General Question

wundayatta's avatar

Possibly [NSFW] Why did this college woman create this sexual evaluation of all her hook-ups?

Asked by wundayatta (58727points) October 7th, 2010

A college woman created a powerpoint presentation (scroll down a bit) that exhaustively evaluated every guy at Duke University that she’d hooked up with. She gave it to a few of her friends, who then passed it on to a few million of her closest friends. I.e., it went “viral.” She says she never wanted that to happen, and she’s gone into hiding.

You can read it. It’s sort of fascinating—in a horrible kind of way. You probably should read it. Then tell me what you think was going through her head when she created this? Was it really just for a few friends? Was she bragging? Was she dissing the boys? Is there some psychological issue here that drove her to spend a lot of time creating the slides? What do you think motivated it?

And what do you think about her doing this?

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39 Answers

Mista_Reflexivity's avatar

She’s fucking crazy. No need for complication.

lillycoyote's avatar

Well, my take on it? She’s at Duke so she probably has a bit of an active mind that needs something to do, she had Power Point, she had some time on her hands and found it amusing to do this; I’ve created Power Point displays on ridiculous things just to amuse myself (e.g. my power point presentation of the dancing benzene ring that I sent to one of the attorneys that I worked with as a “goodbye” when she left the company was one of my favorites); it’s the kind of thing some people find entertaining because power point people sometimes take themselves way too seriously, she probably thought it was clever and that it turned out well and sent it off to the three friends and then the whole thing got completely out of hand and out of control. If half of what some people do suddenly got distributed to millions of people a good portion of it would seem both ridiculous and possibly creepy and demented. Just my take, just some thoughts from someone else who has on occasion amused myself with the endless possibilities of Power Point and it’s many uses in daily life. Is the sexual aspect of it the issue?

Or maybe she’s nuts. I probably am too. She was having some fun, shared it with her friends, it got out of hand. That may be all there is to it.

prolificus's avatar

13?! She’s had more to list in such a short time than I will ever.. In my.. Two or three lifetimes!!

I’d be curious to see her post-graduate studies, to find out if there are any expansive, longitudinal results.

KhiaKarma's avatar

Reminds me of the movie I saw last weekend The Social Network That’s similar to how the creater of facebook got started!

faye's avatar

I question deducting on the basis of being Canadian! Is she really so stupid as to think this huge country has only one type of man? I think all women have this list or similar in our minds and men have one of their own. She was unlucky enough to have it go viral and got caught.

aprilsimnel's avatar

@prolificus – Those 13 were the only ones she included. She slept with a lot more guys than that, but she was only surveying the jocks that she boned. Apparently, those particular dudes were BMOC.

absalom's avatar

This is just fantastic.

Trillian's avatar

I think she fancies herself a research expert. Or maybe she just fancies herself.

lillycoyote's avatar

@Trillian Or maybe she’s just a damn fancy pants! :-)

fundevogel's avatar

It would have been funny, or at least harmless if she had maintained her ‘subjects’ anonymity. I’m pretty sure the privacy of research subjects is respected in actual studies.

Simone_De_Beauvoir's avatar

All I keep thinking is that guys have been doing this and worse (alphabet game, anyone?) for years…why not this?

KhiaKarma's avatar

Like Tricia Jones in Mallrats

lillycoyote's avatar

@Simone_De_Beauvoir Yeah… I was so going to say more but it was sexist so I didn’t :-)

Pandora's avatar

I think who ever posted it either was trying to hurt her or someone on her list, or they just thought it was funny. As to why do college kids write stuff like this? I think bordom and too much time drinking and following the crowd. I remember when my husband was in the service. New recruits would go wild once they were away from home and get in all kinds of trouble.
I call it a second puberty gone really stupid.
The really good kids where often the worst.
Well she learned one valuable lesson. Never put into writting something that someone can use against you, and just because someone says they are your friend doesn’t make them your friend and doesn’t mean they were born with any more sense than you. Stupid, Stupid, Stupid!

FutureMemory's avatar

What a dumbass.

DrasticDreamer's avatar

She was bored, thought it would be funny, and apparently thought her opinion actually mattered for something. It’s obvious after reading it (yeah, I took the time) that she has very low self-esteem, too. I think, in actuality, she measured her own self-worth (even though she was pretending to measure the men’s worth) through how many stereotypically “attractive” men she could sleep with. “Huge dicks, huge muscles, very aggressive”, etc.

Or I’m wrong and she just likes to sleep around. Sucks for her that it’s still beyond easy to find her name and pictures of her on the internet.

nikipedia's avatar

Wow, a woman being candid and flippant about sex makes her, according to this thread, “fucking crazy” or “a dumbass”?

I find this whole story fucking stupid. Why shouldn’t she make a powerpoint presentation about her own sex life that’s funny, engaging, analytical, and introspective? The fact that this constitutes a news story blows my fucking mind. A college student made a power point presentation!!!!!! ABOUT SEX!!!!! HOLY FUCKING SHIT!!!

FutureMemory's avatar

She’s quoted as saying “I would never intentionally hurt them”. If that were true, she wouldn’t have shared the info with ANYONE – whether it’s the world at large via the internet OR her three friends.

Not only is she a dumbass but she’s a liar as well.

DrasticDreamer's avatar

@nikipedia I don’t think she’s fucking crazy. I do think she’s kind of a dumb ass, for my own reasons. But most of it wasn’t that funny or engaging to me, either. Plus, regardless of the person being male or female, I think it’s shady to advertise such personal things, even if she truly believed it would stay with the few people she sent it to. Names and pictures? That’s just low.

Should it have made the news? Hell no. That is absolutely ridiculous.

MissAnthrope's avatar

I’m in @nikipedia‘s camp and basically was going to say everything she said.

