred by added burdens and unfazed by heightened stakes. He has at least one more big game to tackle, and if he can keep up this dominant stretch, well, he’ll likely have another one, too.SUPER SOPHS
NICHOLAS STOLL
Managing Sports Editor
INDIANAPOLIS — J.J. McCarthy’s patented smile seemed to peak just a little bit higher Saturday night.
The sophomore quarterback had every reason for his glee: maize and blue confetti blanketed the field at Lucas Oil Stadium, the No. 2 Michigan football team won its second-straight Big Ten title and McCarthy led his team under center to the moment of glory, hoisting the conference trophy once more.
His own stat-line — 11-for-17 for 161 yards and three touchdowns — displays the contribution McCarthy made to the 43-22 win over Purdue. Turn on the tape, and it gets even more impressive; scrambling throws across his body and frozen-ropes filled up the 11 completions, sending Michigan fans into stupor and making Boilermaker-faithful drop their jaws in disbelief.
The golden boy was finally golden.
The performance spoke for itself. Nobody in the postgame press conference asked McCarthy about how he felt he played, nobody asked Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh his thoughts on his quarterback’s performance and nobody asked sophomore running back Donovan Edwards how McCarthy’s game helped him succeed on the ground.
It was just expected of McCarthy to do what he did. He’s a player so talented that circus-plays and NFLcaliber throws are the status quo.
But, unlike Saturday, that talent hasn’t always translated to results.
“The journey has definitely been a roller coaster,” McCarthy said Saturday. “Just going back to my injury in the offseason and then obviously the competition with Cade. Cade is a great quarterback. A lot (of) it at the beginning of the year and fall camp was just focused on trying to beat him out.”
That’s nothing to underestimate in McCarthy’s journey.
Cade McNamara, too, is a Big Ten Championshipwinning quarterback. The now-Iowa transfer did it all before McCarthy as the Wolverines’ leader and QB1 last season, with McCarthy playing second fiddle. It was McNamara’s poise, his decision-making, his tact that made him a champion.
Even if McCarthy had all the talent in the world, he’d need those McNamara-esque qualities to reach the top.
After his talent won him the job in September, McCarthy’s next task was to prove he had them.
“It was like, ‘OK, now we have games to win,’ ” McCarthy said. “It was just that constant kind of — a bunch of obstacles that just made me improve in every way I possibly can.”
Obstacles they were.
McCarthy often struggled throughout the season. He was never truly bad, but as he showed glimpses of greatness within prolonged streaks of mediocrity, there was much to be desired. Missed deep passes, poor decision making and a risky affinity for contact along with other growing pains filled the narrative more than his high upside.
Still, Harbaugh held the highest praise for his prodigy: comparing McCarthy to himself.
“He’s better than me — but I mean, he reminds me of a young Jimmy Harbaugh,” Harbaugh said after Michigan’s win over Iowa on Oct. 1. “Off he goes, he drops back, and then he runs over to his left, circles back to his right, back to his left, runs it, or throws it, to an open guy. Man, I love it, I just love it.”
McCarthy could always do that — it just wasn’t consistent. He had the ability to lift the Wolverines to a victory on his very own shoulders, but he simply never put a game together and did it.
Until Nov. 26 against then-No.2 Ohio State.
McCarthy threw for 263 yards and three touchdowns, connecting on his deep balls and saving drives with his legs and arm. It was a clinic in quarterbacking. For the latter half of that game, McCarthy wasn’t just a young quarterback with heaps of talent, he was the Wolverines’ leader — a beacon of light ushering them to victory.
In Saturday’s Big Ten Championship Game, McCarthy’s light shined just as bright.
It was a culmination of McCarthy’s journey. He was often flashy and gaudy. At times, he made mistakes — such as attempting to extend a play too long and forcing a ball into coverage, resulting in an interception — a product of his inexperience. By no means was he perfect Saturday, but for the second week in a row the five-star recruit performed exactly as he was billed: great.
On Michigan’s first drive of the game, McCarthy delivered. After a double play-action, McCarthy placed a ball where only freshman tight end Colston Loveland could reach it. Through double coverage, Loveland highpointed the ball and hauled it in for a touchdown. Later, McCarthy demonstrated his mobility, rolling right to evade the Boilermaker rush, firing in stride across his body to find graduate tight end Luke Schoonmaker, putting the Wolverines up 14-10.
As a result of poised plays like those, just one season after McNamara lifted the Big Ten Championship Game trophy for the first time in program history, McCarthy found a way to lead his team to the title once again.
