Haydain Neale, 1970–2009
Transit City and Transit Cities
Peeve Patrol
Newsstand: November 23, 2009
The Making of a Medley
The University of Western Ontario has many a tradition, including renowned parties and the scholastic birthplace of Lester B. Pearson. As of last month, though, add another notch in the long-standing traditions, as a group of UWO students are making waves with a student-only strip show in residence.
The news comes courtesy of Torontoist's Paige, who tells us of an incident involving a room full of cargo-pant wearing Western dudes and a knee-high boot wearing Western stripper (now known as the Saugeen Stripper). Only this was amateur U-strip was all captured on film - resulting in VERY awful publicity for the school.
This is the underbelly of college misogyny that has not reared its public head since perhaps the appearance of date-rape signs at Queen's University in the mid-90s. (Although, it should be noted, Rohypnol is still very much a drug of choice among many soon-to-be university-educated men.)
As for the fallout from this little peep-show, expect someone to lose their shirt (figuratively). Outside the University of Western Ontario, London is a fairly conservative town. Citizens of London protest Morgentaler and are outraged at gay pride, and also make attempts to keep 'smut' out of their town. How will they react once they find out that Western is housing said smut? Don't know, but we sure are glad we're able to keep our vaginas in our pants, and out of pathetic college guys' faces.
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way to take the high road, TOist.
no one's going to applaud the behaviour, but how about not contributing to making this girl's life MORE of a living hell than i'm sure it already is? thank christ digital photography didn't exist when i was 18......
this post is just crass gossip thinly veiled as some sort of comment on teenage gender politics. bleah. for shame.
this isn't really about the girl as it is about the university (if i wanted to contribute to her 'living hell,' i would have posted the pictures, which have been emailed here 4 separate times). when girls are stripping in front of a large group of men with cameras in residence, almost explicitly for web-distribution, it's a dangerous scene. i think the university, residence, floor leader, or even hall monitor has some obligation to intervene,, as the girl in question had nil in the way of security.
why ignore this, chris, especially when it's banging on your door? i sincerely hope - with no veils whatsoever - that the university is able to address this, and hopefully these mistakes will not happen again.
Don't be an idiot ... save whatever credibility you've got while you can.
i'm sure this event is already sparking a lot of talk of reform in the residence rules and the like to avoid a recurrance. every person under 30 in london probably knows about this by now, and it'll be the hot topic of conversation until christmas. my point is that i think any changes the university makes are going to happen without the assistance of TOist, and sometimes it's a worthwhile editorial decision to not add to the web traffic about an incident like this. i feel badly for that stupid girl and her stupid friends, because this will haunt them for a long time. and all of us could compile a mental list of things that we've done in the past that were stupid (maybe not sticking my crotch in some jock's face, but still stupid), and we've have the good fortune to not have it be seen by our moms, and moms' friends, and your friends' moms. it's really all about the moms. hi mom!
ah. finally, mw.
don't you think i thought of chris's little revelation before i posted? it's not that in-depth a thought..give me some credit.
as per the content: read the links. people are upset about this, and calling for other media to address the issue. it's an issue of serious nature, and highlight issues of serious nature is what we're all about, isn't it?
didn't see the second chris post, so here:
yes, i agree that torontoist won't spark a full-on residence policy reforms. i never thought that would be the case. universities are VERY quiet about things like this: they repress all the nasty sex abuses, hazings and suicides. and not out of any weisblott-like concern for greater good, but more that they don't want to soil their reputations. my response to that, as indicated with this post, is that this stuff has got to see the light of day before it ever stops. and no mom's read this site, i guarantee.
wow. i guess you're just lucky to be able to do your journalistic social duty, AND have links to naked 18-year-olds - in the same post! keep it up, murrow!
Josh, and everyone:
Just ask yourself: What would Walken do?
kisses,
Tim
lucky for who? lucky for you, chris?
i personally think you're just uncomfortable with the word vagina, because you wouldn't give it a second thought if it was some hazing story, would you?
snap! you so nailed my vagina phobia! now i can enjoy my weekend.
I think comparing this incident to the "No means Kick Her in the Teeth" signs in 1989 is a bit of a stretch, Josh... Seems like it's part of this larger raunchification of society. See:
http://www.macleans.ca/topstories/life/article.jsp?content=20050926_112700_112700
(Though I'm not endorsing everything purported in that article.)
That looks like booth night at Bishops during Frosh week.
Sure, it was about a million years ago, but no one took pics of it back then and posted it for all to see.
Part of me is amazed that people are still surprised when college kids do really, really, regrettable things.
But I guess the question is should the Torontoist contribute to this by having links to these pictures in their post.
And really Josh, maybe you could have just posted some of the pictures if you were going to provide links to it anyway. I am with you when you talk about the mendacity and hypocrisy that oozes out of these so-called august institutions, but it seems like a half measure to provide the links but not the pics.
Marc, I think your comment was a bit harsh. I feel sorry for the fallout that will hit all those that are involved with this mess, but really, why not post it?
It is relevant to the audience at TOist, and it's a sexy story.
In a perfect world that girl turns this into a gig on E Talk Canada or something.
