It is a fine line_其他_趣味英语-查字典英语网

It is a fine line

University is a time of exploring one’s own identity away from the family unit. The proud gaze of your mother no longer follows you; she is not there to disapprove of the state of your bedroom or your latest beau. For many, this is a time of sexual experimentation. A survey of male students at Cambridge University found that two-thirds were virgins at the start of their degrees, but only one-third had not tried sex by the time they had completed their finals.

For the herd of 18- and 19-year-olds who scramble, colt-legged and wet-nosed, into our universities each autumn term, the student room, small and grotty, is often the first of their own. There is a pervading smell of toast. The walls are thin and speckled with greasy Blu-Tack marks; your spider plant is half-dead and a pair of cheap brown curtains mope around the window frame. You keep your milk outside on the windowsill, swathed in a Tesco carrier bag, and a packet of Durex Featherlite under your lumpy mattress, in the half-hope, half-fear that you might get lucky.

For the first time in your life, you can get up and go to bed whenever they like. More importantly, you can drag home whoever you choose in the wee small hours, to fumble and frolic in a creaking, narrow bed.

A sexual frisson between students and tutors is almost inevitable. The tutor can become a parent substitute: the elder figure to whom a student will always defer, the central person in her life, whom she strives to impress and to please with her academic efforts. Intellectual sparring can fast develop into a form of flirtation.