Upon entering Harvard, every first-year student learns three rituals they must complete before graduation. Peeing on John Harvard is easy enough: all it takes for most people is a bit too much alcohol and not enough Securitas on a Saturday night. Primal Scream certainly requires some initial courage, but one can take solace in being merely one of hundreds of naked students running through the Yard.
However, the third tradition—having sex in the stacks of Widener Library—has always been students’ most daunting challenge. Thirty-one percent of respondents to the Independent’s 2022 Sex Survey listed the stacks as their most desired location to have sex on campus, yet a meager six percent of students reported having actually done it.
Finding an interested partner can be difficult, but anybody who has “been around the books” knows they must also be as subtle as possible when accomplishing the deed. “You really have to use your best 007-type stealth skills,” said one junior who hooked up with his girlfriend in the stacks last fall. “You’re always on a bit of a lookout for any student or employee who might be coming by.”
But sex in the stacks isn’t all it’s made out to be. It involves uncomfortable positions and the constant anxiety of hearing the elevator door open. Additionally, years of tradition have made this once-hallowed act old news, a task that students simply desire to “check the box on,” as one Sex Survey respondent put it. Where else can Harvard’s most pioneering students go?
For those who cannot be bothered to make the walk to the Yard, sex in the residential house libraries can be a suitable replacement. “Library sex is my favorite,” said a male sophomore, who recalled the time he and his partner linked in the attic of the Eliot Library. “The convenience is unbeatable, and I really enjoy the thrill in the risk of it all.” The location also proved particularly amenable, he says: “What I found most funny of the whole experience was that there actually were condoms stored in the bookshelves. I must not have been the first one.”
For some particularly daring students, living their sex lives entirely outside of class just isn’t enough. Serving as a bastion of boredom for the student body, the Science Center bathrooms were an ideal mid-lecture break for one junior girl. “There was this guy who I thought was really hot in my Econ lecture,” she recalled. “We had been flirting for a while and had just hooked up for the first time the weekend before. I told him when sexual energy was high, that I would give him head in the bathroom during Econ.” She acknowledged that while it was far from her most enjoyable experience, the audacity of the location has an added bonus in her relationship. “He knows he’s gonna have to pay me back with an ‘equal’ act at some point,” she said. “I just haven’t figured out where.”
While many Harvard students strive to emulate former American presidents, few have done so like one sophomore last year. Their chosen hookup spot: the Longfellow House on Brattle Street, George Washington’s headquarters during the siege of Boston in 1776. “I had actually been there a few times beforehand because I thought the history behind it was cool,” he said. “No one’s ever really there, and I realized that there was pretty much no security stopping me from sneaking into the house at night.” Having sex at a National Historic Site was too good an opportunity to pass up. “I decided I had to go for it,” he said. After slipping inside with a sneaky link and ducking under a rope, his path was clear to have sex in the bedroom of the first president of the United States. It remains to be seen if this student will also have his face on currency and cities named after him, but the one shared experience he already has with the Founding Father is a cherished one. “It’s pretty cool to say I had sex in George Washington’s bed,” he said.
However, the luxury of indoor hookups hasn’t always been possible for students. While the pandemic hampered Harvard social life for over a year, lovers were forced to get creative with the great outdoors. One sophomore remembers her first weekend of college in the fall of 2020, when the administration set a strict no guest policy in campus suites. “River parties were the epitome of the social scene last fall,” she reflected. “I hit it off with someone, but we honestly weren’t sure what to do with ourselves given the restrictions that were in place,” she explained. “We were really scared of getting sent home, so we ended up hooking up by Weeks bridge one night.” This tale is far from the only story curated by the Charles River that fall, a reminder that the hardest of times can bring out the most remarkable in people.
Readers might wonder: Why hook up in such unusual locations when typical spots like a bedroom, Tasty Burger Basement, or the bathroom of the Spee are available?
“Sex is boring if you do the same thing every time,” said the female student who took the rather adventurous break from Econ. “Doing stuff like this spices things up and adds a fun level of risk.” The junior from Widener agrees: “I honestly thought it was going to be a one time thing, but I’d definitely do something like that again,” he said. “It wasn’t the sex itself per se, but the idea that I was doing it in such a public place made it really hot.”
While it is unreasonable to expect any of these locations to usurp the stacks as Harvard’s premier location for illicit hookups, they present students with an alternative option. Do they want to have sex in a place where thousands of people have already done that exact same thing? Or do they find new frontiers and truly push the boundaries of where sex is acceptable?
Declan Buckley ’24 and Kerry Daley ’24 have a new appreciation for many of the spots they frequent on campus.