This comment from Reddit describes why college students want to go back to campus:
Yes, I am coming back to Westwood.
Why?
For the sex.
There was a thread a while back that asked everyone why they were coming back. In said post, it seemed like OP’s intention was to shame everyone for overlooking the risks of spreading the virus. The OP in that thread couldn’t fathom why anyone would want to move back to live on or near campus for the Fall. To me, however, the motivations driving this phenomenon are clear.
The thing is that, while many responded to the thread with benign and innocuous explanations, I believe a primary, albeit relatively unspoken motivation, is that people simply miss the casual sex or the potential thereof that is afforded by being in a college environment.
If you think about what living in Westwood–or any college town for that matter–entails, it becomes clear how unique the situation we’re in truly is. For most of us, at no point in our lives will we again be in an environment that affords such freedom: freedom of movement, association, and sexuality without the freight of certain aspects of life that materialize as we grow old: marriage, kids, career, mortgages, declining libido, etc. At this moment many of us can do whatever we want, relatively. I mean, as one example, people are throwing block parties and lighting fires in the street and then waking up the next day like nothing happened. I can’t imagine us having the freedom or ability to that stuff at age 35, not to mention the motivation.
Think about it.
You’re living among tens of thousands of (generally) same-aged, good-looking, like-minded, horny young adults all within a 1-2 mile radius. Mind you, this is all happening essentially unsupervised. There are no parents or guardians to enforce where you can be, go, or do. The only supervision are RAs or other housing officials. Other than that, their willingness to give a fuck about what you do is only a function of how far you conspicuously step out of line according to their policies. Aside from this, you’re left to your own devices. For students livings in apartments, the amount of supervision falls drastically in comparison. They are bogged down and hindered even less by the rules and policies of those on the Hill. You’re in the in-between stage transitioning from adolescence to adulthood. A stage where our respective psychosocial moratoriums lead us to try new things and take bold leaps in the search to settle on our new identities. The lack of supervision, mixed with this new freedom, plus the ubiquity of horny people all around you is a strong draw. Sex is inevitable. And lots of it, too.
Overall a majority of students living near UCLA are free to do whatever - free of the restriction and supervision they would otherwise be subject to from their family and community back home. My contention is that this in essence makes UCLA one giant orgy. It’s like a marketplace for ‘‘free’’ casual sex for those who meet a minimum threshold, i.e. social and sexual competence. Even for those who aren’t as skilled in this department, such as myself, the simple lure or promise of such activity can evoke within them a strong urge to remain present in the environment so that they may be able to compete and potentially receive a sliver of the big steamy sex pie that is UCLA.
Whether folks realize or care to admit it, I believe this is one of the bigger motivations for wanting to come back. Being at UCLA means having sex. Now, whether these desires actually come to fruition for many of us is a different story. But, regardless, opportunities are abundant if you know how to maneuver yourself socially, which makes UCLA a desirable place to be, notwithstanding whether classes are in a physical classroom or not. The social and therefore sexual opportunities are abundant wherever you’re in a place with few restrictions, little supervision, where a large number of similarly situated individuals all live.
But COVID ruins everything - almost.
When you imagine the amount of sex that will not happen at UCLA that otherwise would’ve happened barring the existence of COVID-19, the numbers are staggering. Simply estimate the total number of sexual interactions that occurred between students in any given year at UCLA as a result of their being at UCLA; let’s assume that we’re talking about thousands upon thousands of individual sex acts in any given year and that they’re fairly consistent from year to year. Now imagine a spread sheet of data that lists every sexual act committed by horny Bruin across West LA in, let’s say, 2019, e.g. blow jobs, hand jobs, anal sex, fingering, regular penetration, ass eating, etc. You now have a A LOT of data points that could fill a huge spreadsheet. You’d be scrolling all day through all these data until it hit you:
Gasp UCLA is one freaking giant orgy, Eric was right.
That in mind, it’s safe to say that a lot of sex is usually had at UCLA. Let’s make up a number and assume it’s 45,000 acts of sex that are facilitated because of one’s presence at or near UCLA in a normal year. (Idk, I’m just making assumptions, bear with me.)
What kind of a drop in sexual activity might there be because of COVID? 60% less sex? 70%? 80%? The gathering of students and the activities that foster these dyadic interactions are severely reduced in capacity or cancelled altogether, e.g. parties, club events, libraries, dorms, classroom interactions, study groups, random interactions, gyms, etc. So if you take a population like those living on the hill and assume that 15,000 acts of sex occurred there last year, well now because of COVID, we’re talking about thousands of sex acts that will no longer happen as “planned.” For instance, 5,000 blow jobs on the hill will be reduced to about 1,000 if you assume an 80% drop.
In other words, there are a lot of scheduled blow jobs and hand jobs that will NOT be occurring because of COVID-19. Let’s keep in mind that many of these blow jobs exist in a vacuum. In other words, they only exist or would’ve existed if students were on the hill as normal at max capacity. These acts of sex won’t be made up anywhere else, which means many students will be severely missing out, and will never get those opportunities back. A lot of us know this. We fear this. We don’t like this potential outcome. So, we want to come back to take a sliver of the shrinking but still yielding sex pie at UCLA because it’s better than nothing. It might be a smaller orgy, but it’s still an orgy nonetheless.
Now, there’s an argument to be made that if you’re competent enough, you’ll get sex no matter what. And therefore the lost sex acts I assume in my analysis will be made up by students at home, in their hometowns, through dating apps and such. This is reportedly easier if you’re a woman. And that, overall, it doesn’t matter if you’re at UCLA or not. The sex that was going to happen will still be had. On the other hand, while that may be true to an extent–and the case for some–for many others there are far too many social, psychological, familial and physical hindrances that will prevent them from having the same sexual opportunities at home compared to UCLA. Being here is the great facilitator for many. And you lose these affordances once you exit the environment. Thus, I believe there will be a significant amount of sex and sexual opportunities that will be ripped from us because of COVID and our inability to be at UCLA or gather in the same manner as before.
That said, I wonder what this means for our mental health? Will the drop in sexual activity lead to students being even more depressed? I’d like to see someone do a study on the impact of COVID on sexual activity on college campuses and the subsequent effects on mental health. I think it’s an important topic worth delving into.
In all, I believe this is one of the bigger motivations for wanting to come back to live in Westwood. People simply want to have sex and fear missing out. And I’m definitely no exception.