Why do people keep saying they feel sorry for the girl? Shame on all for thinking that she was tricked into it, or too stupid to know what was going on. Do girls get no credit for being able to make a decision even if it is a raunchy one?
Yes, it really sucks that her exploits have spread this far, but considering: she allowed the cameras, she was sober when she did it, and she agreed to do it a good deal of time beforehand..
and also, she lives in SAUGEEN-
anyone who has lived there or is even there for a weekend knows that it's one of the biggest gossip mills on campus and with the in-rez file-share networks you have to be completely stupid to not think that anything captured there will not spread through campus instantly.
Torontoist SHOULD post this, because no other media sources will talk about it and certainly the school will have it erased from memory before Spring Preview Day. There is so much shit that goes on at UWO and they work so hard to hide/propaganda it all.
It's nice to see some cracks in their "we're no longer a party school, really!" image FINALLY.
i disagree kelly. this happens in university because of, like i said, a subculture of machismo. i think these alpha males feel attacked by the generally progressive nature of university and react in aggressive ways...thanks paige.
and alan, please follow all links, none lead to raunchy pictures.
Who said she was sober? and who really knows if she wasn't a pro or what their agreement was?? we had a similar situation in uni last year with dancers we met at the campus bar..
i wouldn't call a chain of forwarded emails a credible source..
ps josh.. we're not starting drinking at 6:30 tonight because i don't want to have to wake you up from a yonge street sidewalk nap again..
my sources said she lives in rez, she planned it ahead of time, and was sober. who knows...
It seems that there’s a bigger issue at stake here – one that goes beyond just one university and its ability (or lack thereof) to adequately supervise student behavior. College students do stupid things that parents, administrators, and most of the rest of us don’t approve of. This isn’t new, it’s one of the ways young people define what behaviors are acceptable. What is new is the capacity for the internet to mediate, spread, and probably even engender this sort of behavior.
I’m no “smash all technology” conservative, but it does seem to me that the internet is somehow culpable in incident like this. As social institutions it seems to me that pornography and related sexual practices (stripping, fetish modeling, etc.) serve the important cultural role of defining the limits of acceptable individual behavior. While the fantasy of anonymous and freely available sex attracts us in some ways, it repulses us in others. Exploitative sex and prurient exhibitionism, devoid of intimacy, sets the boundaries for our own relationships and helps to value the intimacy that most of us aspire to include in our own sex lives. Constantly exposed to pornographic images, as many of us have been from extraordinarily young ages by our acquaintance with the internet, sexual exhibitionism loses its exceptional character. Boys brought up on “Girls Gone Wild” expect a never ending spring break full of women keen to objectify themselves; young women are unfortunately all too often willing to comply.
Of course sex also sells, and I for one don’t blame TOist even if its intent in posting the story was solely to titillate readers. I hesitate to call the young woman in this case a victim – she’s gotten her 15 minutes of fame, and by the standards of the internet the level of self-degradation she’s had to resort to in order to get it aren’t even so bad. But I think we could all, particularly those of us who live a lot of our lives in the digital world, do with a little more thoughtful dialogue about the fact that overtly sexualized images and behaviors, which used to be a nice place to visit, have become someplace that more and more of us are living, whether we realize it or not.
boys brought up on girls gone wild?
don't care. next.
Way to go, Josh. Someone tries to widen the scope of discussion about what you've identified as "an issue of a serious nature" and you out yourself as a blase, affectless hipster who only pretends to care about issues when he feels his precious internet journalistic integrity threatened.
Next indeed.
no 'boys' are raised on girls gone wild. that film series, or website, or whatever it is, doesn't have any relevance to this post. and young girls aren't 'often all too willing to comply,' either. are you making these observations from your computer? i'd rather not have this turn into a 'those kids and their damned internet/pornography/rap music' conversation. weisblott has tried to tempt commenters down that route before, and no one cares. including me.
So you think it's perfectly acceptable that media outlets promote this kind of behaviour (as we've discussed here before) but it's deplorable when someone acts on it?
I love rap music. I love the internet. And hell, I’ll admit that I occasionally enjoy pornography, online and off. But speaking as someone who has spent a decade in institutions of higher education, much of that time working with classes of freshmen students, I think it’s naïve to assume that media don’t have an impact on behavior of the kind we’re discussing. In recent years I’ve had a female colleague propositioned by a student who wanted to film himself having sex with a teacher, and had my own students (plural) include me in invitations to view blogs or online photo-journals containing images of themselves engaged in activities I certainly wouldn’t have wanted my frosh writing teacher to see me doing. Obviously this sort of behavior isn’t entirely novel, but the capacity of the internet to transmit it instantly and reproduce it endlessly is. The boundaries between public and private in this medium aren’t as obvious as they are in the world outside of it, and it strikes me that many young people, likely including that now (in)famous UWO student, have a confused sense of those boundaries because of that. I’m suggesting that we ought to think about what impact this has on our individual behavior, and how our institutions are going to deal with it.
