"Sex and the University": Celebrity, Controversy, and a Student Journalism Revolution, 1997--2008

College newspaper sex columns and campus sex magazines accrued more popularity, caused more controversy, and endured more scrutiny than any other individual, group, or issue connected with modern campus media. They sparked contentious and far-reaching legal, administrative, religious, and intergenerational debates about sex, the student press, and the place of both within higher education. At the same time, they blurred once-solid journalistic boundaries separating information deemed public and private, art and porn, and gossip and news. They also analyzed the modern student social and sexual scenes in more depth than any other academic or media outlet, enabling students to take control of sexual messages that in the past were kept from them or aimed at them instead of created by them. As a writer for campus sex magazine Boink said, "This is kind of our protest to say that we're in charge of our sexuality, we can do what we want to do." This dissertation argues that college newspaper sex columns and campus sex magazines defined a sexual generation, redefined student journalism, and acted as vehicles to a stardom for their creators that is unparalleled by anything else student journalists have experienced.