The D-spot

Author: Dina Magaril

On a campus as green as Middlebury's we may not think twice about recycling, but simply do it, an action that when applied to waste products is completely beneficial to the environment. But have we absentmindedly started to apply this policy to our relationships? In Middlebury, we all too often sexcycle. Sexcycling can be defined as the following: "to undergo reuse by passing on previous thrown out hookups onto one's friends."

Sexcycling is not helping the environment, more specifically, the social/potential relationship environment at Middlebury. Unlike the technologies employed in turning a Coke bottle into a Gucci coat lining, a sexcycler and sexcyclee will be the same person on Friday night that they were on Saturday. That guy who treated your friend like a used deck of cards, playing her week after week. Well, he's still the same guy and just because he's sexcycled doesn't mean he has been sent back to the factory for a new shiny packaging. That girl who couldn't commit to either you or her high school boyfriend? Sleeping with your roommate is probably not going to change her mind. Of course, there are those rare occasions where the sexcycling process actually proves beneficial, and that girl or guy that didn't work for you ends up really happy with your friend, but this is usually the exception, not the norm.

But to understand the essence of sexcycling, we must first look at what causes us to sexcycle in the first place. The number one reason? Limited resources. We are a school of about 2,400 students. If we estimate that there are 600 students per grade and an even male to female student ratio and we are hooking up with an average of five people per grade per year per social circle, then by senior year, our resources are close to running out. If you thought greenhouse gases were scary, imagine the possibility of a celibate senior year.

And so, out of fear that this is the end of the line, we recycle. We call up our sophomore hook up. We look through our phones for names we could have missed, for potential mates we may have overlooked when we were too busy being picky. That boy from your freshman hall finally went through his growth spurt and after his acne cleared up isn't looking so bad. That cute blond from you writing seminar? Finally got those braces off and is looking her age. So we make do with the resources we have. We reconnect. We trade. We tap that and pass that.

Now, aside from the obvious health repercussions of non-safe sexcycling - just cuz' your friends did it doesn't mean it's clean - there are emotional repercussions from this dangerous practice. Sure it may be funny at first to talk about X, Y and Zs back mole, or how A never changes his sheets, but eventually, sexcycling brings too much out to the open. Sex should be a personal experience, shared between the two or three or four people engaging in it. It should not be an open forum of what he/she did/said/moaned. In sexcycling, one needs to use discretion. A hookup that you threw away may be have more meaning to its next user, and just because you've been there, done that, doesn't mean you need to compare notes and keep ongoing updates. Sexcycling is something that will inevitably happen on a campus as small as Middlebury, so let's be smart about it. Let's keep our garbage separate from what can be successfully recycled, and let's be conscientious about the plain old simple truth that one persons trash is another person's treasure.