I’m not necessarily saying that this is a bad thing. Maybe a future in which we’ve all got one or two moments we’re not so proud of posted online will make us more tolerant of the failings of others. Maybe we’d be fitter, healthier, and happier if more of us engaged in open, unashamed acts of sexuality in public. Maybe there’s something refreshingly unhypocritical about taking an act like the one at UWO out of the anonymity of dark strip clubs and making it commonplace. All I’m saying is that the capacity for technology to impact our individual and social behavior is an interesting part of this event, but if you’d rather just scapegoat the university or residence administration and move on to the next “issue” I’ll be quiet.
sorry if i brushed you off. i just hate the old MW standby that media is 'promoting' sex or events like these. it's a century-old scapegoat that absolves society of identity. before anyone wrote about homosexuality, it existed. before anyone blogged about a western university strip show, it existed. and before girls gone wild, there were astoundingly primitive male sexual attitudes in university culture. this is not a product of the internet, nor 'media promotion.'(what mw deems as promotion is really only visibilty.)
obviously, the internet does play a factor here - that i have conceded in the post. however there are much deeper and worthwhile "issues" at hand. (and voyeurism on the internet is hardly novel. i remember seeing a nude photo of a classmate online in 1998.)
this situation was not one woman deciding to strip; it was a room full of people. each of these generic-idiot onlookers were complicit in the strip show. the fact that they all sat there, while photographed, watching this girl strip tells us something, and not about their attitudes toward the internet. university towns like london and lennoxville are built on 1950's structures of social behavior; where toughness, drug-use, casual sex or ability to drink are all marks in the plus category. seemingly normal young men enter these circles and adopt all the customs of what the british refer to as lad culture. the guys in these pictures probably earned heap-loads of respect from their peers. then they go to class and learn women's studies. then they come home and dig themselves further into this regressive frat-boy culture, partly as a reaction and partly because of the status allure. then they either struggle through life in blue-collars or enter a similar subculture on bay street. it reminds me of blue velvet(or twin peaks, or any david lynch movie), where outside is picture perfect and inside dennis hopper is sexually assaulting everyone. sheesh. anyway, that's my two cents.
Josh,
Your last comments in response to Jb are clearly the best response to your decision to post the 'Saugeen Stripper' story.
It took 22 posts to get to it though and I wonder if you think people who read TOist aren't interested in this type of comment.
I thought it was inspired.
Nice work. You managed to mention Lennoxville and Blue Velvet in the same paragraph.
(And yes none of the links leads directly to the pics, but when you go to Paige and then to the big link to Captain Bee's page and then to the pics, it doesn't seem like a big stretch. I'm splitting hairs here I think.)
And Jb, two minutes for using the term 'hipster' without proper provication. God I hate that word.
Blue Velvet is an interesting comparison - I'm not sure if that film is a condemnation of middle-class values or a more neutral exploration of the ways in which those values are defined by their opposites (ie you can't be a sensitive guy who doesn't engage in sexualized violence and mysogyny without having at least experienced the potential for those feelings within yourself). And that, I think, is how I see exposure to media somehow implicated in the "Shame in Saugeen" (which is totally what this situation would be called if it were being (mis)reported on Fox News). 1950s middle class mores are an even more convenient scapegoat than the media, but I think they're both implicated here. The "lad culture" that Josh identifies doesn't spontaneously self-generate, it gets passed on to individuals who embrace it, or not, often depending on how often and deeply they're exposed to it. One of the ways that happens is through peer groups. Another is through media. Both are external forces with the power to alter the contours of what the individual considers public and private, exceptional and commonplace behaviors.
The potential impact of technologies on personal expression and behavior is significant, and ought not to be underestimated. The classic example is visual narration in the novel, which it has been convincingly argued changed drastically once writers began to be exposed to motion pictures and television. A new technology provided a new way of looking at the world, which changed the way in which individuals saw reality and wrote it down. When the average college student spends more time on the internet each week than she would working a part time job, surely there's bound to be an impact on a person's view of the world and the way she expresses herself. How many of us would go up to a stranger on the street and say "I'm feeling really helpless and lonely today" or "wow, it's been a long time since I've had sex - I really need to get laid"? How many people express precisely those and other similiarly "private" thoughts in the public space of weblogs?
To be clear, I don't think the media "promotes" anything - it's a collection of information produced by our society, not a conscious monster out to destroy it. But it's a two-way street: we make media, and in return media shapes us. I also think Josh is dead on about the tensions and social pressures that play a role in this sort of thing, and I think it's a complex process that people often aren't aware of in themselves. What I'd argue that the educational institution ought to start talking to students about the ways in which the things they come into contact with every day (other individuals, web-sites, films, television, university classes, etc.) play a role in shaping their individuality. This should happen not just in the rarified environment of the Women's or Cultural Studies class, but in residences and pre-frosh orientations and with parents. Will that stop kids from occasionally acting like idiots? Of course not. Will it reduce the number of incidents like this one, which clearly had the potential to go much, much worse than it did? Maybe. Or maybe the real irony will be when the "Saugeen Stripper" parlays the whole fiasco into a lucrative series of softcore videos and/or a big money book deal, and shuts us all up.
