I can't find this memorable, true story via Google, can you?

[CairoCarol]

In approximately 1978, a hilarious, painful, and widely publicized event occurred at MIT (details in a moment). I was trying to tell my son the story last night, and enlisted Google to help me get the details right.

I have excellent Google-fu. But I could not find a single reference to this unforgettable escapade on the web. Something is definitely weird here. [/conspiracy theory] Does MIT have more power over internet technology than we realize? And are they using it for the petty purposes of defending their own reputation against something that happened 30 years ago? [/conspiracy theory]

I know this story is true. I was there (kinda - I was at Wellesley). My husband was a student at MIT. In fact, he still has the t-shirt.

So here’s the tale (with some details perhaps slightly, but only slightly, amiss - hey, it HAS been 30 years):

MIT had a marvelous student newspaper called Thursday. Two female students rashly decided to write an article for it in which they rated, using a 5-star system, the sexual prowess of men on campus they had slept with. They used real, full names, and their descriptions were unsparing. The mocking and derision with which they dismissed the lovers they found unsatisfactory was breathtakingly cruel.

On the other hand, the skilled lovers were rewarded with rich praise. One lucky recipient of 5 stars had bestowed upon him the unforgettable encomium, “Waves crash. Volcanoes erupt. Flowers bloom.”

The fallout afterward was predictable. I believe one or both young women withdrew from school, and I have no idea what happened to the males who received withering pronouncements, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they, er, withered for quite some time after that.

The obvious commercial opportunity was quickly exploited. My husband, an MIT student at the time, purchased a t-shirt with 5 stars on one side and the “waves crash…” saying on the other.

Anyone who was even remotely in the vicinity at that time MUST remember this story.

So why is it that I can’t find any reference to it on the internet?

Can you?

[samclem]

It was 1977. Warning–PDF file

http://tech.mit.edu/V97/PDF/N26.pdf

That’s from the administration paper at MIT. Searchable.

It was the Consumer Guide to MIT Men. From 1-4 stars was the rating scale.

The two women who wrote the story were Roxanne Ritchie and Susanne Gilbert. They were NOT on the newspaper staff.

[vintageloveletter]

I can’t believe this got by the editor. Too funny. Here is another article on the incident:
http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=109521

[mhendo]

A search of ProQuest historical newspaper databases also shows that this story made it into a few national newspapers:

New York Times 1
New York Times 2
LA Times
Washington Post

(all PDF files)

According to the second NYT article:

The newspaper’s editor, John Roselli, said yesterday that the newspaper’s feature editor, Scott Batterman, who originated the idea, had been suspended for three months by a faculty disciplinary committee. Mr. Roselli and the article’s co-authors, Susan Gilbert and Roxanne Ritchie, have been placed on probation, he said.

[artichoke]

I remember it well.

Ms. Gilbert and Ms. Ritchie slept with – it must have been – over a hundred male MIT students, and rated them. Almost all the ratings were sarcastic and at least partially negative, sometimes overwhelmingly so. Thank God they never got me into their clutches.

Their personalities must have been awful for them to do something like this. What I do know for sure is that they were ugly. Granted there were not a lot of women students around campus at that time, but if those were my choices, I would not forget the possibility of abstinence.

The Institute should have just thrown those two out and slammed the door behind them. Who needs such people?

[kittenblue]

So enlighten us…what search terms did you use to find the articles?

And does anyone know what happened to the women after they left MIT?

[GuanoLad]

@samclem

It was 1977. Warning–PDF file

http://tech.mit.edu/V97/PDF/N26.pdf

“Star Wars”, huh? Stupid title, but it sounds like a fun movie. Who wants to come with?

[mhendo]

@kittenblue

So enlighten us…what search terms did you use to find the articles?

Not sure if you’re talking to me, but…

To be honest, i can’t remember. If you look at the date on my post, you’ll see it’s over a year old, and that this is something of a zombie thread.

Also, i got my stories from ProQuest, which is a subscription-only database of historical newspapers, ued mainly by academics and other researchers. Whatever terms i used would be unlikely to work in a Google search, because those newspapers don’t provide free content all the way back to the 1970s.
I’m going to report the thread to the mods, in case they want to close it. I think it’s harmless enough to leave open, but i’ll let them know anyway.

[Northern_Piper]

@vintageloveletter

I can’t believe this got by the editor. Too funny. Here is another article on the incident:
http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=109521

Interesting - the author of that article in the Crimson, Jonathan H. Alter, appears to be the now columnist-editor for Newsweek: Jonathan Alter.

[Wendell_Wagner]

artichoke writes:

> Ms. Gilbert and Ms. Ritchie slept with – it must have been – over a hundred
> male MIT students, and rated them.

It was 36 men.

[twickster]

Zombie. Closed.

[twickster]

Reopened at the request of TheMadHun.

[Grrr]

Weird, the lock still shows to be on but I can post!!

Wow, I feel so powerfull. Is this what it feels like to be a mod?

[Manduck]

Found a picture of Roxanne Ritchie.

[Duckster]

@Northern_Piper

Interesting - the author of that article in the Crimson, Jonathan H. Alter, appears to be the now columnist-editor for Newsweek: Jonathan Alter.

Whitaker particularly recalls one of Alter’s “scoops,” a story he broke about two MIT women, Roxanne Ritchie and Susan Gilbert, who had compiled a list—complete with starred ratings—ranking the performance of the 36 men with whom they had slept. Their article ran in the MIT’s alternative weekly under the headline, “The Consumer Guide to MIT Men.”

Alter heard about the story from a retired federal judge during lunch at the Signet Society.

“I got their names, and just went over to interview them with a Crimson photographer,” he remembers. Gilbert wasn’t home, but Ritchie was, so Alter interviewed her—“but didn’t stay afterwards,” he reports. “I did not mix Crimson business and pleasure on that occasion.”

http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=502805

[xenonman]

Any idea what has become of Mmes. Gilbert and Ritchie in the years since their “journalistic debut” in "77 ?

[xenonman]

Probably the main reason why so little can be found on the internet about this bizarre journalistic “scoop” is that it occurred so long ago (May '77), and has thus never been uploaded.

[twickster]

Welcome to the SDMB, xenonman. We call threads that have been inactive for three months or more “zombies,” and generally prefer that you not revive them. I’m going to lock this thread, but if anyone has updates or suchlike, they should feel free to start a new thread and link back to this one.

twickster, MPSIMS mod