1 – I found this to be fascinating and entertaining reading
2 – Guys do shit like this all the time and no one pays any mind
3 – Where is the fucking news story in all of this? LA-AME.

lillycoyote's avatar

@nikipedia Absolutely! She made the powerpoint presentation to amuse herself, sent it to a few friends who she thought might find it amusing too. That’s basically it. The fact that some personal entertainment somehow went “viral” so that the whole world can now examine it is irrelevant. As you say, she’s a college student, she made a power point presentation, about sex! OMG!

meiosis's avatar

@nikipedia @MissAnthrope @lillycoyote are 100% correct. The only thing that is noteworthy in this story is the reaction to it – “A woman who likes sex? Man the barricades, the barbarians are at the gates!”. FFS.

FutureMemory's avatar

@meiosis What a twisted, ignorant assumption.

I would feel exactly the same, if not more so had it been a man. Shady behavior is shady behavior, period.

rooeytoo's avatar

Girls will be girls, hehehehe!

Kind of a rude thing to do for a male or a female, but wow she herself must be hot because those dudes had beautiful bodies. And after all it was in the name of research!

Put me in the camp with @nikipedia, et al.

meiosis's avatar

@FutureMemory Don’t take it personally, it’s just my take on some of the reaction to this (not necessarily yours), exaggerated for rhetorical effect.

beautifuldisaster's avatar

I find it very well put together. haha. Though the subject matter I think is a bit to extreme. I think it is brilliant. I think that if it was a MALE who did it, it would be getting a different reaction. I give her kudos and think that it was very brave and very well done.

bigjay's avatar

@beautifuldisaster not if it was a gay male

beautifuldisaster's avatar

@bigjay I would still find it interesting, actually I would find it MORE interesting if it WAS a gay male. Because I would love to see if they have the same similarities as to what is “important” to them in the sack. But again, no one would have a problem with a male gay or straight sleeping with 13 people.

Hmmm…

BoBo1946's avatar

did she leave a phone number? Just kidding.

Hey, I’ve a brief comment on this. That is her business. There are always consequences to any relationship. So…they should not be surprised under the conditions of the situation at hand.

Cruiser's avatar

Very hilarious and different trip down memory lane. It’s amazing what people will do for attention and I bet she gets more attention than she bargained for.

wundayatta's avatar

@nikipedia I think there are a lot of people out there who have no idea that college women are like this. Or men, for that matter. Sure, there are lots of innuendos all over the place, but I suspect that people tend to discount it as exaggeration, if not pure fiction. Even if they do believe it, I think they push it into the back corners of their minds where they don’t have to consider it (since I’ll bet it goes against the values of 90% of people in this country).

So when something happens that makes it clear that women are doing what men do, it’s a shock. Does she mention whether she used protection? I don’t know, but if she didn’t, then people will probably think she is taking a lot of risks.

Outside of college, my guess is that this kind of behavior is not that common. It’s the kind of thing that people of privilege, I think, are more likely to do. There may actually be some studies about that.

I’m with @DrasticDreamer. I think there some serious self-esteem issues at play here. Maybe I’m projecting, but I’ve found that to be the case for all the sex addicts I’ve met.

funkdaddy's avatar

Since when does the Today show cover college gossip? And why would they publish her name and photos when a “classy” organization like Gawker held back? That’s more disturbing to me than anything, they’ve just amplified the exposure to these people’s private lives more than any of the original players. Then they talk about there may be legal ramifications for those who wrote or distributed the reviews? Is there any reason for them to cover this?

It’s one thing to have your college class know your business, another when grandma can see it on the morning “news”.

@wundayatta – Do a dozen hookups in a four-year college career really qualify someone as a sex addict?

wundayatta's avatar

@funkdaddy We don’t know how many hookups she had. But it’s not how many hookups that qualify you as a sex addict. It’s the reason why you had that many hookups. Because of that, you can be an addict even if you’ve only had one sexual relationship. People who seek numerous sexual encounters because they don’t know any other reliable way of feeling good about themselves are often addicts.

Simone_De_Beauvoir's avatar

@wundayatta Either way, it’s just speculation.

iLove's avatar

I finally took the time to read the WHOLE THING. As @MissAnthrope said, it was fascinating reading.

I am familiar with this behavior personally and I must also agree with @wundayatta in regards to the self-esteem issues. It took me a long time and lots of therapy to understand my similar need to feel validated through the somewhat chauvinistic approach to casual sex.

She must have been quite attractive. This reminds me a lot of Californication, except the main character is male and 20 years older. David Duchovny’s character (and most likely real personality) is a loveable / loatheable sex fiend who cannot stop hooking up with random women. In his case though it seems like he’s comfortable in his identity, whereas this college student is not.

I may be in the minority here, but I am fascinated with the show Californication. I have read many objections to that show, indecency and so forth, but there are some of us adults out there that do enjoy the titillation of living vicariously through the exciting lives of people like this.

sweetsugaryandohsohot's avatar

she has major problems. she is crazy

iLove's avatar

It’s great to see such a multitude of answers here. However, @wundayatta asked a specifc question, and I think saying “She is crazy” is a lazy answer.

There is obviously a lot involved here beyond just the “experiment” and I think it honestly requires some understanding and support for this young woman to understand her insecurities and her need to obtain sexual approval from men with prestige.

phoebusg's avatar

To amuse herself. Sex is fun, sharing stories of it is also fun. Doing so on mass scale, also amusing.

Could she have done it better? Definitely. I was more interested in the introspections and elements about her short term relationships she found most exciting, or least exciting. But I would prefer a more statistical and scientific approach. Since that’s what she was sort of poking at, she could have gone all the way and made it way more useful and less identifiable for those that “took part”.

<Insert long discussions about college group norms etc>.

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