If you folks have received the e-mail forward that includes student commentary about the photos, you might now be so quick to jump on the machismo subculture argument. Here's a sampling:
"Basically the most ridiculous thing I've seen this week. A bunch of my brothers buddies who are in rez at Saugeen wanted to get a stripper for the one guy's birthday. Now, I've seen this exact move in residence at Queen's in my first year for dirty Sean Hazel's birthday. What sets this scenario completely apart is that the dudes didn't bother looking in the phone book for escort services or strip clubs... they put some money together and went DOWN THE f**king HALL to find a bunch of complete slut bags in their very own rez who took the cash and utterly debased themselves, setting the entire female gender back approximately 50 years."
Now with regard to the media coverage, I will say that this is NOT the first time this has happened on a Canadian campus. There were two such incidents at Brock University last year. Including one where a girlfriend videotaped herself masturbating and sent it to her boyfriend. The legend goes this girl then cheated on him and said video was distributed. Just google up "Brock Girl".
In both incidents, campus media was cowtowed by the administration into shutting up about it. The media does need to throw a spotlight on this behaviour as campus administrations just don't have an idea on how to handle it. However beyond telling that cautionary tale, these women are free to conduct themselves as they see fit.
So now that the Toronto Star AND Metro has written about it, with the TStar giving explicit directions on how to get to the pictures...
people at UWO don't even talk about it anymore.. so it's so amusing when someone else hears about it and freaks out in excitement.
(oh, and http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1134427836448&call_pageid=968332188492&col=968793972154)
I suspect I'm a little late in joining the debate here, but I am intrigued by this discussion.
What strikes me about this particular incident is not necessarily the concept of access or mass distribution via the Internet. However, I do agree with a few of you that this does raise some salient issues regarding privacy in the age of technology. Surely, with an ever-increasing fascination with the dissemination of digital information, our traditional definitions and notions of privacy have dramatically changed. In an age of digital promulgation, what should remain hidden, and what can we expose? I am reminded of a quote by Simson Garfinkle: “Privacy isn’t just about hiding things. It’s about self-possession, autonomy and integrity. As we move into the computerized world of the twenty-first century, privacy will be one of our most important civil rights…the right of people to control what details about their lives stay inside their houses and what leaks out to the outside”.
What truly fascinates me, however, is the element of shock that is associated with this incident. In fact, I will admit openly that I am quite pleased by it. The notion of dorm room stripping, even digital evidence and dissemination of dorm room stripping is not a new one. This type of behaviour is simply old hat for our neighbours in the US of A. Sadly, I have seen these very pictures dozens of times before from US universities: same confidence-deprived girl seeking attention from her male counterparts, same institutional dorm room, same lacy thong, same sad reality that people continue to act this way in an attempt to gain acceptance and popularity. The fact that we deem this particular event newsworthy indicates (generally speaking) that it is unusual, atypical behaviour for the Canadian readership. The fact that this type of behaviour remains somewhat taboo, or at the very least inappropriate is evidence of some sort of moral fiber (no matter how thin) in a community which, as of late, has seemed desperately lacking.
Okay, now HERE is a story:
the link posted above is for the Toronto Star's article on the whole Saugeen Stripper thing.
at 10am it contained instructions telling readers that they could see the pictures by Googling "Saugeen Stripper"
And now that's been edited out. Too bad for print versions...
kate: by simson garfinkle do you mean simon & garfunkle? just wondering.
I noticed that too, they edited it out. What does that say about journalistic integrity anymore
I don't see where anything bad happened here.
The human body is not shameful or embarrassing.
It seems ridiculous to pretend that the girl was the helpless victim in the situation.
If anything, her website in which she herself has posted the pictures would prove that she relishes the attention. Have you actually seen the pictures? The girl was pro. Our computer chairs here in Saugeen, for example, have armrests that are less than 2 inches wide, and she was standing on those armrests in stiletto boots. Then she slid down one of the guy's torsos. That is not something a drunken amateur could do.
Her site:
http://avrilrulez.buzznet.com/user/
As a student at the university of western ontario. what's the big deal? I am not one of those "pathetic cargo wearing boys" that was there at the strip show. However, I do know for a fact that the strip tease was an entirely mutual, non-pressured occurance. The said stripper in choice got dressed up in a Nurse outfir and started to strip for these boys. The photos that were taken are not a sign of ridicule, as this girl willingly participated in this event. It could be called a "stroke of bad luck" that everyone in the world can now view these pictures. However, if you do know Western as I do. Western is most commonly reffered to as "Ontario's Party School", so, Western has outgrown it's apparent conservativeness. With housing dorms being reffered to as "a student's private living quarters", anything that happens in their room is entirely private, within bounds of the law.
snoochie boochies
love western
What an active discussion! Good points made above, regarding the role of the Internet especially.
I have little to add other than to echo kate's comment that this girl must be "confidence deprived" to do this in fromt of cameras. Granted this is not new behaviour. It has been going on in private (stress: in private) for many years. Many university girls have done strips for fun and profit, or just for fun. Anyone who has lived in res has either seen it or heard of it. The difference now is that the photos can be published for literally the whole world to see, and there is no way of recalling them once they are out. I feel sorry for this girl, she will almost certainly regret it sooner or later, and probably sooner.
["Kate: by simson garfinkle do you mean simon & garfunkle? just wondering."]
Paul,
Thank you for such an intellectually inspired comment. It truly added to the debate.
