Feature Articles Trinity College Valentine’s Day Date Ideas

Raymond imparts his romantic wisdom to you in these dating plans

Given that our entire readership (at least according to current Travisty circulation statistics) are Trinity College members, we decided that it was our responsibility to help a demographic with a 90% virginity rate get some action this Valentine’s Day. That said, since most of your are unwilling to leave your staircase during the Lent term (the purgatory between a hopeful Michaelmas and a hellish Easter exam term), we understand that options are limited. So here are some top tips to make Valentine’s Day special without even leaving Trinity grounds. Good luck!

Number One: Sex in Great Court Fountain

Why wait until third year graduation to piss in the fountain? Capitalise on the warm(er) weather this month by frolicking stark naked with your partner inside of the Trinity fountain. Speaking from experience, the sides of the fountain are high enough to provide cover for even the most enthusiastic romantics who venture here during broad daylight in order to get on with procreating. A must-do for any who haven’t done so already.

Number Two: Flagellation in the Secret S&M Room Behind Porter’s Lodge

Those of you who have been Dean-ed, smoked cigarettes in your room or been caught climbing the roofs at night will have already experienced a mandatory journey to this clandestine dungeon behind the Porter’s desk at Great Gate. Of course, why let memories of the room be dogged down by disciplinary action? Finish off the night by taking your date to Trinity’s very own, exclusive BDSM chamber.

Number Three: Canoodling in the Library Bookstacks

No one at Trinity actually takes out any books from the library by this point in term. Indeed, the large, multitonne stack of applied mathematics textbooks that you reserved in Michaelmas term may seem a futile investment to have made. Capitalise on this absence of foot traffic during the Lent term. The smell of dust mites and damp paper can be oddly erotic. So I have heard.

Number Four: Angel Court Laundrette Fornication

This seemed like a good idea when I wrote it down, but to be honest, the Angel Court laundrette looks more like a set used for filming of The Exorcist, so should be used with moderate to extreme caution. On the bright side, you could nick a fellow student’s abandoned laundry powder and pour yourselves a makeshift, student-budgetfriendly bubble bath in the grotty brass bathtubs just upstairs in the main Angel Court accommodation blocks. That said, the omnipresent scent of bleached floors may not be the most conducive atmosphere for a romantic getaway.

Number Five: Chapel Antechamber Tryst (approved by God)

Why deal with the religious guilt that comes with explorations of human sexuality when you can get a free pass from God? We consulted the Theology Department for this article, and were able to confirm that sex, or any such unholy and base activity, is perfectly fine in the eyes of the Lord so long as done within fifty feet of the altar. Recitation of the Lord’s Prayer is encouraged but not strictly necessary.

Recommended by the Librarian:

Extract from Whewell’s Hornpipe of the Blankets by Queen Victoria

A raunchy Victorian novel

Now available in the Wren thanks to the excellent restoration work of ‘Dundee’

‘Twas late on a Michaelmas’ night that I had crept up the oaken stairs. Erstwhile, had I waited timidly at the door before I had knocked and, on hearing his gruff reply, entered. He had been undoing his raiment for bed but, alas, I required my candle relighting by his, for mine had been extinguished by a frigid gust upon the steps.

Tonight was bath night - no showers dwelled on our staircase and I dared not venture into the swelling dark. I felt my intrusion was not unwelcome (I knew him well for his pully hawlies and, on numerous occasions, I had received a green gown by the riverside from the very same gentleman) but I sensed a tension in the air. It wafted up from our skins and curdled with the spices from my pouncet-box. Verily there were still pages of examples that demanded his unsullied attention.

I was wearing a loose open combing-jacket atop my kirtle, emblazoned with the initials of another. Yet in the dark the yellow letters seemed to me almost invisible, as if they were but ghostly whispers inscribed by unseen hands. I could sense in his eyes that for him it had been a hard day’s work, being learned in the science of the world. Yet he was taking little rest.

I desired to comfort him, beseech him, enthral him with words and whimsies and cast my garters asunder. But I stayed silent. I yearned for him to speak; he was well versed with his tongue, having oft opened the convivial society with his mouth. His overtures were most divine. Forsooth, I felt my fingers twitching with inclination to begin basket-making in this very parlour, or perhaps even my own. And still the gloom yawned as a chasm betwixt us. With the trepidation of a rousing rower his oration commenced:

“If I thought thou wouldst hold the secret, I would tell thee what I have sometimes meditated upon. A subject which thou perhaps mightest also find most agreeable.” With such amorous musings spoken to the air, my bating cheeks at once flushed crimson and my heart wrought within my bosom. Now the task befell upon mine own lips to conjure up a fitting reply. “Could it be, perchance, that thy mind has lingered upon a certain feminal form, a wench of callipygian persuasion?”

Hereat, methinks my words had all but disarmed the lordling, for simply spaketh he, “Egad. Thou hast stolen mine heart and mine mind, great larcener, and taken all of mine soul hostage. Shall we now talk of congress?”