When I lived in college, the walk from the big medieval doors to my room when I brought someone home made me feel more naked than any ensuing level of undress could. From the glaring clinical light and audience of paid spectators in the Porters’ lodge to the unlucky coincidence that the moment you’ve come back from your night out is the moment all your staircase mates have gathered in the corridor to eat their chips, in college there are eyes everywhere, and always. Your peers, your scouts, and even your tutors could be hidden around every cobbled corner, ready to catch you one-night-standed. Doing anything with anyone, and therefore doing anyone, in this town necessarily entails a whole lot of being seen. Not all stares scold the same way, though, and some of us have more to lose than others to the slack-jawed onlookers.

Getting locked out of my room in my pyjamas and having an impromptu tute in the quad with an unfortunately chatty tutor not only sans-notes but also sans-bra was never an educational experience I cherished, but it is a particularly Oxbridge one. Colleges are many things—educational institutions, social hubs, well-oiled financial-consultant-producing machines—but because they are so multipurpose, privacy isn’t part of the package. You only have to have one early morning tute next door to a badly sound-insulated bedroom to know that the interspersing of office spaces with living spaces creates some uncomfortable overlaps.

The intertwining of whats traditionally seen as academic and that which is commonly condemned to the private sphere is not something that I can, or would want to, condemn outright. I wouldn’t be writing this if I didn’t think there was something to be gained from putting big words next to bad ones—I believe in the value in theorising and thinking seriously about things, like sex, that are often written off as unserious or unseemly. But when everyone from your most pompous classmate to your tutor is well placed to spot you with a stranger, wearing last night’s clothes and this morning’s regret, gossip can have far-reaching consequences.

Amia Srinivasan writes in her preface to The Right to Sex that “‘Sex’ […] is also said to be a natural thing, a thing that exists outside of politics. Feminism shows that this too is a fiction, and a fiction that serves certain interests. Sex, which we think of as the most private of acts, is in reality a public thing.” She argues that our “private” sexual experiences are constituted of and defined by underlying ideas and ideologies that are negotiated publicly. Part of these politically motivated myths of sex is that for some people it is more a “natural”, animal expression of desire, and for others it is a more explicitly politicised indicator of a person’s morality and value. Whilst straight white cis able-bodied men are comforted with the “fiction” that their sex is “natural” and value neutral, women and LGBTQ+ people, as well as people of colour and disabled people, find that, in various complex ways, their sex is a debate to be had in and of itself. And when tell of our privately performed, publicly defined sexual experiences is returned to the public sphere, via gossip or a poorly placed tutor’s office, this “private” life becomes free political game to be side-eyed or sniffed at or criticised at will.

Our peers are always going to be over-invested in our love lives (and if we’re being honest, we do the same). Oxford may be the oldest university in the country, but it isn’t the only one that piles hundreds of 18-year-olds into the same thin-walled building, and so it’s not the only one where rumour runs rampant. But it is one of the few where our teachers, those who we should only interact with on an academic, quasi-professional level, have this much access to the spaces in which (or next door to which) we fuck. This lack of division between the personal and the professional only serves to most hurt those already least likely to be taken seriously. It’s always embarrassing to have an authority figure perceive you as a sexual being (which I write with the knowledge that my last piece in this series found its way into the hands of the entire teaching staff at my sixth form). But no straight cis man is going to have his pale, male, stale tutor take his essays less seriously because they saw him leave his room that morning with a bed-headed girl. And equally no amount of stellar tute work is going to convince your old-school Oxford Don (who you suspect was never really that keen on letting women in in the first place—after all they did fine without them in his day) that you’re not a worthless whore, if that’s the kind of thing he’s primed to think (as many people are). Not everyone puts their academic credibility on the line every time they stumble home with a stranger, and for those of us who do, the college system only exasperates the way the world weaponises our sexuality against us.

And all this is without even considering that, wherever you live, however hard you try to hide, this town leaves little room to date unencumbered by the eyes of classmates, ex-flings, and acquaintances. By the time you move out of college, if you do, you’re likely not only constantly seen everywhere you go, but also known. And so the gossip spider lies in wait on her web of Oxford connections, waiting to pull the strings of anyone you’ve ever dated, befriended, spoken to, or breathed near.

The social web of this city is at best (admittedly) incredibly entertaining, and at worst completely nauseating. At this point in third year, it seems impossible to even approach someone without tripping over their ex that’s in my class, my friend who had their heart broken by their best friend, and a distant acquaintance who can and will report everything that’s wrong with the potential suitor as unearthed by their six-month situationship two years ago. Even when actively, painstakingly trying to avoid friendcest, collegecest, and coursecest, everyone knows everyone, and no Oxford student has made it this far without being cursed by connections. So when searching for true love or sleeping around, you run the risk not only of good old fashioned slut shaming, but also of stumbling into some minefield of social repercussions, the devastating effects of which will be felt for generations to come. If you haven’t slipped up by being who you are and being horny, you’re guaranteed to make an unexpected enemy, who will inevitably appear in a class or a café or a crowded club toilet to haunt you.

So what’s a single student to do? Commit to a life of celibacy for the sake of academic sanctity? Fall foul of a friend of a friend who (unbeknownst to you) had a thing with your new fling? I wish I could in good faith tell you to keep your head held high and your shirt cut low, to go forth and fuck with kindness and compassion but without shame or fear. But you and I both know that we’re not going to brute force our way to true sexual liberation in three years at an institution so old and up itself that the cobwebs practically have protected status. Nor are we going to somehow magically disentangle the knotty social scene we’ve created trying to do so. I don’t have a quick fix, but I can reassure you that you’re not the only one humiliated by running into your tutor post hook-up, or horrified to hear your new crush is in fact many people’s old one. We might not be able to keep it afloat, but we are all in the same sinking boat. So let yourself get submerged in it—look out for your fellow sailors, but don’t let yourself get weighed down by their judgement. Have yourself a good time, and happy swimming everyone.∎

Words by Ayla Samson. Image by Ayla Samson.