For anyone interested in computer security, forensics, policy, etc, Garfinkel is worth checking out: http://www.simson.net/blog/
What exactly does this have to do with Toronto?
Toronto's the closest city in this chain of blogs to UWO & London, of course.
I recall about two years ago, UWO had another controversy regarding the taping of a "College Invasion" porn. It was not filmed on campus but involved UWO students.
Don't hate, participate! LONG LIVE SAUGEEN AND UWO. haha and YES I use to live in the Penthouse of Saugeen. Unforgettable memories.
Quote: "It seems ridiculous to pretend that the girl was the helpless victim in the situation.
If anything, her website in which she herself has posted the pictures would prove that she relishes the attention.
Her site:
http://avrilrulez.buzznet.com/user/"
I don't think she's a victim either, but if you take a closer look at that site and read the comments, it obviously doesn't belong to the stripper. Avrilrulez talks about the stripper in the 3rd person and no one's crazy enough to post pics like that of *herself* on the net.
I don't think that this girl was either coerced or led into this through a culture of misogyny at Western. For the record, Western is 60% girls, and crazier things than this have happened in the past. It's only thanks to the internet that we have the ability to see this as more than an unsubstantiated rumor. Western is a great school and this girl is obviously cool enough to be content with herself for who she is. How you judge her is your problem.
This girl is so obviously not in any way innocent in this. She decided to take the money and SHE decided to strip and make a complete fool of herself. This is not the only incident nor the only University this has happened in. Unfortunatly for her, she was too dumb to not realize EVERYONE would find out about it. People can justify it and her all they want but frankly instead of being seen as a reasonable, intelligent CLASSY person, she is now sad, pathetic, and trashy. Yes the human body is wonderful and if you want to show it off go nuts but frankly, she showed it off, rubbed it in their faces, performed pornographic acts and didn't JUST take off her clothes for money. So I find it hard to give her any credit at all. As well there were pictures of OTHER GIRLS who were naked in the hallways.....it makes you wonder what was going on...and it gives a bad image to many other girls at western. Do what you want but no matter what someone does there are respectable acts and those that are just plain raunchy and disgusting and slutty........she pretty well became the poster girl for all things raunchy and unclassy..... she should be SO PROUD! And good on the boys who got her to do it.....maybe they are bad for paying for it but no one said she HAD TO so hey...if they could get it why not!
Listen all you assholes who are bashing this gurl dont no wat ur talking about. For god sakes im a close friend of this gurl and for one she was intoxicated but ya she did no wat she was doing but for fuck sakes she knows she made a mistake shes no's it was wrong and she regrets the whole thing. Yes i no that regreting it wont make it go away but at least she knows that. She in no way a whore or a slut it was just a misjudged call on her part and she doesnt condone herself. So honestly give her a break. And all you people that feel no sympathy for her thats fine your entitled to your opinions but you dont no the story play by play and the pathetic idea of a life that you guys live, bashing people you dont no on the internet is not working for you so look into sumthing different.
If she is not a slut or a whore, what is she doing taking her clothes off for a bunch of Zoo frosh students with cameras? I know its something i do ALL the time....Its the age of the internet, and with digital cameras did she really think this wouldn't hit the email chain? For gods sake, myself and some friends made a drunken music video to Quiet Riot which was on UW-GO within days. Futhermore, i don't know if anyone recalls the porn video made just outside Western's gates that received hefty media attention last year. I don't think that the school administration has any right to try to tell us UWO student how to live, but i certainly don't like going to the "Smut School". For gods sake UWO students, keep your clothes on in front of cameras.
Also, i think it is important to note that this has hit the media with articles in both the Toronto Sun and the London Free Press. It has alos been addressed on the local station New PL. People are generally unhappy about this, but the girl consented to doing it.
Thank-you Saugeen Stripper for setting women back in an environment where we are actually equal.
As a western student myself when I heard about that I was concerned about the schools reputation myself. People comment about that schools shouldnt keep these types of things hidden and only care about their reputation. Well the thing is they are thinking about all the other students attending the school rather then the just the 20 so that are involved. For the most part western students go to western because it has a good reputation of being a highly acadmic school and it also stands up really well to the reputation. The actions of a select few students shouldn't have an impact on its reputation. These strip acts don't represent the school at all! Yes the school is lots of fun but in a more respectable way!
They (attempt)keep it quiet to not wreck its good reputation for current students and future prospects for those students to be proud to go there and put it on their resumes. Not ashamed to go to a school thats known for striptease
Ok and I know that came off as a conservative comment so my next will sound less creditable; However, as a londoner I would like to say that we are not conservative as the article suggests. Only a select voices are anti gay pride and morgantoler. But, clearly some aren't and thats why western gave morgantoler an honorary degree! I personally feel london should have a gay pride parade and i'm very happy they honor morgantoler for his brave efforts in helping women! And so are a many other londoners that I know!!
A london western student
Hey, guess what? Stripping is legal. Sex is legal. Being naked in a dorm room is legal. And you know what? A lot of the time it's pretty darn fun! If you want to impose your purtianical beliefs that all things sex and sexy are wrong and immoral, then that's just down right pathetic. Show me the picture where people don't look like they're having fun.
