IU's Sexual Liberation

Arguably nothing represents IU better than the national recognition it has received through its athletic events.

Standing below the Memorial Stadium’s towering concrete walls, gazing up at the 40-foot photographs of iconic coaches and players, one is moved by the striking similarities to the gladiators of ancient Rome, the Coliseum and the crimson-embroidered pride that lifted the once expansive city-state forever into the history books as one of the most glorious civilizations to ever exist.

And just like most of ancient Rome, there’s an orgy next door.

Lately, IU’s orgy, otherwise known as the tailgating fields, has received public attention with a picture published on multiple college-themed websites.

So what’s so important about the picture? 

To the untrained eye the picture may look like a guy fingering a girl in a third world country, but really the picture shows a young man and woman expressing their love through the most forbidden of handshakes, in broad daylight, next to a smiling, pointing girl, surrounded by empty beer cans, red cups and fellow tailgaters.

Like it or not this picture has now become a nationally recognized symbol of IU and its fans.

To most this might seem a bit disappointing, but let’s not be so quick to judge the young couple. 

I say we embrace them.

Whether intentional or not, these two have made a political statement in the name of free love and in a sense have revived the idealism of 1960s counterculture and feminism and expanded it into the hearts of every IU student.

These two lovers had the courage to stand up and say, “We will not subject ourselves to the tyranny of Puritanism that has plagued this country for far too long. We will express all two knuckles of our love the way we were born to, in public and unashamed!”

I say, these two brave souls should be celebrated as liberators as well as teachers.  
Women, this young woman is the product of 50 years of feminism, a truly modern woman and the local symbol of female empowerment you’ve all been waiting for.

Men, we could all learn to express our love like this man has, openly and unafraid.

I believe that these two lovers have been sent here to lead a sexual liberation among the IU student body and possibly faculty and regardless as to whether you agree with that, I think we can all agree that one of the things this picture definitely shows is that IU and all its traditions bring people together in more ways than one.

­— ktgragg@indiana.edu