Laundry, Lawn, Library
Content warning: Nudity. This post may not be suitable for work. Please be advised.
People at Oxford talk about sex all the time. It’s spoken about over the dinner table; it’s debated in tutorials with professors. It’s the breakfast of champions for people like my friend Alice, who has — more than once — returned from an escapade in a floor length gold dress just in time for morning hash browns. People shag their pals and their enemies, and pop the morning after pill in front of tutors a day later. Corridors are populated with notification sounds for Tinder, Hinge and Grindr.
There are whispers about the Piers Gaveston Society, an invite-only sex society infamous for an initiation ceremony that involved a certain prime minister fucking a pig. You get so used to hearing about it all that you scarcely bat an eyelid hearing stories about organised and unplanned orgies. Even the occasional story about someone shagging their tutor only raises an eyebrow. Sex is simply entrenched into Oxford life.
So, it’s hardly a surprise that challenges for sex exist, as well. For some colleges, the goal may be to do it on the Bridge of Sighs; for others like New College, it’s to dog on The Mound. At Lady Margaret Hall, it’s the “Three Ls” — Laundry, Lawn and Library.
Given how many of my pals have fornicated on my favourite desk in the Lady Margaret Hall library, I felt that I had to pay a begrudging homage to the challenge. A huge thanks to Rhys, Dan, Alice, Bruce and Isobel for modelling for me. Thanks especially to Alice, who pointed out a mid-level booth in the library mid-shoot to Bruce. “I’ve shagged in there,” she said. Casual and unbothered as anything, in true Oxford style. ◆