If anyone looks at this as setting women back, that's pathetic too. Just because you don't enjoy this type of behaviour doesn't mean that no-one should be able to enjoy it...
Here's to beer, strippers, and people enjoying life!
2 ALL YOU GUYS OUT THERE SAYING THAT THIS IS OKAY, YOUR OBVIOUSLY A BUNCH OF MORONS. You think that it's okay for a girl to be a huge DIRTY skank? Don't you want a girl with self respect and a brain? I can tell you right now that she must be insecure, (and dont think that I'm some ugly loser just being a jealous bitch) because I can tell you right now I'm way hotter than that whore and I never feel the need to skank it up at res ever! I'm telling you right now if she went to my school I woulda knocked her out on day one! No one around here shows that little self respect for themselves and for the people that their living with THANK GOD. I have no sympathy for her, she should be 100% responsible for her actions.
I feel sorry for her entire family, what an emabarassment!
PS open up your eyes people she isn't a victim! I hope this sticks with her, she deserves to feel a sense of regret for her pathetic actions!
Now I can see why Western has a reputation for having an abundance of students with STD's, whoever participated your DIRTY!
hey everyone,
interesting debate for sure. I don't go to uwo, but a lot of my friends do, so I've spent a bunch of time in london, and when we were in first year, at Saugeen.
A lil background info: the boys are all frosh, jewish (like me), the ones pictured all except for one went to my high school, Forest Hill Collegiate Institute. These are boys with money to spare... I've spoken to one of them, their story is she was willing, it was pre-planned (it was one of the guys' bdays), and the only drinks they saw her having was a shot she did with the birthday boy...
So there's my 0.02c...
xox
angie
Drininking, stripping, and sex in University. What is the world coming to?
What is the link to the video?
Sorry Josh, I just had to once someone asked: http://avrilrulez.buzznet.com/user/
Anyone know where I can find pics of this skank?
http://avrilrulez.buzznet.com/user/ isn't working.
Thanks.
Dont start calling people morons, what makes people think that uwo is the only school capable of this? Does anyone else think it has possibly happened at other universitites? The chances are pretty good it has, but we're not talking about those because they weren't published in the Toronto Star or on the internet. Also, since the girl seems to be aware the pictures are being taken, obviously she is consenting, making this more of a moral issue. The university has said that they treat students dorm rooms as a private area which they are not to enter unless they are admitted or are aware of an illegal act (none of which took place) so as far as 'dorm reform' goes, keep dreaming.
All this for some student, and she wasn't even that good looking.
Wow.
From this chain of posts, you would be hard pressed to think that there is something important going on in Canada, like an election.
University student did something stupid (according to some)........I think that is first, No?
Just promise me that Paul Martin will not be doing a similar dance on his election platform. Belinda would be ok, but not Paul........don't even make me think about Harper. Layton, well he has gotten better looking with age, but still.
Is there a video or not???? If so, what's the link?
I believe you should re-evaluate your use of the word 'misogyny'.
What the hell. Freedom of choice. This girl chose to do this, it's not the first time and not the last time, back in 2000 McMaster Univeristy had a girl doing videos and links got out all over campus, people called her the Heddon Whore. Her choice too, and as for the issue of insecurity, some women feel this is liberating and empowering. I'm not into watching stripping myself but I do love a good controversy and see all you prudes getting upset.
Hahaha, what a skank. It just reaffirms what everyone thinks about Saugeen and Western in general.
Everything's already been debated to death, so let's focus our attention on getting a link to that video.
Pre-emptive apology - I'm sorry if the paragraph formatting doesn't show up in this comment. Here goes nothing.
My first reaction to this was one of exactly no surprise or shock. Frankly, I'm surprised that this is the only thing of this nature to hit the internet since I started school here at UWO. I'm also surprised at the sheer number of people who are convinced that this is a major blow against equal rights for women, or that her decision to strip for some dude's birthday was somehow mysogynistic. Would you be so upset if she were a career stripper rather than a first-year student? Well, probably - I can hear the cries of "stripping destroys women's rights and promotes a mysogynistic culture!" already, and I've got my music cranked up, so they must be pretty loud.
Trust me, if this shocks and appalls you, you truly do not want to know what else goes on off-camera in this residence. For one, there's usually sexual interaction involved, rather than just a strip show. The number of people who have indiscriminate, unprotected sex with random strangers at Saugeen far outstrips (har har) the number of people taking off their clothes and gyrating in front of clothed males for money.
You also may want to ask the girl if this was degrading for her. Strange as this may seem to you, those of you who believe that being sexual demeans women are not the universal arbiters of morality. Some women find sexuality empowering (imagine that!) and are perfectly willing to do this sort of thing for fun. I find a woman who isn't ashamed of her sexuality extremely attractive. The assumption that she's only doing this because she's starved for attention bothers me, too - who says sexual attention isn't legit? She could be writing awful poetry and cutting herself up in strategically visible spots; that would get her some attention. (Disclaimer: I have good friends who were or are cutters. They don't do it where you can see it, because they don't do it just so you can see it.) Of course, there's a fine line between being sexual and being skanky, but as long as you're not stupid about your sexuality, you won't cross that line. (Or get syphilis and die, for that matter.)
