In college, Sunday brunch serves an essential function-allowing students to openly exchange their walks of shame, drunken hook-ups and emergency room visits of the past weekend.
Capitalizing on such a wealth of experiences, sophomore Trevor Ragan has created a Web site-to ultimately gather material for a book-that collects information about one of the most discussed topics on college campuses nationwide: sex.
The Web site, The Sunday Brunch, is an open forum on which individuals can anonymously post the details of their sexual encounters and advice, Ragan said.
The book will be called F-- and consist of a main section on sex-related stories and another on a broad range of sex-related advice (the actual name of the book and sub-sections cannot be printed).
"I've seriously thought of everything anyone could ever know and have made it into a topic," Ragan said. "Anywhere from kissing to having sex in a car."
Ragan said the section on the site consisting of sex-related stories is further divided into three parts: "Oh F-," "What the F-" and "F- Yes!" "Oh F-" addresses horrific but amusing experiences such as "my mom walked in on us" or "my condom broke." "What the F-," by contrast, consists of the most disturbing and revolting sexual encounters and "F- Yes!" comprises of "the good ones you want to brag about to your friends."
Although Ragan said he initially thought he would have to struggle to obtain female input, about 60 percent of the submissions to the site have been from women.
"The weird thing about ["F- Yes!"] is that of the 20 stories in that section, 15 are from girls," he added.
Even though Ragan specifically drew a distinction between his site and sites like Juicy Campus, several students said the two resemble one another in focus and target audience.
"I feel like it's just another kind of popular thing on the Internet that will disappear as quickly as it came up, just like Juicy Campus," freshman Matt Isabel said. "They are all Web sites that are supposed to shock you and surprise you. They all play on the same sort of theme and [are similar in] how they are getting their audience."
Senior Tom Donaho said the site reminds him of another item of contemporary literature.
"Sounds to me like someone has been reading Tucker Max too much," he said.
Students were split over whether they agreed with the Web site and the book, with some having said they saw them merely as alternative mediums of information.
"What's the difference between reading [these stories] in a magazine and reading [them] in a book?" freshman Lydia Greene said. "We all read them and think they're hilarious."
Others, however, said though sexual advice and a forum to openly discuss sexual issues might be beneficial to students, the title of the book, as well as the title's implications, are crude and offensive.
Sophomore Veronica Bustabad, for instance, said people need to be open about sex, but should do so in a constructive manner. Therefore, she said she has no problem with the site but does not see how it could be useful.
"I don't know that I will be resorting to this as a resource, but for some people it works," she said.
Over the summer, Ragan said he plans to extend The Sunday Brunch to include subjects such as sports, school and life that will not be featured in the book. He added that the school section will contain student opinions about the best alcoholic drinks, tips to passing certain classes, easy professors and dating in college.
Even though he had originally created the site as a means to obtain information for a book, he is now focusing most of his attention on enhancing and developing the site.
"Right now I'm so excited about the site that's coming that I'm not even thinking about the book," he said.
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