S&M clubs, nude parties, porn, X-rated romps rule at Columbia University
Pastor Dale Morgan
*S&M clubs, nude parties, porn, X-rated romps rule at Columbia University*
BY DOUGLAS FEIDEN
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER
Chris Kulawik (r.), head of the College Republicans, says he's outraged
by slide in science class comparing President Bush with a monkey. Marine
reservist Matt Sanchez (l.) says he was called a 'baby killer' for
pro-war views.
Famed as a hotbed of debate over academic freedom, New York's most elite
school is also a playpen for sexual hijinks, sophomoric antics and the
wacky indulgences of the children of the rich.
While their parents shell out $33,246 a year in tuition, Columbia
University students doff their clothes at naked parties, flock to sex
toys workshops, broadcast porn on campus TV, bake anatomically correct
pies for the "Erotic Cake-Baking Contest" and heat up the steps of the
Low Library in a mass makeout session called the "Big Kiss."
And of course, there's always the stimulating game, "Guess the Number of
Condoms in the Jelly-Bean Jar."
Others volunteer for the bullwhip at Conversio Virium, the
university-sanctioned S&M club that means "exchange of power" in Latin.
It calls itself a "discussion group" that provides "education and peer
support" and promotes "safe, sane and consensual play." But the club
doesn't just talk.
Late on the night of Nov. 13, a Daily News reporter sat in room 303 of
Hamilton Hall, a venerable classroom building where Columbia students
have studied Poe, Plato and Plutarch for nearly 100 years.
As a female student volunteer stood facing the blackboard, and two dozen
Columbians watched, a lecturer who identified himself only as Dov
flogged her repeatedly with leather whips, rubber hoses - and a
cat-o'-nine-tails.
"I'm Dov, and these are my toys," he said, and for the next 14 minutes
he demonstrated lashing techniques. The activity was consensual, but the
squeals of delight mingled with the occasional yelps of pain.
Columbia would make no specific comment on the club or the flogging
incident. Ivy Leaguers were unaware the reporter was in attendance. Dov
is not employed by the school, which doesn't police or censor club
activities.
Referring only to student organizations generally, spokesman Robert
Hornsby said the "university has a limited role in regulating student
speech or private conduct."
The result: Columbia Gone Wild.
New York's Smartest still dream of winning a Nobel Prize. And bookworms
still pull all-nighters in the Butler Library. But the 2 million-volume
monument to the mind, which stays open 24 hours a day, doubles as a
temple of earthier desires.
"Having sex in the stacks of Butler Library is one of the ultimate
Columbia experiences," said Miriam Datskovsky, the sex columnist for The
Spectator, the student newspaper.
"There's very little dating. It's predominately a hookup scene," said
the 21-year-old, a senior from an Orthodox Jewish background who writes
the "Sexplorations" column.
"Everything is so much easier and so much quicker - you go to dinner and
then have sex," she added.
Consider the party scene. But it's no reason to get dressed up. In fact,
there's no reason to get dressed at all: The merrymakers of Morningside
Heights host naked parties, lingerie-only parties - and the more
bourgeois "clothing-optional parties with naked rooms."
And taxpayers indirectly foot a chunk of the tab because bond offerings
and loans from the state Dormitory Authority and federal Department of
Education partially fund the renovation of dorms where naked frolickers
muster.
Columbia wouldn't comment on this use of university space. Lee
Bollinger, the school's $779,673-a-year president and a world-class
expert on free speech, wasn't available.
The soirees aren't exactly orgies: "It's more like naked students
sitting around drinking martinis, defying societal conventions and
trying to act nonchalant at the same time," said Birk Oxholm, a religion
major who graduated last year.
"They're trying to act like it's not about sex. But they're not really
succeeding," he added.
One hostess, who staged a Halloween-themed "Naked Witches & Warlocks
Party" last month, called it a "great unshackling from the clothing that
so defines and imprisons us." But it was a "sex-neutral event," she said.
The same cannot be said of several X-rated campus happenings:
# "Sex Toys 101." The university's Health Services division teamed up
with Toys in Babeland, a SoHo sex shop, to host a sex toys workshop in
John Jay Hall on Feb. 15.
Though it was part of "Safer Sex Week," the playthings on display on W.
114th St. included bondage and S&M tools like whips, paddles, "floggers"
and "slappers."
# "Sexhibition." The annual campus sex fair, held in April, featured
phallic ring toss games, orgasm-for-beginners workshops and discreet
liaisons in the "Tent of Consent."
# "Thug Play with Princess Wendy." Another session of the S&M club,
taking place Oct. 30 in Hamilton Hall, was advertised as "beating,
punching and slamming boys into lockers, and why bullies are so so so
much fun!"
The speaker discussed "boot service," the "fine art of humiliation" and
how a $5 meat mallet can be used as a toy. But "Princess Wendy" also
provided safety tips, counseling students to avoid kicking one another
in the kidneys and spine.
"I like to hurt people," she said. "I don't like to send them to the
hospital."
She also advised some 30 devotees, "If you're new to kicking and
trampling, start out slow."
Conversio Virium's officers declined to address questions. Columbia's
student activities coordinator, a university employee who advises the
club, didn't respond to an e-mail.
But the Baltimore-based National Coalition for Sexual Freedom, which
advocates for S&M groups, contacted The News at the request of the students.
"Educating people about the safest flogging techniques so they don't
accidentally strike the kidneys is responsible behavior," said
spokeswoman Susan Wright. "Basically, what they're doing is S&M 101."
# "Smut TV." CTV, Columbia's in-house, student-run TV station, has a
faculty adviser, uses school equipment and space, gets $5,021 a year in
student activity fees - and is hungry for new viewers.
So at 10 p.m. on Oct. 17, it entered the hard-core porn business:
Broadcasting into scores of dorms and lounges, it aired a five-minute
clip, downloaded from the Internet, of a naked couple engaged in sex.
The footage ran during a sex advice show called "Sexiled" - which is
student slang for getting kicked out of one's room so a roommate can
have sex - and even some jaded Columbians who'd tuned in said they were
offended.
CTV, which isn't edited, censored or monitored by the administration,
said in a statement that airing porn was a "lapse of judgment." It was
"inconsistent with broadcast standards" and won't happen again, said
Alisa Gross and Nihar Shah, CTV's student co-presidents.
# "The Naked Run." In the chill of November, at the stroke of midnight,
a group of exhibitionists, led by the track team, dons running sneakers
- and nothing else - for a sprint down College Walk and up Broadway.
So does anything go at Columbia? Actually, no. Flogging and bondage are
accepted, but the school apparently draws the line at another form of
communication between the sexes: love letters.
They were good enough for Cleopatra, who sent them to Mark Antony, and
F. Scott Fitzgerald, who exchanged them with his wife, Zelda. But
Columbia University Health Services lists love letters as a form of
nonphysical sexual harassment, according to its Web site.
"What's next for Columbia? Objecting to a little ankle?" said Greg
Lukianoff, president of the Foundation for Individual Rights in
Education, a nonpartisan free speech watchdog group that examines academia.