It's hard not to think about sex when sitting in the Stadium Center of The University of Tampa. The school is notorious for its lopsided female-to-male ratio, a fact that's quite apparent in the dining area. The subject of college sex lives has undoubtedly been discussed many times in this room, but rarely with a professor on hand — unless that professor is Daniel Reimold, Ph.D. Although Reimold emphasizes that his new book, Sex and the University, is not about sex so much as it is a critical examination of student sex columnists, he is understandably pleased with the attention he and his scholarly book are receiving due to the marketability of the subject. The previous night Reimold and UT's two love and sex columnists, Hannah Webster and Dominique C. Barchus, were featured on Nightline, and Reimold has become known as an expert on sex writers. Neither the sinister charmer nor the mousy creepster one might expect, considering he's spent several years studying college sex writers, he's just a young, ambitious professor with an obvious passion for his field of study, student journalism.
Shawn Alff: How did you become interested in writing about college sex writers?
Daniel Reimold: I saw this book as a chance to explore something within student media that was innovative and impactful. It began with a Google search. The terms 'college newspaper,' 'student press' and 'campus magazine' all came back with something related to sex. At the time the professional press was really paying attention to these crazy sex columns students were writing — all these little Carrie Bradshaws. It was literally something like nine out of every ten hits. I thought, this is something worth exploring.
This article appears in Oct 21-27, 2010.