Writing Seminar, Assignment One

Writing Seminar was supposed to start five minutes ago, but the barmy old professor is nowhere to be seen.

“He probably slipped in the shower this morning,” Lisa says, rolling her eyes. “It’s not that strange, Brooke.”

“Well, he’s usually on time,” Brooke says defensively, folding her arms over her chest. She shoots you a look, as if asking for help, but the door to the classroom swings open just then.

“Sorry for the delay my friends, was just having a lovely chat with Charmaine and lost track of the time,” the professor says, coming in with a cheery wave. He takes his customary seat at the head of the table, while Charmaine, dressed in a black dress a shade darker than her skin, finds a seat near you. “But today is a big day. An important day! Today is the day we actually start writing in our writing seminar! There’s been a whole lot of reading up until now, a whole lot of good discussion, but not a whole lot of writing.

“So, if you will recall our prompt—‘The modern conception of sex is fundamentally incompatible with the romantic ideal of love’—we’re going to spend the first ten minutes of class writing out the thrust of argument as it currently stands in our heads, and then we’ll spend the rest of class critiquing each other’s ideas!”

He looks at everyone expectantly. There’s a hesitant pause, followed by a hasty shuffle of papers and laptops as the girls around you realise that they’re supposed to be getting to work.

You look down at the empty notebook page in front of you. What do you think is the right answer? You aren’t sure, to be honest. While the others appear to be hard at work, pens flying across pages, yours has hardly moved. It’s not that you don’t have ideas. You’ve got plenty, but both sides have got a lot going for them, so you sit there, lost in thought.

All of a sudden, the professor’s voice calls out, interrupting you from your far-from-completed work.

“Well, that wraps up our brainstorming session. Anybody want to go first? Lucille, why don’t you share what you came up with?”

The brunette girl looks a little startled as she’s called, but she quickly gains her composure, looking down at her notes.

“Sex is the modern era is transactional. It’s a pure exchange of pleasure for pleasure, with none of the weight that the word ‘love’ entails,” Lucille says. She’s wearing a black crop top with a thin black choker to match, displaying her thin figure, and you wonder at the degree to which she’s speaking from personal experience. “Just think about the way Tinder works—you give me a funny pick-up line, I give you a tantalizing pic, and then we get each other off for a night, only to awkwardly ignore each other forevermore... You can’t tell me that’s the same thing as love.”

“Well now, that’s some fiery stuff!” the professor says, grinning from ear to ear. “Does anybody have an opinion to the contrary? Oh yes, Charmaine, I know that you must disagree quite some with Lucille, why don’t you go ahead?”

“I should think that you can have sex with someone and actually love them,” Charmaine says. “Look, just because you lot are busy hooking up with the closest guy with a twitching cock, doesn’t mean that that’s the way things have to be. Sex in this modern age simply means sex without all the rigidty. Things have come a long way since the days of the Victorian prudes! People can get kinky, men can have sex with men, women can have sex with women… some people couldn’t even have sex with the ones they loved in the past, for fear of being stoned to ****!”

“An argument for classical liberalism! Fantastic stuff, ladies, simply fantastic,” the professor says. He scans the room, looking to see if anybody has something to say to that.

Brooke’s hand shoots up, a tight frown on her face, and the professor calls on her.

“Divorce rates have shot through the roof, people are having kids later than ever, there’s a loneliness epidemic… Charmaine, romance is dead, it’s not hard to see, and love has gone the same way,” Brooke says. “And if love itself isn’t a well-defined term anymore, then how could the ‘modern concept of sex’, whatever that means, possibly be compatible with it? There’s nothing for sex to be compatible with! Love. Is. Dead.”

“Nietzsche comes later in the semester, but it’s good to see you’re getting a head start on the material,” the professor says with a wry smile. “But let’s not quite be so combative with one another. We’re here to discuss ideas and write well, not tear each other down. Lisa, it looks like you’re itching to say something. What’s on your mind?”

“Brooke is full of horeshit,” Lisa jumps in, and before the professor can interject, she carries on: “We all know what love is, and it’s certainly not dead. It’s chocolates and diamonds and Disney princesses being wooed by Prince Charming, and it’s all manufactured by corporations. It’s the same with sex. From Tinder to porn to literally every advertisement since the invention of television, sex is a good that’s been manufactured, too. So really, it’s no surprise that the two are compatible. They both serve the same end goal—capitalism and corporate profit.”

There’s a moment of silence as everyone takes in the exchange that’s taken place in the room. Lisa sits back, folding her hands across her chest with a self-satisfied smirk.

“Well, that was quite something,” the professor says, unable to wipe his smile off his face. “I’m really looking forward to reading all of your papers now, but I think we should call it a class today before the fistfights start. I’ll stick around here, of course, should you want to talk some more, and I’d encourage you to keep the conversations going with your fellow classmates, but for now… class is dismissed!”

You breathe a silent sigh of relief at not being called upon, before you realise that you now have close to an extra hour of free time.