Bottom line - sex happens. Hell, this wasn't even sex; it was sexual, but it was a hell of a lot tamer than day-to-day life at Saugeen for some people. The world is not ending - feel free to bury your heads in the sand and pretend people are all masters of self-denial (until someone else's pictures hit the internet and shake up your ordered little worlds.)
This just made Fark.
Opinions there not nearly as vehement.
Mostly dull shock at college students doing stupid things.
The bitch is the number 2 most searched term on Technorati! hahah, oh my goodness, what a fool
And now the inevitable cash grab...
buy a t-shirt at saugeenstripper.ca...
this is ridiculous. i live in Saugeen right now, a few floors up from the girl involved and have talked to her a number of times... and what a load of b.s. it all is. this is a sweet, friendly, intelligent girl. last time i checked, western had one of the highest entrance averages in canada, so you actually do need to be smart to go here. therefore, all these claims that she is 'stupid' and 'a dirty skank' can be refuted right now in that she has to have a pretty damn high level of intelligence in order to get in here in the first place.
secondly, i think it's ridiculous that people are spending so much time on this. front-page news?? come ON. must i repeat, this is a NICE girl that made a mistake. something that everyone makes once in awhile. all of you who are criticizing her for that need to go get a life. as if 90% of you didn't do at least one thing you wished you hadn't in college or university. matt's right, some of the daily events that go on in saugeen are a hell of a lot worse than some act that a teenager decided to perform for a guy's birthday. and if you didn't ever do anything crazy, you need to get over yourself and your way-too-strongly-internalized morals... because it's quite obvious to me that this is nothing but a teenager acting in the spur of a moment... turn on the TV and watch what's going on in the media and you'll find much much worse.
--Saugeen
p.s. all you boys who keep asking for the link... go take a cold shower, find somebody real, and quit exploiting this poor girl.
Some of you need to grow up. Have you never seen breasts before? This is really not a big deal. At all. The university should have nothing to do with what people do IN THEIR HOME and whether they choose to post pictures of it or not. Her life isn't ruined and she's probably a completely normal person who's as amazed as I am as to why this is making news.
People get naked. People have sex. There's nothing "dirty" about it, it's just one of the joys of life. Part of what makes us human. This article, appearing to try to be "moral", does more harm than good with its condescending attitude.
Not to mention broad generalizations about London. Go research how many protesters actually showed up for the Morgantaler thing. Hint: It wasn't that many.
This is all my humble opinion, of course.
Phronk, were you one of the dudes in these pictures? Residence is not home -- you can smoke marijuana in your home, you can't in residence. This girl would have lost her job if she were employed anywhere. And Morgentaler made national news, asshole. If this girl was raped or the pictures of her were sold for porno money, I would blame you.
Okay, anonymous at UWO at December 15, 2005 11:56 PM
I have a few horrible truths to tell you. Please brace yourself.
You say you live in Saugeen and know this girl and she is nice and intelligent etc, etc. You even claim to have spoken to her a few times and repeat that she is nice and highly intelligent.
Here is the horrible truth.
She won't sleep with you.
You will become the 'Friend' and she will say 'hi' when you pass by and will go to lunch and do all those 'friend' things, but she will never sleep with you.
You defense of her character is admirable, but wasted. SHE IS RUBBING HER CROTCH IN THE FACE OF DIFFERENT GUYS ON CAMERA!!! Write on for as many paragraphs as you like.
I am sure she is intelligent, and nice, but she chose to act like a SKANK and let pictures be taken. Why she did this only she truly knows.
But your attempt at gallantry in defending her honor will only get you laughed at.
and she won't slepp with you.
She won't slepp, or sleep with you......
Alright Truthteller... good attempt at a rebuttal. but newsflash: i'm a girl. i like guys. i have no desire to sleep with this girl. i feel bad for her and i'm backing her up. from girl to girl. thanks for giving me a laugh though.
As a casual follower of this universe halting incident, here are some observations I`ve made.
Numerous people passing judgement on other people for the heinous crime of: passing judgement on the girl.
The guys in the pictures being referred to as "jocks". They do not appear to be jocks, but they must be, since clearly in your 18-20 years of life out on the means streets of post secondary life, you`ve learned that only jocks do this. NOBODY from the artistic, creative, academic, or literary world participates in anything raunchy.
Guys calling her s "skank". Hypocrites.
Girls telling 18 year old guys to take a cold shower, get a grip.
Everybody trying to be just a little smarter than the next person. Has anybody thought to actually ask her?
Umm, Phuck Phronk... 1) You can't legally smoke marijuana in your home OR residence (but it happens in both). 2) I doubt there would be legal grounds to fire someone for stripping (and what does that have to do with this?). 3) Making national news is not an indication of importance or relevance. Every time a baby panda is born it makes national news. Whoopee. 4) She wasn't raped, and there's no reason to think she was or would be. Everyone involved seemed to have fun. The only hurt that can come of this is perpetuated by judgmental asses like you.
Nice attempt at being dramatic, but settle down and think logically a bit and your life will go much more smoothly.
Ok for ALL you brain starving children, she fucked up and now she pays for her mistake so get over it.
Get over it folks.
