The Politics of Crewdate

The crewdate insists on two things: that it is extremely important, and that it does not matter at all.

 

My first crewdate produced a story that gets told relatively often, much to my dismay. It occurred on the third day of Freshers’ Week. I did not have the faintest idea what the term entailed, but as an overeager fresher, I had signed up. If you, similarly, are blessed enough to not know what I am talking about, I regret to inform you that a full explanation of all of the ins and outs would require its own lengthy volume. At its core, however, the crewdate is an excuse to play silly boys’ games, in a kind of socially sanctioned regression to the playground—only with far more wine. Members ‘sconce’ themselves and each other, revealing stories which are intended to humiliate, but instead border on weird semi-flexes; the smugness with which they are owned up to will undoubtedly make your eyes roll. Then there is the pennying, whereby you aim to throw coins into the drinks of those around you, thus solving the universal problem of having far too much money and no idea what to do with it all. The whole affair is interspersed by a multitude of further games. It is, to borrow from Foucault, a kind of heterotopia, engendering an alternate universe in which the rules of the normal world are inverted, and embodying the insufferable Oxford stereotype suddenly becomes socially acceptable.

 

This is what I discovered upon arriving at first crewdate. Already a notorious lightweight, I was suddenly confronted by the prospect of rapidly consuming an entire bottle of wine. Unsurprisingly, I did not fare well. A disastrous incident ensued, ending with the involvement of second-year strangers, my poor clueless friends, disgruntled porters, and eventually my parents. It therefore seems safe to conclude that the crewdate does not come without its risks.

 

The first question at hand, then—what drives people to take part in, or abstain from, these events in the first place? The appeal of the crewdate is, to some, blindingly obvious, and to others utterly unfathomable. My first attempt at describing the crewdate to a non-Oxford friend of mine, was to compare it to marmite; ‘You either love it, or you hate it.’

 

The appeal becomes easier to understand if we momentarily treat the crewdate not as a night out, but as a form of spectacle and ritual. Aristotle, in the Poetics, asks why audiences are drawn to tragedy—a genre defined, improbably, by ritualised suffering and a forgone ending. In response, he introduces the concept of μίμησις — mimesis, or imitation. He posits that humans are naturally imitative creatures, and that artistic mimesis is not merely a reproduction of reality but also a way for an artist to ‘improve’ upon the world they see around them. The crewdate, in this way, acts as a microcosm of Oxford life, whilst imposing its own new rules and dynamics.

 

I didn’t think about Aristotle at my first crewdate. I doubt anyone does. But the longer I’ve spent at Oxford, the harder it is not to notice how neatly these nights arrange themselves. There is a beginning, where everyone is jovial yet polite. There is a middle, where energy dips and something must be done: a speed date, a game of ABC, or a pairing off of two freshers to go and fetch a cucumber. And there is an end, where the tension has been released and everyone agrees—often with great conviction—that it was a good crewdate.

 

Aristotle called this κάθαρσις, or catharsis. Everyone is familiar with this phenomenon, namely the purging of collective feeling through action. In the Greek theatron, the emotional release came through the recognition of one’s own feelings in the characters portrayed. Pity arises from witnessing undeserved misfortune, while fear creeps in as we recognise that similar misfortunes could befall ourselves or those like us. These emotions are subsequently expelled, leaving the audience happier. At crewdates, there is something liberating about watching a stranger spill their deepest secrets, and a fear at the prospect of being next. The action in question here is usually ill-advised, mildly humiliating, and completely necessary. Both experiences allow spectators to experience intense emotional responses in a controlled setting.

 

So, moving on to those who don’t participate; what’s the deal? Have they no need for this catharsis?

 

Well, for starters, often overlooked is the cost accompanying the crewdate. By the time you’ve walked out of one, it’s certainly difficult to think about, anyhow. But with a night of debauchery typically costing between £12 and £15 each purely for the venue, it really shouldn’t be a shock that a crewdate isn’t everyone’s choice of routine relaxation. It is, of course, true of university social life more broadly that finances play a large role. But when you can get into Plush for £2 on a Friday night, a crewdate may seem a little less enticing.

 

Still, if you’ve successfully battled the costs and secured your seat at the table, next comes the eager awaiting of what will actually take place within these mythical four walls. As a self-professed (and regrettably, semi-retired) connoisseur of the crewdate, suffice it to say that I have seen my fair share of antics through the terms. My first conclusion concerns the noticeable difference in behaviour across societies. It is widely known that the origin of the crewdate belonged to rowing, customarily between a men’s and women’s side. The tradition then branched out into other configurations and sporting societies , and has since, in a turn termed ‘utter woke nonsense’ by some, contaminated just about every form of collective in Oxford – short of perhaps Toast Soc.

