No, Freshers' Week Isn't Just About Having Sex

Sexual assault, peer pressure and female objectification are far from humorous. Satire isn't satire when it's kicking down another group. It only creates a bad perspective for incoming students of student life and a bad image of current students, implying this is what everyone's freshers was like and therefore yours should be too.

According to fellow HuffPost UK student blogger Jamie England, freshers' week at university is all about the sex. In his detailed 600-word breakdown of how you should spend your first week at university, he explains "you simply must bang". It's not just the obvious peer pressure he is placing on incoming students, who will be nervous enough as it is meeting new people, but it's the outright sexism and misogynistic language in which he describes the way you should go about it.

He starts off describing women as a "house" and part of a "market" at university, as if we are property to be bought, traded, upgraded and sold. Sorry what? Is this 2014 or 1914? Girls in freshers' week are not there for your sexual pleasure, nor are they there for you to "get your foot on the ladder". Again, the ladder analogy indicating we are there to be ranked on our appearances by fellow students and its game to see who can move up the fastest. He claims the object, being the woman, "is highly disposable", fantastic language to describe to incoming freshers how they should view female peers.

Following on from describing women as a commodity to be bartered with, he goes on to describe how it's good to be desperate in your quest for awkward sex. How you should "pinch your friend's graft while he/she nips to the toilet". Again, describing women as a possession to be "pinched" from your newly found friends, great first impression you will be making. You may argue he is being gender neutral using "he/she", but the "every man must fight for himself" at the beginning of the paragraph clears that up.

Apparently universities and bars are "in cahoots regarding the sexual endeavours of their newest undergrads," I'm sure that's going to fill many young female students with confidence, knowing their institutions are going to be aiding these sexual predators in their pursuits. The article deteriorates even more, leading to a joke about sexual assault, "if you can pull a member of the opposite sex out of a bar and into your bed (not literally, do NOT literally pull anyone)". It's good to see he can joke about such serious issues such as rape and sexual assault which are a known problem across university campuses.

For example in 2010, a study by the National Union of Students found that one in seven women experienced a serious physical or sexual assault during their time as a student. At my own university last year, the small market town of Lancaster, a fresher was raped in our Student Union toilets and another two young women were raped in the town over the academic year.

Though he may have been intending to be funny, as the edit at the bottom of the page states "it was just satire", sexual assault, peer pressure and female objectification are far from humorous. Satire isn't satire when it's kicking down another group. It only creates a bad perspective for incoming students of student life and a bad image of current students, implying this is what everyone's freshers was like and therefore yours should be too.

Do not set out to "fuck in freshers" as if it was your only goal for the week and birthright as a new student; it's not and if you hold the same attitude as this article spouts I can't see it leading anywhere good. If you want to read more about rape culture at university, check out the It Happens Here campaign and also these great articles by Jinan Younis and Radhika Sanghani.

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