Naked girl, oh my god it's the end of the earth! Get a life people, all women have an urge to show off their bodies, it is part of the inherited female nature and allure within each woman. If you did not go blind, what is wrong with you, or are female bodies grotesque? What would be shocking and should make headlines is that person who showers in her panties even in a private shower.
I go to saugeen, and I think I got the clap from that girl!
To all you female activists out there who believe that the "saugeen stripper" is setting advances in female equality back 20 years, you should perhaps instead look at the context of your arguments. You ignorant fools (pertaining especially to "trent girl."): with every "whore" comment that is uttered from your filthy mouths, you are the ones making it OK for men to degrade us as such. Secondly, why is this personally affecting you? Last time I checked, it was perfectally fine to do whatever makes you happy within the constraints of the law (keeping in mind this incident was completely legal). Finally, "trent girl" you need to grow up. Perhaps your deep inrouted insecurities, or your obvious balloon head (which im confident is filled with nothing but air) are holding you back from accomplishing anything with your life. Pathetic, pathetic pathetic...If you're not a jealous bitch (which im going to protest that you are) then why are you even making a comment? Oh...thats right, you have nothing better to do with your time...AND, you go to TRENT; perhaps i will meet you in the near future when you are pumping my gas.
Let me first point out how depressing it is to find college people that cannot figure out the difference between the words "your" and "you're", thanks a lot.
Then let me cheer everyone up by pointing out that it is likely such activities as this will become ever more rare in the glorious, multicultural future as we all learn to adhere closer and closer to the strictures of the Koran. Come 2050 or so, a 'strip tease' will consist of seeing a young woman without her burkha, if current trends continue.
Have a nice fling, kiddies, the piper will be paid...
Personally i just see it as pretty funny. I can't believe the amount of bullshit people are going on about on this site, holy sh*t. why do you care so much, its not affecting your life is it? are you losing sleep about this? I think its more about people not having enough crap going on in their life that they have to spend it sitting in front of a screen getting all political about this. give it a break and enjoy the pics. at least no one was shot!!!!
I happen to know that the boyfriend of the girl in the photos died two months ago.
Hope that puts it all into context a little more.
To paraphrase an earlier comment, I have to chuckle at all this discussion about an incident at UWO (i.e. London, Ontario) on "... a website about Toronto and everything that happens in it."
But ... I digress.
After reading through this entire thread, my comments are: Kudo's to jb for well-written, well-thought out comments, and "balderdash" to josh for your sanctimonious drivel (i.e. pretending to know more than you do, e.g. "... when girls are stripping in front of a large group of men with cameras in residence ... it's a dangerous scene. ... the girl in question had nil in the way of security. ...") - you're talking through your hat, little man.
I agree with Paige. Why do people feel sorry for this girl? She did it willingingly! These are the consequonces to her actions, if she didn't consider the outcome beforehand, then that's her problem. She has to face the consequonces. I mean if she has cameras in her face...or wherever else, she's screaming for publicity. What's with the pity, folks?
The pity is in the fact that a lot of people can't seem to take this as harmless fun. She had fun, and showed some dorky guys a good time (without actually having sex), and she may have assumed that there wouldn't be so many geeks who had nothing better to do than comment on how her actions make a whore.
Also, I totally agree with MB in his post (two up from this one, I think).
Hoollllyyy balls... You people crack me! I would have continued to say 'up', but oddly enough I'm cracked both up and down today. My first comment relates to mister anonymoose (dec27/05;07:56), What the hell are you smoking? Islam will not win the world over, nor will any single religion. And even if it did they'd have a jihad against themselves i'm sure. Secondly, I've read ever single comment on this page as well as the newspaper articles and every little bit of media before posting and I honestly can't figure out why this has been such a big deal. At the very least, I understand the rumours throughout Western and possibly even Fanshawe or Kings or any other local London post-secondary institution. But to Toronto? And to the public media? That is just a bit far fetched in my mind. I'm a Londoner, but go to Lakehead in Thunderbay. This happens ridiculously often and rarely passed around on the Internet for whatever reason. Most of the girls could even care less. And why should they? It's up to them to feel as they wish. Each individual has a right to do as they please. And I don't understand why another girl from UofT or wherever posted here saying that she'd have knocked out that girl if they were in the same rez. What does it matter? You do your chit, she does hers. We all have pasttimes, hobbies, crafts. Seriously, just do your own stuff and mind your own agenda. I read and read until there was no more to read regarding this and even then, I'm still kinda iffy regarding posting because it's stupid. This girl however, does feel ashamed from doing it, so whatever... Personally, I think she can continue to go to Western and just let the people who wish to see her that way continue to. She can change her image if she wants to and truely in a few years it will be disolved.
wow... you UWO people need a f*cking life. It's like you guys have never seen two tits and a clit before.
So what... I don't see what the big deal is. That kinda stuff happens at Confederation College and Lakehead University all the time.
Actually... That happens at all post secondary institutions.
Figures it's the "im better then everyone else" people at UWO making a big ruckus over nothing! haha
PS If Roger LeClaire is still attending UWO... he's cool! He knows how to party. He probably had a 5 stripper party at his place already. haha
And yeah... it's a year after the fact. But I just came across this now and its hilarious how you guys blow shit out of proportion!