RUTHFULLY YOURS

http://www.nationalreview.com/node/435916/print

A professor at Santa Monica College took a group of students on an “EcoSexual Sextravaganza” trip earlier this month, during which they “married the ocean” and were encouraged to “consummate” that marriage.

Why? Well, as one of its organizers, a professor named Amber Katherine, told Campus Reform, it was to get students to love the environment more through “exocentric passion and even lust.”

Oh, right. Duh.

The leaders of the trip were UC–Santa Cruz professor Elizabeth Stephens and pornographic actress/writer/sex educator Annie Sprinkle — both of whom are “the effective leaders of the ecosexual movement,” according to a writeup on the event in the school’s student newspaper, the Corsair.

Yeah, that’s right — “ecosexual movement.” This is an actual movement, and, not wanting to be behind the fray, SMC has its own Ecosexual Club.

Its president, Diego Martinez, told The Corsair that this was actually his second marriage to the ocean:

“It was actually our second marriage so it was kind of like renewing my vows for me,” Marquez said.

The students were specifically instructed to think of this marriage as one involving sex, and encouraged to “consummate” the marriage and “make love to the water” by sticking parts of their bodies into it, according to Campus Reform.

According to the Corsair, the attendees were handed plastic rings and gave their own personal vows to the sea before Sprinkle stated, “With this ring, I thee wed, and bestow upon the sea, the treasures of my mind, heart and hands.” Stephens added, “As well as our body and soul,” and Sprinkle concluded, “And with that, I now pronounce you one with the sea” — officially making all of the participants married to the sea, apparently.

At least one of the attendees seemed to suggest that the ocean is not the only part of nature that she thinks about through the lens of a romantic relationship:

“Back when I would hug trees in Santa Cruz, I would sort of ask the tree if it was okay if I hugged it and I would feel their spirit or energy or something give a response back, and then proceed accordingly,” a UCSC alumna who identified herself only as “Serenity” told the Corsair.

“Consent is definitely important,” she continued.

Now, it’s important to note that Serenity herself did not marry the ocean — but that’s not because she doesn’t love it. As the Corsair, describes it, she simply had the “feeling that her relationship with the ocean was strong enough without the label.”

That’s probably a good move. After all, she’d probably rather keep things polyamorous and open so she can still have relationships with all those trees she loves — well, only the ones who give their consent first, of course.

A group of just fewer than 30 people attended the event, according to The Corsair, and about a dozen or so of them chose to marry the sea.

— Katherine Timpf is a reporter for National Review Online.