As freshman entryways go, the third floor of Pennypacker was not, at first glance, exceptional. You had your athletes, your socialites, your lady-killing foreign guy. There were roommates who didn’t get along and inseparable friends.
Over the course of their first year, however, the group managed to accrue a surprising amount of publicity. The reason? A chart documenting the astonishing amount of “dormcest,” “floorcest” and even (gasp!) “roomcest” was posted in the hallway, and it wasn’t long before FM reported in April 2000 that while “ranking last in freshman intramurals, Pennypacker has more than offset the blemish with other extracurricular activities.”
It was hard to know what to expect as some of the players in this collegiate soap opera—now seniors—gathered around an outdoor table at Au Bon Pain during senior week. After four years, most of the raging lust had mellowed, but FM was pleased to see that the intense atmosphere of flirtation had not entirely died. Here are their candid musings on beer funnels, brawling proctors and loving your (next door) neighbor.
A Sexually Invigorated Atmosphere
The conversation begins with memories from the beginning of the year—particularly the antics of proctor Chris Gahan.
Lozada: “The first time I met him, I thought Chris was a student.”
Bourdon-Feniou: “I remember my proctor coming home drunk…”
Danner: “…trying to get his keys in the door…”
Bourdon-Feniou: “Then there was that time some freshmen were throwing bottles at his car, so he beat them up.”
It turns out that Watkins, Shannon and Demirijian all had designs on their proctor, or as Shannon says, “I would jump him in a second.”
Gahan, who now works in Washington D.C., was keen to explain his laissez-faire proctor strategy. “I went to Brown. Brown’s just different. Very laid-back. There is a greater degree of supervision [at Harvard], greater involvement by the proctors in the students’ lives.” A second-year law student at the time, Gahan admits that his approach was less than traditional: “I was probably the most laid-back proctor ever. With my ‘turn the other cheek’ attitude, I made what was already a sexually invigorated atmosphere even more so.”
“Packcest” Is The Term We Use
Second floor resident Meghan R. Sheding ’03 remembers Pennypacker as a “really open community.” Situated furthest from the Yard, Pennypacker, with its central staircase and college-style corridors, forced neighbors to befriend one another. “Packcest is a term that we often use,” laughs Emily S. Wu ’03.
Shannon: “It wasn’t the typical Harvard experience.”
Fetterman: “We didn’t have that many nerds. We didn’t even have many studious people.”
Watkins: “The hallways created centers where people could hang out.”
Fetterman: “Living that far away from everything, you need friends. You need people for the walk to Annenberg.”
Demirijian (laughs): “We used to go at, like, 5 of 5 every day.”
“Everyone Was Going At It All Year”
Such a social atmosphere, combined with a lack of other options, could not fail to fan the flames of third-floor lust. Innocent trips to Annenberg soon metamorphosed into more. Much more. Gahan recalls, “When I began the year, [I gave advice like] ‘People are social beings. Don’t go it alone.’ But I meant that in a different context.” His students ended up taking him at his word.
Brian V. Le ’03, who lived on the first floor, says, “We all knew about it, but we didn’t know it was that bad.” Charlie P. McCormick ’03 disagrees: “Everybody in Pennypacker knew what was going on. You kind of always knocked on bedroom doors, after thinking about it for a moment. And being on the second floor, we would get some noise coming from the ceiling.” In terms of proctor involvement, McCormick observes: “It was pretty much a ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ policy.”
As love connections began to form, Gahan struggled to keep up with new developments. He estimates that he had “probably 80-90 percent knowledge of what was going on.” Gahan also moonlighted as a therapist, fielding everything from general dating questions to blow-by-blow accounts of what happened the night before. Rather than passing judgment on them, Gahan was simply “glad they were amusing themselves, even if amusing themselves meant hooking up with anyone or anything in their path”.
His first inkling of how serious things were getting came when Bourdon-Feniou had a hooking-up episode that involved him and two women. The wide-spread nature of the dormcest took even Gahan by surprise.
When he found out that French ex-pat Bourdon-Feniou had “got in a three-way, I thought, Lord knows what’s going on.” The reunited members of the third floor downplay the drama that ensued with the menage à trois.
Demirijian: “It just happened.”
Fetterman: “It wasn’t like wanton sex. We were all good friends. Except…[looks at Bourdon-Feniou] well, some of it was wanton sex.”
Shannon: “I don’t think people were actually trying to rack up hookups.”
Fetterman:“Talk to the chart, okay?”
