The student life of Lund is often described as a place where everyone wants to and does get laid. But who actually gets laid? And is the average student really mostly interested in a one night stand?
A Thursday afternoon at Café Ariman. Joakim takes a seat in the velvet couch, just a little distance away from merry laughter and concentrated students. Someone has carved a heart with the word “invincible” written inside it on the round café table.
“Sex is a very natural thing in Lund,” Joakim says and refers to the fact that we can sit here in Ariman and discuss it loudly says a lot.
“Everyone gets a lay, everyone wants a lay.” This and similar variations of the theme were the most common answers to the question “How would you describe the sex and lovelife climate in Lund?” The question was a part of a survey about love and sex that Lundagård sent to all students of Lund University this fall. Many described Lund as open and accepting. Joakim was one of those that answered the survey, and he thinks that the students’ view of sex and social life is something that everyone should experience.
“It’s completely allowed to put yourself on the meat market here. You get to develop as a person, you really get to show who you are and what you can do. That you’re someone just like everyone else. And that you have the right to be.”
Your experience of the climate can vary depending on where you live, which Joakim learned through staying at a Christian institution in Lund. He puts his cup of coffee down and tells me about one time when two talking students walk into the kitchen, and the first thing he hears them say is: “That’s so damn gay, and we don’t have that kind here”.
“As a new resident, I thought I wouldn’t be public with my bisexuality right away. If you oppose the views of the corridor from the start, you give them a bad impression of you. It’s better to show all your positive sides first, get socially accepted – and then show the sides that might be thought of as offensive.”
But after a while, Joakim got tired of the norms and tried to break through with his opinions. By using his phones and his apps, he has found that he is not the only one with his sexual orientation at the institution. There are more people that choose not to come out due to practical reasons – to be accepted, because they’re afraid to, because there is too much pressure from the religion.
“At first I thought ‘what if they find out’ a lot, but I actually don’t care now. This is about my own life, after all, and what I think that sex and love is.”
Today, Joakim brings home dates to the corridor if he feels like it, accepts the debate and answers questions honestly. He is, after all, very pleased with living where he does.
“Sure, I could’ve lived in some place where it had been easier, but why avoid this issue? There are a lot of ‘problematic’ things about me, so maybe it’s good to go to places like this, to make people get used to it.”
He thinks it is good that he lives at the institution since a lot of people have questions and may not move outside their usual social contexts.
“Just the thing to be surrounded with expressions like ‘so damn gay’ and ‘we don’t have that kind here’, and to show that yes, you fucking do!”
In addition to “accepting”, “pressuring” is a word that many responders used to describe the sex and love climate in the student life. A lot of students experience a pressure to have sex and – or – a steady relationship.
That many are looking for just that is something that Emilia learned the hard way. For her, it began in the lecture room where she had a nice conversation with a male fellow student. When her boyfriend came up to them, kissed her on the cheek and said “Hey Emilia”, the student that she had been talking to shrunk and walked away – and never talked to her again. She has experienced the same thing at parties.
“People lose interest for you when they realize that you’re taken. It doesn’t matter if you have a huge interest in common. ‘I was just interesting if there was a chance to sleep with me’, is the feeling you get,” Emilia says.
Nowadays, she handles it by not mentioning that she is taken – something that has led to a few instances where the other party thinks that they are on a date, while she knows that she is taken. She has avoided bringing her civil status up for a few months, at the most.
“A part of me can find this pretty mean. Another part of me feels that what, I just want to get to know this person as a friend? If he was that interested, he could’ve investigated further.”
When the other party has asked, or found out about her civil status by other means, they have often looked defeated – but after a while they still get in touch and ask if she wants to do something. Emilia thinks that the tactic works well – but that it is a shame that she needs it.
Another person that finds the student life pressuring is Ellen. She usually describes the current mentality as ‘a bunch of Northern European kids going to Ibiza to mess around’.
“Yeah, but it is a little bit like ‘oh well, this isn’t my home – I can act however I want to’, which I think reflects in how we view sex and relations to other people – that it’s really temporary and limited.”
Ellen has had practical training as a sexual education teacher and finds that there is a paradox in that students can easily talk about sex – but find it hard to talk about sex.
“I think that people find it easier to say ‘I want to get laid tonight’ rather than why they want to get laid. There’s also a huge ignorance about a lot that’s connected to sex and relationships.”
A lot of responders experienced a lot of pressure concerning giving their partner an orgasm, as well as having one themselves, and a lot of women report a pressure to orgasm by vaginal intercourse, despite the fact that many cannot have an orgasm that way at all. And while the student life is generally described as accepting and open, many respondents thought that sexually adventurous women is the greatest taboo.
Ellen thinks that the explanation for this is lacking sexual education combined with our popular culture, which produces an image of women as non-sexual. It also produces an image of women having more problems getting an orgasm than men do, which Ellen thinks is bullshit.
