If you are reading this column, you are probably well acquainted with horny jail. It’s an embarrassing and dangerous place; we’ve all had moments where we were thinking with our dicks instead of our brain. Whether it’s going out to a party none of your friends want to be at just to maybe see someone or lying to your parents about who you’re hanging out with when they call and subsequently turning off your location so they don’t realize, sex is a very driving force. 

You would think that kids at the number-one public school in the country would have evolved past acting like idiots over members of their preferred sex, but no matter how smart we seem, all logic goes out the window in attempts to get laid. 

Unsurprisingly, the root of this evil stems from UC Berkeley’s favorite pastime, hookup culture. As I’ve said before, with no labels comes no clarity, and no clarity can lead to a lot of embarrassing texts and actions. It’s very hard to end up in horny jail in a committed relationship. You are set up for success because — unless they’re an engineering major — if you text your boyfriend, “Hey, I wanna see you RIGHT now,” chances are they’ll take 20 minutes out of their night to fuck you. Whereas we noncommitted losers have to work much harder to get our rocks off. 

In the last two years, I’ve seen even the strongest soldiers succumb to horny jail in moments of extreme weakness. Usually aided by intoxication, I once watched a newly single friend swipe through Tinder and message every single person they matched with, asking what they were doing at that very moment, which happened to be around 6 p.m. post gameday. Other honorable mentions include countless unanswered “wyd” texts and the iconic “have sex with me” sent at 1 p.m. on a Monday. 

The only thing more embarrassing than horny jail is being reminded of the stupid things you said the following day once you’ve left the mindset of a 16-year-old boy and resurfaced as a functioning member of society. Without red-LED-light-colored glasses, all you feel is embarrassment when you receive that “oh shit, I didn’t see this” response the following day. 

While misery loves company, horny jail is like solitary confinement, except your friends are there to make fun of you. But as tough of a place as it is to be, horny jail also serves as a unifier. You’ll never be imprisoned for too long because you can always count on a friend to bail you out with their own questionable actions. 

I frequently hear the complaint “I just have no hoes.” Without the proper roster, you are left depending on the same old, same old, and even if you’ve found your mister or miss good old reliable, that is too a dangerous game to play. We’ve been told not to place all our eggs in one basket, usually to avoid heartbreak, but also to avoid the dreaded situationship. 

Too many late-night texts to the same person, and suddenly you are seeing them semiregularly and are confused about what exactly to call your rendezvous. So now not only are you a resident in horny jail for your friends to ridicule, but you’ve also added on a shitty situationship side quest with no directions, rules or clear end goal.

But is some sort of relationship or chosen celibacy the only thing to get us out of this never-ending cycle? Or should we embrace horny jail with open arms and occasional empty beds? If we all have our own horny horror stories, maybe we let go of the embarrassment and embrace acting a fool in the name of lust. 

If Helen of Troy’s face launched a thousand ships, clearly we’ve been thinking with what’s in our pants for quite some time. It’s unrealistic to imagine a school of former and current nerds to be any better than King Menelaus when hot and bothered. 

After years of extracurriculars, studying for standardized tests and even some strictly religious high school experiences, we’ve been dropped into an academic cesspool of more than 30,000 possible prospects. It is our young adult duty to, as my dad put it, “date a lot of people” and horny jail might just be an unfortunate side effect of the cause. 

And at the very least, there will always be someone doing worse than you. Unless you’ve resorted to Yik Yakking about how much you want to kiss someone, in which case you’re off to horny prison with no chance of parole.