A radically anti-conservative agenda and biennial campus series known as “Sex Week” are blamed for the alleged corruption of one of the nation’s most prestigious universities.
When Harden arrived at Yale, he was shocked and horrified by what he found. Somehow, just a few years prior to his arrival, the porn industry had inveigled its way onto Yale’s campus under the guise of sexual education during the 11 days of “Sex Week” programming in the spring. Wildly popular among students, Sex Week inundates Yale’s elite student body with lots of talk about sex and tons of free sex toys, condoms and dirty movies. Porn stars like Sasha Gray and Ron Jeremy visit as guest lecturers, taking part in supposedly high-minded panel discussions about human sexuality and the art of pleasure. For Harden, it was all too much and entirely indicative of Yale’s decadent descent into a liberal morass. To his chagrin, naked bedroom romps were even becoming part of his language teacher’s lesson plans. Many of Harden’s targets—topless instructors, unctuous lube seminars and abortion-themed art projects—are easily derided, but other objects of derision, such as a yoga-heavy speech class the author took as part of the drama program, appear suspect. While his tone is relentlessly snarky and dismissive throughout, the author does manage to raise a few important issues about the continued objectification of women and the cheapening of sexual intercourse among college students. He attributes much of Yale’s woes to the university’s long-ago split with its religious roots as a divinity school for colonial elites. While that reasoning may be too ideological for many to seriously entertain, the author’s concern about what students at Yale are learning is valid.
Provocative but regularly flippant.