“Generally, it takes four minutes for both men and women to orgasm when they’re masturbating, but eight minutes for women and four minutes for men when having sex. This isn’t because there’s some biological cause that makes it harder for women to orgasm, it’s rather because of things like what kind of sex you choose to have.”
Despite knowing this, Ellen thinks many might have problems voicing their sexual and emotional needs. For sexual needs, she thinks that it is about ideas and norms that are hard to rid oneself of. For emotional needs, she thinks that it is more about ideas of the student life that gets in the way.
“This is where you’re supposed to get cool experiences to share during the ‘I-have-never’-game. Having a relationship can be seen as a little dorky.”
In the survey, Ellen chose the civil status “Unsure/It’s complicated”. She is in a kind of relationship where she knows that she wants more, but she keeps herself from saying it, because she thinks she knows what would happen if she said it.
“I don’t think we’d see each other anymore”, she says.
Ellen believes that it is about compromising. She suspects that they want different things, but by not talking about that, they can at least have fun and good sex when they do meet. There can still be hope for it transforming into something more.
“You can always hang on to that, I guess that’s what I’m doing.”
“I don’t think so myself, but I see a lot of it around me”. There seems to be a gap between what the students think other students are like, and what they are like themselves. While most people thought that other students have had sex with seven people so far in average, most of the respondents have had sex with three people so far. And on the question “What are you primarily looking for right now, when it comes to relationships?”, most people chose to put the alternative “A monogamous relationship” at the top, closely followed by “Friendship”. The options “Being single” and “A one night stand” ranked lower for most. “Polygamous relationships” and “Other” were mostly placed at the bottom.
So while the student life is described as a place where people want to screw around and are not interested in long-term monogamous relationships, it seems most people are still looking for that very thing. How does that make sense?
Dan is one of the few people that placed “Polygamous relationships” high. He describes it as two timelines meeting in Lund – the Christian ideal of marriage and the ideas from the seventies about being able to have sex with whomever one likes. Dan himself has a girlfriend who he loves – but would rather have sex with someone else. He says that there is a double standard in the student life.
“One night I was sitting with some people around a table, and someone asked how many had cheated on their partner. Everyone but me raised their hand – and I’m the only one who says that I want an open relationship.”
Dan’s current relationship is closed because his girlfriend does not want an open relationship, and he does not want to hurt her. But he thinks that it is a shame that polygamy enthusiasts would rather talk about sex with many people rather than relationships with many people.
“Human beings are capable of loving more than one person. If you allow each other to sleep with other people without realizing that loving several people is possible, then the problems will remain since there will always be a worry about your partner loving the one they’re sleeping with rather than you. But if you realize that human beings can love more than one person, then other relationships aren’t as much of a threat,” Dan says.
Maybe the student life is a place where it is easier to experiment with sex than with love? But that does not answer the question of why many think that others have had more sexual partners than them. And if there are that many people that want a monogamous relationship here, then why do these people not find each other?
Linus is a student of sociology in Lund. He thinks that many students exaggarate when talking about their sexlife in public. He also stresses that far from everyone finds it easy to go out and find someone to sleep with, or wants to do that. These people might easily feel left out of the student life, despite being included in a large group among the students.
“It’s actually a rather small group of students that sleep around a lot, but I think those are the ones you notice.”
He thinks that we obey social pressures much more than we would like to think when hitting on people. Much too often we do not hit on the one that will give us real or long-lasting love, but rather on the one that will give us social status. Linus points out that this explains why the douchebag always gets laid.
“If it’s someone that is seen as cool, and you get to sleep with that person, you often subconsciously think that you will be seen as cool if you are allowed to sleep with them. People are probably less daring about going for someone that they don’t think would provide much public social status.”
Linus himself is looking forward to meeting ‘the one’ – which he defines as something long term and real.
Accepting and pressuring, with hints of double standards and status chasing. There are a lot of opinions about what the sex and love climate in Lund is like. This opinion seems to change depending on whether we are talking about ourselves or others. Everyone apparently does not think that they can get laid, or that it would be what they would like most. Despite that, many seem to think that is what the students are generally doing, and want to do. Maybe it is time to nuance that image?
Linus thinks that there are risks of misunderstandings and hurt feelings in meetings between people with different norms. He thinks that makes many hide their emotions and what kind of relationship they would really like.
“It can ruin a lot for you, if you early in a relationship say something like ‘I don’t want anything serious’ or ‘I might be a little in love with you’ – many might respond with saying ‘Then we probably shouldn’t see each other anymore’,” Linus thinks.
But had it not been better if more of us dared to say those words? Of the students that are pleased with their sex lives, many responded to the question of why they think so with one word – communication. Maybe the same goes for love?
Joakim, Dan and Linus are not the students’ real names.
Text Virve Ivarsson
Photo: Nike Eliasson
Translation: Marie Eriksson
