Just How Lewd Is Campus Life?

Tom Wolfe’s novel, “I Am Charlotte Simmons,” explores the amorous adventures of a sheltered student at make-believe Dupont University. But what does a 74-year-old in spats know about the sex life of the average college frosh? Opinion asked first-year women at real schools to fact-check the book against campus reality and supply self-portraits (below).

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-- Compiled by Brendan Buhler

At Dupont

“Charlotte had a picture in her head of thousands of girls getting up out of bed in the morning and shuffling to the bathroom ... they’re all reaching up and opening the cabinets and taking The Pill, which she imagined must be the size of the pills they give mules on the Christmas tree farms for heartworm.”

At Baylor

By Mary Cienski, with sophomore Paige Asbury

Resolutely Baptist Baylor University has tough commandments to prevent student hanky-panky. (Example: Visiting hours in the school’s single-sex dorms are 1 to 6 p.m.) But is temptation stronger?

“Oftentimes when you’re being told ‘no, no, no,’ it makes everyone want to do it more,” freshman education major Laura Bryant says.

According to a university study, 80% of men and 72% of women are sexually active.

“Most people I know are having casual sex,” says Thomas Bedrosian, a 20-year-old business major.

Still, there is no formal sex education at the university health clinic, and the pharmacy added birth control only in the last few months.

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At Dupont

“The hunt! The hunt! The boyfriend! Necessary as breathing! What academic achievement, what soaring flight of genius, even a Nobel Prize in neuroscience, could ever be as important?”

At Dartmouth

By Kelsey Blodget

At Dartmouth College, the party-friendly Ivy that inspired “National Lampoon’s Animal House,” hooking up certainly is a big part of the social scene.

Arriving in packs, or “shmobs,” Dartmouth freshmen escape icy nights into febrile fraternity basements to flirt with the opposite sex over plastic cups of Keystone Light -- sometimes served by naked pledges.

Though Wolfe makes sex out to be a campuswide epidemic, an informal poll conducted in May by Dartmouth’s student newspaper found that roughly a third of Dartmouth students have never had sex, and that 12% plan to save themselves for marriage.

“If any girl were here just to get a guy, she’d be the one that didn’t belong,” freshman Laura Cherkas says.

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At Dupont

“So many leather skirts ending a foot or more above the knees, so many low-cut jeans and black pants, so many abbreviated halter tops, so many belly buttons winking in between -- at boys.”

At Loyola Marymount

By Tracy Meler

and Julia Fauzia

Sure, students care about their grades. But Loyola’s parties are the hot spot for those looking to freak, grind and drunkenly hook up. “I think it’s stupid, but those people exist,” says freshman Margaret Hedderman.

It’s against Loyola Marymount University’s rules for members of the opposite sex to spend the night in the same room. But “you hear a lot about how kids end up being kicked out of their room and having to sleep down the hall because their roommate is having sex,” freshman Sarah Jost says.

Loyola’s freshman women hide their insecurities with freshly done makeup, flat-ironed and highlighted hair, and trendy accessories. Don’t expect any action at 8 on Thursday nights: When “The O.C.” is rockin’, don’t bother knockin’.

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At Dupont

“College is the only time in your life, or your adult life anyway, when you can really experiment, and at a certain point, when you leave, when you graduate or whatever, everybody’s memory like evaporates.”

At Louisiana State

By Gabrielle Martinez

Freshmen girls take on the fiddle-dee-dee attitude of a Scarlett O’Hara, and “not until junior or senior year do they get serious about academics first and say, ‘Guys can wait,’ ” freshman French major Gracia Aguilar says.

With sweltering summers that last four (or five or six) months, LSU ladies walk to class in short sleeves, short shorts and even shorter skirts.

In the South, a guy might buy dinner and a movie, and kiss the girl goodnight. High-pressure tactics would be frowned upon at a fraternity here.

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At Dupont

“At Dupont,” said Charlotte, “everybody thinks you’re some kind of

At Vassar

By Philosophy Walker

and Emma Epstein

Freshman Martha Knauf calls the campus “oversexed,” but another student says that might be overblown. “There is a lot more talk than actual sex going on,” freshman Meg Prossnitz says. Freshman Samantha Denneny agrees. “There are more creative activities,” she says. “People have better stuff to do than have sex at frat parties.”

The sort of random hookups Wolfe portrayed aren’t the rule. “You’re more likely to party with your good friends than with people you don’t know, so I think it leads to more meaningful sexual encounters,” freshman Emily Mirra explains.

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At Dupont

“Sex! Sex! It was in the air along with the nitrogen and the oxygen! The whole campus was humid with it! tumid with it! lubricated with it! gorged with it! tingling with it! in a state of around-the-clock arousal with it!”

At UC Santa Barbara

By Mollie Vandor

On this coastal campus, sex can be serious or casual, incredible or regrettable.

According to a 2002 survey conducted by sociology professors James and Janice Baldwin, 78% of UCSB students engaged in some form of sexual activity.

In Wolfe’s world, some students are all about beer and booty and some simply stay in and study. UCSB students don’t see themselves in such extremes.

Dan Kariv, a Beta Theta Pi brother and sophomore business major, says he knows fraternity guys who are virgins.

“Most people at UCSB definitely have a school-based attitude,” freshmen Brooke Jensen says. “The party and sex part of it is weekend stuff.”

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At Dupont

“Many girls got dressed up to go over to the library at midnight for the simple reason that boys would be there.”

At Wellesley

By Leah Driska

The library at this women’s college closes at midnight. But every Friday or Saturday night, clusters of first-years board a bus nicknamed the “Cuddle Shuttle” in their most promising outfits, ready to take on the boys of Boston.

The one-night stands “usually happen at [the boy’s] place,” freshman Holly Yuan says.

Testosterone-free Wellesley can’t compare with Wolfe’s hedonistic Dupont University. No lascivious frat boys on campus to corrupt naive first-years.