Next time you're sitting in class, look to the thoughtful girl who always raises her hand to your right.
Then, look to the quiet guy whose smell makes you consider the time of his last shower to your left.
Chances are, between the three of you, someone has tried anal sex.
In the entire classroom, it's likely that a few people are having oral sex - with multiple partners. It's likely that a handful have had intercourse with multiple partners.
While you're taking this in, keep your eyes on the teacher, because there's an outside chance that someone has masturbated in public (and classrooms are not off limits).
Psychology professor Dennis Kramer and student researchers conducted a sex survey of MTSU students and their sexual preferences. It's been done before, but the survey was expanded this year to include what's considered deviant or taboo.
"We just had so many ideas with piercings, oral sex and all different kinds of group sex - we just wanted to know what was going on here at MTSU," said Ryan Crigger, a psychology major who administered surveys. "We wanted to expand it to the more loose, liberal [types of sex]."
"Less accepted, more deviant," Kramer added. "What do you want to know, but were afraid to ask?"
Among the most salacious findings: anal sex is nearly as popular as the facebook, with 43 percent of straight males and 47 percent of straight females having tried it.
Of those who tried it, 9 percent said they tried it before intercourse. Twenty-six percent of those who haven't tried it said they would like to.
Why are more females trying anal sex?
"I really don't know," Crigger said. "It seems like it would be higher for males, but I say that if the females got into a situation where they were either forced or convinced into trying it, it seems like they would try it."
"[The survey] is just saying how many people tried it," he said. "It doesn't say how many people liked it. It's just an experimental thing."
It's understandably difficult to convince students to discuss their most private moments, but survey respondents wrote anonymous narratives describing their experience.
"We started by using fingers first and eventually tried it and liked it," one female respondent said. "My boyfriend is very considerate of me and I trusted him not to hurt me. Oh, and I had taken a Xanax and drank a bottle of wine."
Other narratives described sneaky boyfriends and girlfriends in pain. Apparently, males are interested in anal sex because they say it's a "tighter hole." While having sex "doggie-style," some guys "accidentally" put it in the wrong hole.
The survey's numbers and narratives show a segment of the campus with active sex lives, for whom plain ol' vanilla sex has gone the way of the Beta machine. Some of the students we interact with everyday experience sex in ways that aren't often discussed in the Bible-Belt culture we live in.
It can be spontaneous, risky or even funny.
The survey found that about 16 percent of students have tried group sex, defined as oral sex or intercourse with multiple partners. Most of the respondents only tried it once or twice. The narratives indicate that in most cases, group sex is spontaneous.
About a third of students said they had received oral sex from someone with a pierced tongue, and a majority found the experience pleasurable. A few students wrote that putting ice on the piercing beforehand enhanced the experience even more.
"Knowing that she had a tongue piercing made the oral sex more exciting," one male respondent said.
Another practice the survey asked about was autoerotic asphyxiation, where one partner chokes the other before orgasm. One respondent knew someone who was choked to death during the practice.
While 7.4 percent of males said they had tried it compared to 2.5 percent of females, Kramer said females were mostly on the receiving end.
"The girls wanted [guys] to choke them. Apparently it intensifies it," Crigger said.
In one narrative, a male student described confusion and excitement.
"I had sex with a really freaky girl one time, and when she was about to orgasm she grabbed my wrists and made me choke her pretty hard," he said. "It kind of freaked me out, but it also excited me."
"If you ask, you find, 'woah, [what we consider deviant] is not so far outside the norm,'" Kramer said.
"It's not so far outside the norm, as it's outside the taboo," Crigger added. "The bedroom is a private subject that rarely people talk about."
If so many people are trying sex that's outside the norm, why does it sound so strange?
"[Where you grew up] has a lot to do with that," Crigger said. "I was told not to talk about it. It's our Christian heritage."
Studies show that people who go to college become more sexually free than those who don't, he said.
"I thinks that's why when you put a mass group together, like here at MTSU, experimentation's going to occur," Crigger said.
Religion greatly shapes our view of sex, Kramer said. In the Bible Belt, that means Christianity.
"For us in the West, with Christianity, you've got God and religion, and then there's sex," Kramer said. "It's sinful."
He compared that to eastern religions, where sex is part of a singular life experience.
"Sex is such a powerful force that I think to some degree we're kind of afraid of it," Kramer said. "Because if it was left unchecked, we'd never get any work done."
"If there weren't any social restrictions, people may be afraid that we'd just degenerate into animals."
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