The cameras were rolling when he stopped by the campus about 14 months ago to answer students’ questions about sex.
And tonight, relationship and sex advice columnist Dan Savage is making this university the star of the premiere episode of Savage U, a new MTV reality show that follows Savage and his producer Lauren Hutchinson as they travel to college campuses nationwide to talk sex and relationships with students.
Savage was still piloting the series when he hosted a Q&A session with students on the campus last January. According to an MTV press release, the show will explore both the commonly asked questions and the taboo topics about sex such as relationship building, online dating and fetishes.
Savage said in a telephone press conference last Wednesday that he hopes Savage U will empower students to start dialogues about these subjects.
“I hoped I would be able to speak on TV about sex the way I’ve been able totalk in my column about sex … and I think the show does do that,” Savage said. “It’s important for people to reach out and ask for advice, but we have a culture where we regard being ignorant about sex as a virtue. When you let it just kind of happen is when you get into a whole lot of trouble. You need to approach sex with a lot of information.”
Hutchinson, who called in to the press conference, said she and Savage received a variety of responses from students when they reached out to the different campuses.
“Some places, we expected varsity-level questions like ‘How can I tie someone up?’ And then there were the junior varsity-level questions, like ‘How do I approach a girl?’ or ‘How do I get a boyfriend?'” Hutchinson said. “I feel like students were similar in each place because they were just serious and looking for answers.”
Senior environmental science and policy major Marty Handelman will have a one-on-one interview with Savage in tonight’s premiere. Handelman said although he initially did not want to be on TV, he jumped at the chance if it meant getting relationship advice from Savage.
“At the time, I was having my own issues with things. I needed someone to talk to, someone completely objective to talk to,” Handelman said. “I didn’t really care about being on TV; it was more I wanted the help, and the TV was whatever.”
Handelman said he was in the midst of being “friend-zoned” by yet another guy, so he talked with Savage about what he was looking for in a boyfriend and having realistic expectations.
“It was definitely helpful. It sort of made me really Zen about the whole situation. It really helped calm me down and put everything in perspective for me,” he said. “If I could go and change anything, I wouldn’t.”
However, senior computer science major Tam Nguyen said he had a negative filming experience with the show, adding he felt the producers tried to portray him as “a techno geek with a large libido.”
MTV reached out to Nguyen after seeing a YouTube video of his “party button” invention, which turned off the lights and turned on music and a strobe light in his dorm room with the touch of a button on his watch, phone or computer screen. Nguyen said while he expected the filming to focus on the social aspects of the button, he thought the producers tried to turn the party button into something he designed to pick up women.
“A lot of them were trying to put me in a position to try to admit to using the button as a tool, essentially,” Nguyen said. “That’s not really what I do with it.”
However, Nguyen said if he is included in tonight’s episode, he would welcome the show as free advertising for the party button system, which he hopes to sell eventually.
“I’m actually going to try to use this to my advantage, turning lemons into lemonade,” Nguyen said.
Handelman said although he doesn’t have an issue talking about sex with friends, many other college students do. He said the show may help students examine important sexual issues.
“It’s putting these questions out there for this discussion. In today’s day and age, I feel like that’s an important thing to have,” Handelman said.
Senior family science and hearing and speech sciences major Rachel Zimmerman said she thinks the show could help dispel the negative connotations of college sex that are often prevalent in the media.
“If it’s not portraying sex in an all-negative light, that could be a good thing,” Zimmerman said. “If it’s another show about how bad people are in college, I don’t really care.”
Savage U airs tonight on MTV at 11 p.m.
kelley@umdbk.com
