After playing hard to get all through December, it seems Old Man Winter has finally decided to put out, and just in time for Winter Carnival. Phew. So, this being the Winter Carnival issue, this article is supposed to have something to do with winter, and, this being the sex column, this article is supposed to have something to do with sex. One would think that plunging temperatures would be a significant deterrent to the removal of ones clothes. Though there is some discord, many Dartmouth students take the cold in stride. As one male states, "More winter clothing to take off means hotter foreplay."
Some students are not quite convinced. According to a female respondent, "The guy I'm hooking up with lives in a fraternity house and the heat in his room doesn't work. Also, he doesn't understand the concept of having sheets, blankets, or a comforter on his bed. He only uses a sleeping bag. This means that he usually has to work extremely hard to convince me to even take off my sock in his freezing room. I'm from the South and I think the weather here definitely limits how much people have sex during Winter term."
Though the majority of respondents reported that their level of activity remained the same, there were some respondents (14 percent of females and 12 percent of males) who reported that their level or frequency of sexual activity actually increases during the Winter term. One male respondent offers a hypothesis which may account for this result: "I live off campus and it takes about 15 minutes walking to get from frat row to my apartment. A lot of times I'll end up spending the night with someone in order to avoid walking back in the cold, which often results in sexual activity that wouldn't otherwise have been available."
Another male describes a sexual experience he had as a result of his efforts to stay warm with his partner. "I got my first hand job during my freshman Winter Carnival. It was one of those situations where we were huddling together for warmth, and before I knew it my pants were off. It was a fun experience, but my legs got kinda cold."
No discussion relating to winter at Dartmouth would be complete without the consideration of winter sports. From now on, I'm going to wash my ski pants more frequently, because numerous commentators report having had sex in ski gondolas. One man, who is perhaps steadily working his way up to gondola groping, comments, "I felt a girl up on a ski chairlift once."
While the majority of students do not feel that their libidos are affected by the winter season, one man comments that whatever difference he might notice may be linked to skiing: "If there's any reason that I feel my libido affected during the winter, it's certainly because I get much of the same gratification from skiing. There's nothing quite like a full on day of skiing followed by a hot tub and apres-sex." Although she was not actually having sex while participating in a winter sport, one female respondent describes how she and her boyfriend utilized sports metaphors in the bedroom: "My boyfriend and I played together on a hockey team freshman winter, and for the whole term he would bemoan how he couldn't score for our team. So we reenacted the games during sex -- the metaphors come pretty easy seeing as he had a 'stick' and I had a 'goal' or 'net,' if you will -- so that he could 'score,' if not on the ice then at least in the sack. Sometimes we did commentary to go along with it. Yeah, so I guess you keep yourself amused in stupid ways in the winter."
Winter Carnival is upon us, complete with an influx of visiting alumni. Almost half of females and the majority of males report being open to the idea of hooking up with an alum.
"I pine away each day recounting the nights of yore when I would be tossed around with wild abandon by any number of visiting alumni," one woman said. "Never mind the young runts proliferating in frat basements these days, give me some REAL men!!! I even rented a bigger bed this term in anticipation of the Winter Carnival weekend. (And I'm actually kind of serious.) THEIR libido is what keeps me going through the winter months."