His journey has been winding, with a plethora of ups and downs. McCarthy spent a year as a backup, an offseason fighting for his chance and a season learning how to lead an offense. He’s done everything he can to become a winner.
Now, on the winningest Michigan football team of all time, that’s just who McCarthy is.
Wednesday, December 7, 2022 // The Statement — 2
Here marks the closing chapter of a fall semester that, to many University of Michigan students, was characterized by a series of Tinder hook-ups, bouts of religious guilt, the occasional trip to University Health Services and a whole lot of “doing it.” We here at The Statement know this because we asked, just as we have done for the past 10 years.
Indeed, on this day in 2012, The Michigan Daily debuted its first Sex Issue, detailing “gay cruising” on Craigslist and consummates dressed as crayons. Much has been done in the past decade, and we have had the pleasure of documenting it all — the good, the bad and the dirty. So alas, welcome to the 2022 Sex Edition — or as some may call it, the “heated fellowship” edition.
In November, the Statement and Web team distributed a survey to all 51,225 University of Michigan students on the Ann Arbor campus, both undergraduate and graduate. Of those, we received 4,915 respondents — a sample your STATS 250 professor would approve of.
Demographic results indicate that 18% of the respondents were freshmen, 19% sophomores, 19% juniors, 20% seniors and 24% graduate students. 59% of respondents identify as being a woman, 36% as men, 3% as non-binary, 1% as gender-queer and 1% as other. The distribution of respondents’ sexual orientation was recorded as 63% heterosexual, 18% bisexual, 7% lesbian/gay, 5% queer, 3% asexual, 2% pansexual and 2% other.
It is important to note that statistics resulting from this survey may be skewed, as many individuals may have withheld information detailed in the questionnaire, refrained from answering certain questions and/or may have answered questions dishonestly. We also recognize the presence of survey bias in those who chose to participate, as some respondents are perhaps more open to discussing sex-related topics or are more prone to checking The Michigan Daily emails through which the survey was distributed.
Additionally, we are cognizant of, and made appropriate adjustments to, an omission error made in a demographic question inquiring about the respondent’s college. Out of the options offered, our survey failed to include a select few colleges, namely SMTD and STAMPS. As a result, there may be partial error in results utilizing college as a variable, as
The Statement 2022 Sex Survey
such responses were sub JULIA VERKLAN MALONEY Statement Deputy Editor ject to re-categorization after the survey’s closure. We also would like to acknowledge the presence of heteronormative phrasing present within select questions and answer choices. In particular, we recognize that the discussion of contraception and safe-sex practices may be non-representative of certain sexual orientations, particularly those who partake in non-heterosexual sex and do not engage with standard forms of contraception. We apologize for any harm we may have caused with this discrepancy and understand that this lapse may have caused a potential skew in data.
Results
To be frank, it wouldn’t be a sex survey without a statistically significant amount of sex. The results are in: 62% of the campus population has had sex this semester, a number that is seven percentage points shy of an innuendo (maybe next year!). But it is also a number that, when stripped down, reveals broader truths surrounding students’ views, motivations, preferences and background of all things sex. So, to begin, let’s go back to basics: sex-ed.
Sex Education and Safe Sex Practices
A majority of student respondents (30%) first learned about sex through the internet/social media, followed by through friends at 24%. Hence, our education system still appears to be lacking in terms of sufficient sex-ed, as only 17% of respondents first learned about sex from school. And regardless of when and how respondents first learned about sex, 40% perceive their sex education as a largely negative experience that was both uninformaRead more at MichiganDaily.com
tive and unhelpful.
When asked about how sex education could be improved, many writein responses indicated the need for outlined steps to achieve female pleasure, how to engage in queer sex, clear definitions of consent, ways to detect sexual coercion and a comprehensive list of the best safe-sex practices.
Perhaps to make up for such a lack of scholastic instruction, some University students have expanded their sexual skillset through ‘experiential learning’ outside of the classroom. Specifically, the survey finds that graduate students studying within the School of Social Work are having the most sex this semester, often seven or more times a week. And those within the College of Engineering are presumptively doing too much homework and the least amount of dirty-work: 45% report that they have not had sex this semester, the lowest rate of sex observed across all of the colleges represented in the survey.
Whether “doing it” a little or a lot, the majority of students use condoms (‘male condoms’ or ‘female condoms’) to ensure safesex. Additionally, 38% of students have used or are currently using some form of contraceptive, be it the birth control pill, IUD, implant, etc. Again, it is important to note that the survey questions surrounding contraception aligned mostly with heterosexual sex and consequentially did not collect data on PrEP users, etc.
