Everything forbidden is infinitely more desirable. Roommate's birthday cake waiting on the counter; professors; your bestie's gorgeous new party dress. Given that natural psychosis, we're very curious about the sex lives of the University of Georgia's men's basketball team. Why? The team's rule-book prohibits the guys from engaging in orgies—which tells us that that there must be some serious secret orgy-ing going on in Athens.
Yes. It actually says: "Stay out of gray areas. Orgies and gang bangs are inappropriate."
The story goes that a crop of journalism students at the University of Maryland stumbled across this seemingly bizarre rule while conducting research about the extent of social media coverage of college athletes. While the media is largely focusing on that one group sex rule, it's only when taken out of context that the whole "no orgy" thang seems so outlandish and odd. When in context, the policy almost makes sense. The guidebook include an entire section on how to *treat women. (*Not get into any legal trouble and lose your scholarship.)
Alongside the orgy rule were more sensible ones including:
- No means no, date rape is a serious issue:
- You don't own your girlfriend.
- Never assault or intimidate a woman.
- Birth control is your responsibility too.
There are a few more, uh, limiting rules about sex as well:
- Don't spend all your energy in the bed all night.
- Hickeys/passion marks should not ever be noticed by coaches
- One. Not two or three girlfriends . . .
It's actually really cool that they include this in their policy. It's well known that colleges have had difficulties properly addressing cases of sexual assault; rape is a shockingly common occurrence on college campuses: it's estimated that a student body of 10,000 will experience 350 occurrences of rape per year. We say "estimated" because most rapes go unreported. Research suggests that 60% of sexual assaults are never reported to the police.
The effort to change these statistics is happily evident in the University of Georgia's basketball team's policies. That being said, have they gone a bit too far in forbidding orgies and the happy carousel of dating multiple partners? Sure, they want their players to have good reputations and respect women—we get it and we like it. But when these rules are presented in context with "no means no," we're concerned that kinkier dudes (like the ones that are into orgies) may feel ashamed of what turns them on.
Then again, is limiting the sexual exploration/quirks of college men a small sacrifice to pay for increased awareness of sexual assault as a whole?
Image: Shooting hoops, while respecting women. Courtesy of, Facebook
