Point/Counterpoint: Club-cest

*Both of the long-term club-cest relationships referred to throughout the piece have (sort of) ended at the time of this publication.

Homie Hopper: I’m a firm believer in club-cest. I’ve dabbled across most of my clubs, but one of the most egregious of my club-cest violations occurred within this very organization.

Retired Rizzler: Unfortunately, Homie Hopper and I shat where we ate (at the same dinner table). I am no longer a proponent of club-cest.

The Club-cest We Engaged With.

RR: First, I feel like it’s important to establish that both of our club-cests were technically with our seniors. This created an unequal power dynamic from the start, especially since I believe the man inevitably holds more cards by societal standards. When he undertook a more executive role halfway through our…relationship? That really changed how we interacted. 

HH: In my situation, even though she was my senior, she wasn’t ever my direct manager, or even on the same board as me. We ended up non-exclusively hooking up for the better part of a year.

Let’s Talk Sex.

RR: “I wish you were riding me. I want you to wrap your legs around me as I finish.” Most girls who get these texts would be ready to turn off the lights and slip under the covers with some SKYN. For a while, I was her. But by the end of this harrowing relationship, these texts softened my boner so fast he might as well have said, “I’m not like the other guys.”

HH: Honestly, I miss the days of invisible ink and cheeky glances across the room. Club-cest has all the trappings of a normal college hook-up, but a touch more illicit. I thrive on that adrenaline. “I want food and then to fuck”—like yeah. DND and low brightness during meetings with an open laptop were a must. Showing up to Monday storyboards without a bra on was too. 

RR: A few of our in-office routines changed once we started getting down and dirty. And after eight months, I realized that the unbalanced power dynamic that existed both professionally and personally affected how I thought about the sex. I always felt like I had to perform flawlessly—one, because I think that is the eternal female crisis, and two, because his opinion of me determined my future in the organization. When I look back on this, I was way overthinking everything—more so than I ever had with past sexual partners. That is why club-cest was just never a good idea for me. And in retrospect, this was evident from the start. 

Blacking out and waking up in his room? Not a great way to start a stable relationship.

HH: Blacking out and waking up dazed, confused, and naked is undeniably relatable. Yet on my end, uhm… no, we just, like, had great sex. That’s it. That’s all there is to say. I’d say more if I remembered more. I can’t say that I ever remember being sober when we dabbled in copulation. I can say that most of the professional club dynamics didn’t carry over into the bedroom. Especially because there had never been much of a power dynamic, although I do think I was sometimes expected to initiate, given my position as a younger member of the organization. As they say, “you can’t fuck a comper, but the comper can fuck you.” 

It’s not like I wasn’t receiving heavy hints. I remember the first time we hooked up, I literally had walked into the party that night thinking in my head, there is no way we don’t fuck tonight. Luckily, I was right. So right, in fact, that a certain former member’s picture frame was slightly damaged after being banged off the bathroom wall.

RR: Speaking of bathrooms, my roommate did, in fact, walk in on us in the Dunster single-user restroom one time. Not our finest moment. Though I would argue that being horizontal in the office was worse…

We’re Passionate About Our Club.

HH: Club-cest undeniably made me much more involved in the organization. You know the saying, “having a class crush will ensure your attendance will be 100%”—that definitely applied here. When we were just starting, I would go out of my way to do things for the club just to impress and get closer to her. In that sense, club-cest felt really beneficial to me; it motivated me to invest and advance in the organization. In fact, I’ve actually joined more than one club just because I thought someone was hot. Hot people motivate me; that motivation drives my success, and I think that’s a good thing. Find what pushes you and take advantage of that—for me, it was as simple as club-cest. 

RR: Club-cest definitely had me banging on the office doors, eager to be present at every work time, board meeting, and social. Sometimes I’d even spring for the see-through Skims shirt and matching bra. I wanted to make sure he was thinking, “Wow, what a babe.” But I soon began struggling to distinguish between what I was doing for the relationship and what I was doing for the club’s genuine success and development.

HH: That’s a really good point. I do think that’s why having boundaries within the organization, like being on different boards, is super helpful. 

So, Should You Mix Business With Pleasure?

RR: This was my first club-cest infraction. In my mind, since I was easily able to maintain intra-organization friendships, such affection shouldn’t have been much harder to replicate romantically. But I quickly learned this was not the case. Considering our roles operated so incredibly close in the organization, the lines between flirting and focusing often blurred. 

