Hannah, on the natural wind machine of the Amsterdam bridge

Hannah Lindsey’s Senior Wisdom has some worthy advice, but the bulk of it is devoted to oral sex v. cheese in one of the most involved analyses we’ve ever seen.

Name, School, Major, Hometown: Hannah Lindsey; Columbia College; English; Houston, TX.

Claim to fame: Only spending 2.5 years on Columbia campus, almost all of it in the Writers House lounge. Also, editing sex novels.

Where are you going? Home! For a couple years, anyway.

What are 3 things you learned at Columbia and would like to share with the Class of 2021?

1. Find a place to take a bath.

2. Study abroad.

3. Write it down.

“Back in my day…” Cannons, Bacchanal, no fried macaroni and cheese at JJ’s.

Justify your existence in 30 words or fewer: Someone out there in the world has probably masturbated to a novel I helped shape. You’re welcome.

What was your favorite class at Columbia? Modernist Primitives, Human Machines, Sex, and Other Tragicomedies: Modern Drama (c.1890-1968) with Julie Peters, or University Writing with Amber Medland.

Would you rather give up oral sex or cheese? This is a grueling question, and, I believe, the only reason that I was nominated for this Senior Wisdom (see: editing sex novels). For this reason, my response will constitute the bulk of my Wisdom. I see it as an issue with three fundamental facets.

Firstly: Which, if horrible, is better? The answer is obviously cheese. Bad cheese, you spit it out, you rinse your mouth, you text a friend about how shitty Morton Williams brie is, and bam, you’re done. Bad oral sex can have lifelong implications. You have to figure out how to make them stop, or you have to soldier through the tedious minutes of not only boredom, but disappointed boredom. You have to finesse a way to not ever have it happen again, which could mean severing a relationship for months, years, even a lifetime. The complications of horrible oral sex, both physically and emotionally, far outweigh the complications of bad cheese. So: point to cheese.

Secondly: This is a question with (hopefully) decades-long implications. Which ages better, oral sex or cheese? You would think, of course, cheese. But think also about how the average mediocre performer of oral sex will, over the next 30+-odd years, only get better. The disappointing oral sex that one has received (speaking for myself at least) was probably someone’s, like, what, hundredth attempt? Thousandth? Come back to me after putting in the 10,000 hours. I think the temporal dimension of the question swings in favor of oral sex.

Thirdly: Survival. If I’m in a tough spot, and I’m left with only these two options, can I live off of either oral sex or cheese alone? Cheese, being food, seems possible – but just two days of cheese-only clogs me up like you would not believe. Oral sex seems equally impossible, but, if Professor Lydia Kertz taught me anything, it’s that Tristan and Isolde lived off of love alone. Do I trust Gottfried von Strassburg on wilderness survival the way I trust, say, Jack London? I actually trust neither. I can’t survive on oral sex or on cheese. Draw.

Note: There are many, many exciting things to do with a sexual or romantic partner. For creative alternatives to oral sex, I recommend the romantic and erotic novels of Entangled Publishing. (There are also many exciting foods, so this is another draw, included just to plug Entangled Publishing. Read romance novels, they make you a better person.)

My final summation is this: oral sex can ruin friendships, cheese is a stagnant choice, and everyone should have a right to both or either or neither, but I recently picked up a hot slice of cheese pizza and, in that moment, I would have given up anything.

One thing to do before graduating: Talk to Public Safety’s #1 heartbreaker, Jim O’Brien.

Any regrets? Of course. Example: 453 words devoted to oral sex vs. cheese.

Photo via Hannah Lindsey