and hold on

tonight was the 'glamour ball,' i.e., the re-named and slightly less raunchy sleaze ball. of course, traditionally, the sleaze ball was second to the fall's much more sexy "coming out dance," at which i was officially initiated into the sarah lawrence college community by seeing a classmate jerk off another classmate onto some girl. yes. i'm not exaggerating at all. these are commonplace acts at sleaze/coming out dances. for this reason among others, last year both dances were cancelled. mainly because 11-15 people each night had to get their stomachs pumped. so this year they're trying to re-invent the whole queer week thing by calling it "glamour week." it's a 'new leaf' that slc is apparently turning over, since the coming out dance had become way more about boobies than its original anti-homophobic angle. it was the frat party without the holier than thou validation factor, which i enjoyed nonetheless.


(amy and nick before the coming out dance sophmore year.)

i wish i knew how describe my experience of coming out dance for the first two years here. justin once said, "you only have fun at the coming out dance if you go to the hospital." they would literally just line up ambulances outside of bates, and if they saw some guy kind of falling all over the place they'd just take him away, clean as a whistle. it's held in the cafeteria, and the booths are specifically for having sex in. people come naked. it's really exactly what you'd expect from a school like this.

so tonight was the new and improved glamour ball. which was pretty much the exact same thing, except with one light turned on, 200 fewer people, no sex, and less dance music. more clothing too. i remember feeling shamed that i hadn't come in underwear when i was a freshman. tonight the craziest person was just wearing one of those silver lame leotards from american apparel.

i've only been here for four years, and i've seen the college atmosphere go from one extreme to something completely different. where's the gay royalty? where's the glitter? high heels? even the much-hated neon thong peeking out over stone washed mc hammer pants...at this point i'd take it! i'm glad in a way that it's over, because it makes me realize that certain social phenomena really truly are specific to certain time periods. by this i mean: what makes people wear this crazy shit isn't sarah lawrence, it's the general cultural climate of the years they attend. which is kind of cool when you think about it.