 

There are now few rules governing the structure or demographic of a crewdate. Although most of my experience comes from tagging along to the Oriel Boat Club, I have drifted through a miscellaneous range of groups. The majority of spectacles, however, do seem to occur amongst the sporting categories. Amongst the stories I have collected at these, particularly strong contenders include toes being sucked, aggressively enthusiastic lap dances being given, and other occurrences to rival a Bacchic orgy.

 

But before we start blaming Echo Falls alone for these developments, it’s worth noting that this kind of degeneracy rarely organises itself.

 

People often criticise the perennial caveat of university social life that is peer pressure. This is nothing new; most of us are told all the way through secondary school PSHE lessons to “Say No to Drugs”, and to bravely resist the faceless crowd who will supposedly shove contraband into our hands behind the bike sheds. The crewdate, however, introduces an interesting complication: the “peer” is rarely just a peer. The pressure here does not come from a random classmate. It comes from your captain. Your social sec. An insufferable alumnus, or the second-year everyone inexplicably likes. There are people who curate the atmosphere, and occasionally, your access to future opportunities within the society. I remember my college wife and I once urging our husband, a schoolboy rower, to attend his first crewdate, with the view that ‘good chat’ would hopefully increase his then-precarious chances at making the M1 boat. The genius of the crewdate is that it unwittingly disguises hierarchy as camaraderie. Everything is framed as collective chaos—we’re all equally drunk, equally ridiculous—yet some people are usually steering the ship. Can it really be ‘peer’ pressure when it flows downwards?

 

A further phenomenon elucidated by the crewdate is one that exists beyond its confines; it is the spectacle of aggressively heterosexual homoeroticism. If the crewdate is Aristotelian theatre, then male athletes are its most committed method actors.

 

American feminist scholar Jane Ward, writing in ‘Not Gay: Sex Between Straight White Men’, explores the attitudes towards sexuality in American fraternity culture. She emphasises the ritualistic mechanisms through which Greek life reifies heterosexuality while incorporating homoeroticism into initiation rites. According to her, the repetitive performance of nudity, simulated sex acts, and sexualised hazing not only bonds members but affirms their collective disavowal of queer desire. The queer experience is something merely to be played at, not to be lived.It would be preposterous to think otherwise.

 

In the same way, crewdates often serve as proxies for intimacy, creating a liminal space where men can experience closeness without compromising their heterosexual identity. This manifests itself in many ways, but a concrete, crewdate-specific example comes in the form of the ABC game. Person A decides what Person B does to Person C. In male-dominated groups, this can slide easily into the kind of ritualised homoerotic performance documented in fraternity hazing: simulated sex acts that are funny precisely because in this heteronormative environment, they are “obviously” not real.

 

Introduce mixed genders, however, and the dynamic sharpens. The same game that allows men to play at queerness under the shield of irony can, intentionally or not, turn women into objects to be directed or humiliated for sport.

 

The problem is that even in contexts of supposed equality, imbalances of the outside world cannot be escaped. Take for instance, the classic game of ‘Good Pants, Shit Pants.’ In theory, this game should be equally humiliating or revealing for everyone present. Beyond the microcosm of the crewdate, however, very limited erotic charge is attached by society to men’s underwear. The same cannot be said for women. The sexualising imbalance, though inadvertent, becomes clear.

 

This is not to say that everyone who is not a man inherently and necessarily feels uncomfortable with the workings of a crewdate. Indeed, many return week after week to further indulge in the debauchery. It would be disingenuous not to count myself amongst them. And in fact, I have to give credit to the crewdate; when gender ratios are balanced, they can feel surprisingly inclusive. The atmosphere of camaraderie appears to extend to everyone, and refreshingly everyone can be  one of the ‘lads.’ Still, it is worth remembering that this inclusivity is conditional. And like American fraternities, these spaces are rarely neutral. They are often socially and even racially homogeneous. They operate under the indulgent gaze of institutions that prefer not to look too closely, because tradition is good for alumni relations and Instagram engagement.

 

So really, continuing to attend crewdates is, in a way, my duty. I am prepared to humbly sacrifice hours of tedious work in the Oriel library in order to ensure that, as a brown woman who has rowed a total of perhaps 3 times in her life, I can make the much-needed contribution of diversity to OCBC crewdates. Watch this space for a GoFundMe to raise the weekly £12 fee of this noble pursuit. 

 

In the meantime, however, I will continue to take my responsibilities with the utmost seriousness: hydrating rarely, analysing power structures between sips of Liebfraumilch, and bravely subjecting myself to humiliation in the name of ethnographic rigour. Because the crewdate is both extremely important and does not matter at all; and as long as it continues to be both a sacred ritual of institutional bonding and a mildly chaotic excuse to write off a Wednesday night, I suppose I will have to keep turning up—purely, of course, in the public interest.

 

Words by Arshya Bommaraju. Image via Wikimedia Commons.