A Clockwork Orange

Violent and sexually deviant movies appeal to me. Having been tricked into watching ghastly and innovative films involving torture and scatology — all carefully eviscerated from the marvelous Language Resource Center — it comes as no surprise that my friends seldom accept my movie recommendations with alacrity. One dull winter's night, while hanging out with my friends, I suggested watching Kubrick's "Eyes Wide Shut."

"No," screamed my friends, pulling religious talismans out of their pockets, "such things are abominable in the sight of the Lord. We have not yet recovered from our retinoblastomas."

"Let's go to this cool site instead," offered a meek girl. "Have you heard of boredatfirestone.com?"

"What is that?"

"It's the dark underbelly of Princeton."

We typed in the letters with trepidation. The screen flickered and filled with violent and sexually deviant posts. I would quote them if I could, but my strange conception of society as essentially Victorian prevents me from repeating the words that still continue to burn in my head with sense and sensibility. Nevertheless, I assure you that the posts were shocking and yet heinously beautiful.

There were the posts advertising for orgies and gay sex, in all sorts of permutations, so many menages a trois that Henri Poincare himself would have blushed. (I should point out my glorious pun on his work on the three-body problem, for those more physically inclined who are not in the know.) There were the posts recounting fables from nights' revelries — drunken girls taken advantage of, closeted athletes exploring the netherest of their nether regions, boys who had slept with gay officers from eating clubs for Bicker and so on. Even the most industrious and well-connected Nassau Literary Review editor could not have undertaken the project of completing a more diverse collection of narratives representing the Dionysian cross-section of Princeton. Tears came to my hoary eyes as I realized that, despite the conservative pretensions of so many on campus, sexual expression was well and truly alive in the most liberated manner possible. Secret meetings, anonymous sex, naked parties — they composed a fitting trinity for a new age.

But the tone of the posts had begun to change. Most disturbing were the posts on the Asian male. Perhaps in response to a recent journalistic scandal I shall not deign to recount, perhaps in response to the propositions of some Asian male — I know not — a brief discussion on the unattractiveness of the Asian male had started. The salient issue at hand was that Asian men were genetically predisposed to ugliness: their faces resembled flattened pies with slits cut in them, so Asian parents should just select for females and castrate their men. I felt ashamed, but then I consoled myself.

"At least I am French-Vietnamese-Indonesian-Chinese!" I yelled, pulling out my chest hairs. "Though I am genetically mostly Asian, I am ontologically white in my self-conception! The minute part of whiteness has overtaken the whole!"

I had to redeem myself. I left the insipid company of my wholesome, boring friends and escaped to the Street. In the dark basement of a club that shall remain anonymous, I met a white boy who was kind enough to take me home despite my inferior status. In the darkest hour of my desperation, I found salvation.

I knew, right at that moment, that there existed a duality in my life that could not be theorized away. At Princeton, I was at once the repressed and the liberated, the Apollonian and the Dionysian. By day, I submitted to the overwhelming forces of propriety and inferior social status that hedged me into conventions and modes of behavior. But by night, under the cover of secrecy, I rebelled through sexual conquest and redemption as a metaphor for the deconstruction of social boundaries. At the heart of this darkness was the secret power I wielded and untouchable by any part of the administration. (The author would like to point out, in a very Brechtian manner, the crucial importance of this paragraph to his dear readers.)

As I went to sleep that evening, I saw in my mind something orange, certainly a vague symbol of the institution, though I could not be certain what it was. It moved in a trance, mechanically, and it could not be stopped. Johann Loh is a sophomore from Singapore. He can be reached at loh@princeton.edu.