Freaks, Superfreaks and Pimp Daddies
The infamous “chart” to which Fetterman refers was created by Watkins, with help from roommate Alice T. Yang ’03. The colorful chart featured a color-coded legend to distinguish “hookups” from “relationships,” as well as an epigraph from Gahan: “I told you all to love each other, but not this much.” Watkins’ inspiration for the chart was a Harvard Magazine article by Adam Goodheart ’92, which fondly recalled his freshman year “sex chart” in Canaday.
Goodheart, who is also a Crimson editor, was happy to learn that he had made an impact. “I am delighted to hear that Harvard students are still having sex,” he said. “It is a proud tradition that goes back to the 17th century, and as a 20th century graduate I am pleased that it has continued.” After all, he pointed out, “Who are Harvard students supposed to have sex with besides other Harvard students?” Carnal lust, however, has been known to transform into something more serious.
Two members of Goodheart’s freshman entryway are now married, or as he puts it, “They’re still practicing dormcest 15 years later.”
In the original FM article, which published a censored version of the chart with names blocked out, Watkins and Yang used the pseudonyms Jane and Lucy. But no one in Pennypacker, or at least those in the know, had any doubt as to the identities of the participants in the chart. Among the 26 people on the floor, the historic, Magna Carta-like document counted a whopping 11 cases of floorcest. Of course, these centered around specific players: the 15 “freaks,” 11 “Superfreaks” and one individual identified as “Pimp Daddy.”
Watkins: “Adrien was the ‘Pimp Daddy.’”
Bourdon-Feniou: “Are my parents going to read this? They don’t know about my…”
Fetterman: “…sexual exploits?”
Demirijian: “I was a little angel. I was an abstainer.”
Fetterman suggests that Llosa add this diagram to her thesis, which she wrote on Latin American social networks in the nineteenth century.
Fetterman: “It’s like a nineteenth-century Latin American hookup chart!”
The reaction to the tight-knit group’s 15 minutes of fame in FM were mixed. Many of those present at the brunch thought that it gave an incorrect impression of the floor. Others found it funny. Gahan says, “When it came out and became public news it kinda gave our floor an added sense of pride—we had that much notoriety. No pun intended, but it brought everyone together.”
“I Pissed in Andrew’s Tequila Bottle.”
In their time away from one another, some ingenious residents of the third floor found other ways to enrich their time. Fetterman and Bourdon-Feniou were involved in making a beer funnel, a long-standing Pennypacker tradition that takes advantage of the dorm’s sizeable central stairways. The funneling device was constructed, fourth floor resident Devin C. Powell ‘03 explains, from “an old piece of pipe that was all nasty, that we found in a closet.” The pipe had a capacity of six beers at a time, creating an epic mess on the ground floor. “You’d walk into Pennypacker for weeks afterward and smell the stench from the puddles that were left there.” As a result of the third floor’s activities, the fire stairways in Pennypacker have been subsequently alarmed, ensuring that future generations will not have the pleasure of inhaling alcohol from a stories-high tube.
There was also an incident when Bourdon-Feniou, fed up with hallmate and future blockmate Andrew T. Kleimeyer ’03, found a unique way to exact his revenge. “I pissed in Andrew’s tequila bottle. And now we’re good friends,” he laughs.
“….And Then We All Got Married.”
Although the group is reluctant to divulge specifics, a few relationships are confirmed. “We were wild the first semester,” Chris C. Chang ’03 says, “but when the end of the year rolled around people started finding significant others. Toward the end we all sort of settled down.” Or, as Bourdon-Feniou ruefully puts it, “And then we all got married.”
Fetterman: “Yeah, Alicia and Chris are the only ones left.”
Llosa: “We should get a trophy.”
Gahan could only marvel at their longevity. “The drama really sustained itself for almost the entire time. I thought everyone would get sick of each other after this cross-fertilization of the floor.” Not only did the third floor not get sick of each other, many of them blocked together, or ended up in the same house. With all this proximity, it’s only natural to ask, have there been any periods of awkwardness?
Fetterman: “Our lives are constant periods of awkwardness.”
Lozada: “All of us are still friends. We all definitely get along. Champagne brunch was fun.”
Llosa: “When we see each other—at a party or in someone’s room—it’s not a surprise.”
Demirijian: “It’s not weird.”
Not only is the brunch “not weird,” but the formerly intimate friends seem refreshingly comfortable around one another. Although not all of them have stayed in touch, they exchanged a rash of e-mails after the brunch, including plans for various group outings. Who knows? After a three-year break from one another, they might just find themselves falling in lust all over again.