But for the 10% of students who rely on withdrawal and the 2% who do not use any form of safe sex practice, we here at the Statement would like to cordially invite you to explore University provided resources to make certain that you and your partner(s) are having the safest of sex.
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Sex in the classroom
EMILY BLUMBERG Statement Correspondent
Though they both take up space in our collective consciousness, sexual encounters and academic spaces typically reside on opposite ends of the campus spectrum. It’s what makes this 2006 Daily article about how to have sex in the stacks of Hatcher Graduate Library so entertaining. Though the authors say it’s a rite of passage, the article’s guide to “hav(ing) your ‘O.’ Right between the ‘N’ and ‘P’” has seemingly been lost to time.
When we think about sex in college, the last places we’re thinking of are the bustling stairways of Mason Hall or the graffitied bathrooms of Angell. Sex, which for the purposes of this article encompasses physical intimacy and attraction, is not generally associated with the academic experience. Sterile academic buildings and numbing classroom pressures do a fantastic job at squashing our libido.
But for the majority of students, sex is a frequent fold of the social fabric of college life.
We’re used to hearing about the trials and tribulations of hookup culture — a social phenomenon (often associated with college-aged persons) in which sexual intercourse and emotional intimacy aim (and often fail) to be entirely separate entities. It’s the friend who spent a Thursday night glued to their phone, waiting for a text invitation to that North Campus boy’s one-bedroom apartment. It’s the roommate who keeps a sexual partner despite not even finding them pleasant to be around. Or it’s your own realization that your classmate’s dorm bed you’ve landed in every Friday night for the past month will most likely never care to take you on a date.
Hookup culture is pervasive, and it has real-time consequences for those who don’t benefit from it. Past Statement sex surveys show stark disparities in orgasm frequency and sexual satisfaction between men and women/nonbinary respondents, this year as no exception. In every night out, every swipe right or left, every hungover debrief, the collegiate cultural expectations of sexual encounters influence what we do, who we do and how we feel about it.
We know sexual intimacy is often less than positive for Michigan students. We know hookup culture contributes to the ways we sacrifice what we really want to act out the social scripts we’ve been provided with. But we forget to look further than our experiences and those of our social circles. We forget that the heteronormative, rigid culture surrounding sex at this powerful university institution is, in and of itself, also a powerful institution — one that warrants critical study and thinking.
Teaching sex
Classes at the University that discuss the social and cultural influences of sex are relatively new. The Women’s and Gender Studies Department was born just about 50 years ago, in 1973. A biology class on human sexuality was first introduced in 1985. NURS/WGS 220: Perspectives in Women’s Health, an introductory course that dedicates significant time to the female orgasm, made its course guide debut in 1991.
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Love notes from an asexual girl
DANIELLE CANAN Statement Correspondent
There’s a succulent on my windowsill. I’ve been trying to propagate it for about a year now. But I’m starting to discover a distinct lack of green in my thumb.
When I was fresh out of high school and looking toward the big move to college — the first major tectonic shift in my life — I felt like bottled lightning. I was itching to leave my small hometown on Michigan’s west coast.
Sometimes, when electricity fills my body to the brim, I feel like I have to snap my fingers to let some of it go. Snap. Finally, I’ll be intellectually challenged. Snap. I’ll make friends with people who are just like me. Snap. Maybe I’ll finally meet someone. Maybe I’ll fall in love.
Well, my freshman year of college must have been made of plastic; it deflected my energy at every turn. Because of COVID-19, I wasn’t really allowed to leave my dorm room or let other people in. There were no more than two meal options in the dining hall either. I waited on the edge of my seat for years to be where I was, but after arriving there I found my college experience to be virtually nonexistent. Needless to say, I was barely meeting anyone, platonically or romantically.
When I found the word “asexual” during my sophomore year it was through word of mouth and YouTube comment sections. An entire facet of my experience with love thus far, or lack thereof, could suddenly be communicated with one word.
And I kind of thought finding the asexual label and claiming it would be the end of my needing to figure anything out about my love life. The discovery of sexual identity is a journey all on its own, and I felt like finding a label that fit me should be the end of it, maybe because I needed a break from analyzing myself so much. I was definitely wrong. Self-scrutinization doesn’t take breaks.
Lately, I haven’t been able to wrap my head around how I’m supposed to know who I like if the sexual attraction piece is missing. I feel like a bat trying to fly without echolocation. Or like I’ve been dropped in the middle of the Sahara Desert with a broken compass and a dream. I’ll walk in circles forever, muttering, “Girls or guys? Or everyone? Or no one?” till I die of heat exhaustion. Or worse, die alone.
