UNI SEX?

Who needs dating when there’s a website that cuts to the chase for you?

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University is the perfect place to explore new found freedom by exploring your sexual boundaries. With your college friends, lab partners and even those losers lurking in the Cindies smoking area, you might think that uni is the perfect place to meet people. However, a new website, www.shagatuni.com, means that you are no longer even limited to people you know. In fact, get ready for some fun with:

The voluptuous Sandra, 19.

According to the site, Sandra “is looking for casual encounters and lives only 2 miles from you!” Not tempted yet? Check out her Interests section: the clichéd ‘long walks’ are replaced with role playing. ‘Trips to the cinema’ become adult movies at home. ‘Restaurant dining’ is exchanged with oral – receiving and giving and, interestingly, Sandra does not enjoy ‘reading’ but instead loves a spot of rimming.

Sandra is clearly more promiscuous than the average student you may eye-fuck from across the room in the UL (I couldn’t publish any of her other photos), but it seems important to ask where exactly the demand comes from for Adult dating sites which are targeted specifically at University students. It’s not as if there’s no opportunity for meeting potential sexual partners whilst studying for a degree, is it? Even if it is outside some tacky nightclub.

A feature of the site allows you to search for members within a certain distance of you. I thought that perhaps this would determine whether any students in Cambridge were actually making use of the site.

The answer: 508 female members, within just 5 miles of the city centre. In the spirit of gender equality, I did the same search for men, and found a staggering 5,191. Most of the males must have thought it endearing to upload photos of their offensively erect penises as their display pictures. The effect on me was a true cocktail of revulsion and existential angst, which made me quickly close the browser and contemplate why I thought writing this article would be a more positive use of my time than finishing my essay.

I came back, having taken a break, Big Danny still painfully burning in my retina. I decided, in the true spirit of the Theroux School of investigative journalism, to try and sign up – with a fake name and a photo (of someone I do not like very much).

I hoped to get the chance to speak to some of the seemingly ubiquitous Cambridge babes, with the aim of hearing about their experiences of the site. Unfortunately, I was dissuaded by the £19.95/month required just to be able to send messages.

This fairly steep price tag must show a genuine demand for the site; perhaps shagatuni.com is ideal for the horny Cambridge student who is too busy with early medieval literature and rowing to go through the tedious social conventions of texting and dating. Or perhaps my tone is too harsh…is there really a moral difference between signing up for shagatuni.com and going out, downing Jaeger and taking a stranger back to your room?

Having said that, shagatuni.com is just not for me. I think I’ll close my account and leave this experience with nothing more than an embarrassing Internet history and vague mental scarring.