HH: I felt that too. It definitely became harder to separate critiques of my work from critiques of who I was in the relationship. There was also definitely a period where flirting would happen through the work—I would intentionally pick up certain assignments as a show of, “Hey, I’m into you.” In response, I’d consistently get priority for the assignments I really wanted. It was fun like a game, but when you do get negative feedback, it’s much harder to process. 

RR: I also struggled with the professional versus friend versus club-cest dynamic. We, of course, have close friends in the organization, and I sometimes found myself in situations where I had to choose between backing him or a good friend. It is always a hard conversation when you have to pick your friend or your “boss”—I would argue you ultimately must side with your boss to retain employment. However, when your boss is also your side piece, this really complicates things. Your friend now sees your choice as you picking a man over them, rather than simply a professionally necessary outcome. 

HH: Yeah, it is super easy for club-cest to turn into a professional nightmare. I’ve always been very comfortable with codeswitching and shifting personal dynamics dependent on the environment. In terms of how I wanted to be perceived, I think we both kept it strictly professional until we were out of the club space. It did, however, get harder once we started working together. We were just incapable of getting anything done—there was no world in which we were spending our time together writing an article rather than fucking or goofing around.

I will say, one of the really positive aspects of club-cest is that it is actually really nice to have someone you can lean on within the club. The club is such a big part of my life, so it was fantastic to have a partner who deeply understood me by my side. My friends in the club, the work I do for the club, the drama in the club, all consume mental space, and being able to share that with someone who completely understands it is beautiful and unique to club-cest. We were able to relate to each other over something we both really loved and were seriously involved in. The club became a bridge between our passions.

RR: That is something I also appreciated. We all spend considerable time and energy on this organization. Inevitably, there were tough moments in the space, and he noticed. If I left the room to recuperate, he would follow me out, listen to my concerns, and offer affectionate gestures before we rejoined the group. This went both ways.

Are Secrets Really That Sexy?

RR: I think visibility matters. Though many of our publication peers had a hunch we hooked up once, most people didn’t know we continued to see each other. Had more people been privy to the inner workings of our sex lives, all of our interactions would have inevitably been psychoanalyzed—a dilemma for two creatives in the same section wanting to be known for their work products, not their interpersonal dynamics.

HH: I unfortunately can’t say the same about my relationship in terms of secrecy. We hooked up for the first time at a pretty public club event. I was never shy about my long-standing crush on her, even when she had a girlfriend. We also have definitely been caught dfmo-ing at a variety of high-profile campus events, so it wasn’t exactly a secret. Everyone knew, but I don’t think many people knew what the actual status of our relationship ever was (myself included). I think that made it easier—the lack of secrecy and labels eliminated a lot of what could’ve been negative external pressure on our relationship. Simultaneously, it was definitely weird to know that people in the club felt like they were privy to the intimacy of our relationship. We weren’t subtle, but club members also definitely took certain liberties with respect to how she and I were grouped at events or on projects.

Ending the Relationship.

HH: Let’s be honest. It is really fucking hard to stop hooking up with someone that you are required to see multiple times a week. I know you’ve said you and your partner were on and off, and I’d say the same. There were definitely points during the relationship where we would be on a break, but then suddenly texting each other during a club meeting and giggling. That often quickly spiraled—the next day we’d be grabbing drinks and sleeping over. I think in both of our situations, things have only really been able to hard-stop because one of the parties got cuffed.

RR: Yeah. Our relationship became something toxic yet comforting to return to—especially because he once said he wanted to buy a house with me. I was trapped in the schoolgirl crush naiveté. But once he started seeing someone else (though can anyone tell?), I knew it was officially over.

At the end of the day, club-cest can really go either way. You have to be wary of boundaries and decide for yourself whether you’ll be able to separate your work and personal lives. The clear divide between our experiences was the power dynamic that carried over from the club to the relationship. It can be dangerous to hook up with your senior and someone who is directly associated with you and your work product. 

For RR, the unequal authority and professional difficulties damaged her perception of club-cest. For HH, she found that club-cest brought her and her partner closer together through shared passions, more frequent interactions, and projects. We both agree that neither of our relationships would’ve happened without the club. So at least we have the “Harvard Independent” to thank for that.

Homie Hopper will probably continue to have class crushes, club crushes, and work crushes until she’s menopausal. Retired Rizzler would choose celibacy over another club crush.