Read more at MichiganDaily.com
Let’s talk date parties, pseudo-consent and transactional sex
ELLA KOPELMAN Statement Columnist
“He tried to kiss me like eight times,” my friend said as she casually took a sip from her iced coffee — her mascara from the night before smudged under her eyes.
“He did what?” I asked.
“I kept telling him it wouldn’t be a good idea, but he was so drunk he just kept leaning in. It was crazy,” she chuckled uncomfortably, as if remembering an off-color joke.
Our group of friends sat around the living room, disheveled and numbingly hungover. When we each took our turn in the sacred “morning debrief,” I was appalled at the stories coming from each one of my girl friends after the fraternity date party we attended the night before. A lot of my friends’ testimonies seemed to carry a similar theme: One of pseudo-consent, with many of their male dates behaving under the impression that a date party invite meant implicit consent, consent that lasted all night and expired at sunrise.
That all their nights would end in an inevitable, albeit not explicitly-consensual hookup.
“You know that’s not okay, right?” I inquired wearily.
Intrinsically, we all knew this behavior was not okay, but that didn’t stop the stories from the night before to be told with a casual lightness — with us all too afraid to address the underlying level of discomfort. With each story of one of my friends being groped or continually hit on by her date, I became increasingly disgusted. I began to wonder why this was coming up now.
My friends and I go out to bars and parties on a regular basis without having to withstand such blatant lack of respect for our bodies. There was something about this outing — The Date Party — that made the notion of consent feel different.
Date parties are a common occurrence on college campuses in many student organizations. While they have origins in college Greek Life communities, they also occur frequently in professional fraternities and other organizations, like prelaw frats, pre-health frats and other university clubs.
LSA Sophomore Jenna Al-Nouri has experience with date parties as a member of both a social sorority and a professional pre-health fraternity. Thankfully, Al-Nouri hasn’t had a date party experience in which a date has pressured her into feeling like hooking up was the only way to end the night. But, she is still aware that this culture exists. She reminisced on a time when a male friend of hers stated that he “wanted to bring a date that he could hook up with.”
Al-Nouri recognizes the disrespect toward a woman’s boundaries that is often heightened around date party season and has come up with ways to combat this negativity while still preserving the fun of the event.
Design by Serena Shen Read more at MichiganDaily.com
Sex or scripture? The Madonna-Whore complex
VALERIJA MALASHEVICH Statement Correspondent
Sex, in a sense, has become one of the most commercialized phenomena of our evolutionary biology. Evolving for over 2 billion years, the first archaeological record of penetrative intercourse dates to 385 million years ago between prehistoric fish named Microbrachius dicki (giggle now if you need to).
Since the time of Mycenae Greece, however, sex has been streamlined into embodying the more sociocultural aspects of our societies, with the biological effects of pregnancy and disease being redefined as a simple and banal prologue to the complex and emotionally-enriching processes of sexual intimacy.
Often the source of drama and action in art as much as in real life, sex has come to define humanity and its transience, influencing political beliefs and policy, cultural and structural development of societies and our self-identity and relationships. The psychology of sex, in a way, supersedes its physicality because the meaning behind the act distorts our cultural values more so than physical penetration ever could.
The most notable contributions to our contemporary values of sex stem from the works of psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud, who rose to prominence for his outlandish (and often correct) hypotheses about sex.
Of the most striking — and trust me, there’s a lot — notions is the foundation and definition of the Madonna-Whore complex. The term came about when the shifty, yet often spoton, psychoanalyst had observed a strange dichotomy in his male patients, who came to him complaining that they didn’t feel any sexual desires for their wives as they did for prostitutes.
Mostly applicable to heteronormative ideals of sex, this complex, as defined by Freud, is the black-and-white splitting of female partners into two groups: the chaste and virtuous Madonna, and the immoral and promiscuous Whore. Freud illustrated the paradoxical nature of this phenomenon by explaining that “where men love, they have no desire and where they desire, they cannot love.” This theory turns respect and attraction into mutually exclusive traits, with tumultuous implications in the scope of sexual dynamics.
What drew me in about this complex was the absurdity of this subconscious rationale, how the male-centered fallacy views a woman’s modesty as a determinant of the respect she is owed, and the implication that a woman who has liberated herself from the anxiety of social scrutiny ought to be ousted from the societal hierarchy.
A DECADE OF SEX 2012
2022
