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Far from simply a Derwent event, Big D's popularity appears to be widespread across colleges and year groups. And like its Freshers' Week counterpart, Slag 'n' Drag, it seems to have gained a notorious reputation, even if just from Derwent "haters".
Last year, I, like many other freshers, was swept up by the wave of suggestion and hedonistic promise offered by the Big D advertising and the testimonials of older students - and so spent ticket-sale day in front of my computer refreshing the page for hours until the blessed moment came for me to enter my credit card details. I didn't know who was playing and I didn't care. To go to "Big D" would be a defining moment for me, I just knew it. It would be the end of my naive days as a fresher and the beginning of my life as a wise and experienced second year...
Looking back now, I can't believe I let the blatant sexuality of the event completely wash over me. The way the event is advertised, the way it is supported and the way it is seem by some students - all about sex, right? With Ann Summers offering costume discounts to Big D shoppers, girls using it as an excuse to wear as little as possible and guys using it as a final chance to watch and chat up said scantily-clad girls, everything screams sexualisation... right? Last year's SinneD provided the most convenient "Lust" role-play, while this year's theme provoked a friend of mine to suggest going as a member of the "mile-high club". So guys can play the figures of cowboy, Vegas gambler and Russian oligarch, girls can adopt every femme fatale, sexual object figure there is.
Right?
Well, actually, I have to disagree. Take last year, for example: SinneD. Cue a ridiculous number of provocative costumes as Lust emerges as the most popular sin. In actual fact, there were a disappointingly low number of people in costume at all, and those that were, often made an effort to be different. My flatmates went as a pride of lions (get it?). I am pretty sure that very few costumes came from the racks in Ann Summers, and those people who decide not to dress up were dressed no differently than they would on a normal night out. This year, the very fact that Ann Summers is offering a discount on pilot and air hostess costumes may not indicate an expectation that a lot of students will come to them for costumes, but merely a desire that they will. It is more disturbing that someone engineered this discount, counting on female students to want to purchase fancy dress from Ann Summers, but if the shop were expecting business anyway, they would surely not feel the need to offer such a deal?
Last year, Big D was the perfect end to my first year - but for none of the reasons people might expect. I did nothing spectacular, drank no special amount or even dressed the most crazily (I'll admit, my mix of wrath and lust was far overshadowed by my friend). I didn't see any of the acts, I didn't get chatted up or make out with anyone in a not-so-private corner of the dance-floor. Instead, I spent most of the night running around looking for people - but I had fun. and I had fun doing exactly what I wanted to.
That is what Big D is about. It doesn't promote sexualisation, however much it might look like it does; instead it sells hedonism. It offers the chance to throw caution to the wind and be a little crazy doing whatever you want in the last night out of the university calender. And if what you want to do isn't quite what people think you "should" do at Big D? It doesn't matter.
That's why, come week ten, I'll be queueing up outside Derwent once more.
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