University of Virginia Library

Co-education Plea

These are some of the more
outstanding memories I have of
UVa: I have seen hundreds of
men, the energy of their beautiful
sexuality held in bitter, determined
restraint, sitting alone on couches
in the Newcomb Hall listening
rooms, dressed up with no one to
see. Thousands of hours of sad,
compulsive male talk about largely
nonexistent sexual adventures.
Stag parties where people go to
intensify their four-year program
of unreality leading to a degree in
castration.

A million copies of Playboy sold
(that's the magazine with the girls
to look at whose faces cannot
reflect your sadness and frustration).
Stores, dorms, TV rooms,
classes, theaters, lawns, cars,
buses, houses full of male students.
Paperback "The Man from
Orgy by Ted Mark selling out its
first day on the shelf. University
students arrested in a Charlottesville
suburb for peeping-Tomism.
Old Gym full of that good male
sweat from decades of muscle-building
and men's-club type
basketball games. Vigorous rough
handshaking in the ascendancy and
tender hand-holding rarely to be
seen.

Fraternities: knots of people, immobile,
drinking beer, wondering
what to do, growing old under
the shell of juvenile male solidarity.
People being made to forget how
to love.

But UVa is not totally devoid
of women! Someone will say. Sure,
A lot of them are married (i.e.,
jealously guarded). The rest cannot
be blamed if they hang in
frightened, rejected little groups.
And of course there is Midwinters
Vogue Weekend to look forward
to. Date 1 through Date 1,506
are shipped in on photographic
plates. They're beautiful female
women but they're used, feared,
neglected, fed noise and bluff,
scraped, pickled, and shipped
back.

The evidence is everywhere for
all to see. This is what has become
of the Gentleman ideal. The
homosexual ethic reigns supreme,
playing on and exacerbating the
passivity, loneliness, and confusion
of the student body. It has happened
to us.

One day, consciousness will be
freed and people will act for Co-Education.