Tufts OTR: Scoop: Daily Sex Column Stolen from Yale?

Scoop: Daily Sex Column Stolen from Yale?

Posted by The Philosopher 09/26/2007 10:57 PM
Category: Tags: plagiarism, Hotness, the daily

We got a serious heads up from an OTR tipster about an alleged plagiarism scandal brewing at the Daily. Check out what the tipster wrote to us:

"All the furor on campus this week over Lara Levi's explicit sex column could be for nothing if it turns out the 'Just the Tip' column in the Tufts Daily newspaper ripped off content from a Yale University column.

A Google search of the names of Ivy League (and some area universities) plus the term 'blow jobs' will quickly find the Yale column. Here are the two paragraphs in question, the first written by Natalie Krinsky in the Yale Daily News back in 2001:

'One humid summer afternoon, slightly embarrassed and rather unsure of ourselves, we snuck into Alison's kitchen and came out armed with produce. Bananas and carrots, we found, fit the bill for our purposes; they were the right shape (more or less), and we could tailor the length to our preferences. Plus, we were hungry and wanted a low-fat and enjoyable snack.'

And the section from Levi's column:

'When I was in eighth grade, my girlfriends and I decided that we were going to teach ourselves how to give head. Seeing as we had no volunteer for practice lessons, and we weren't slutty yet, we directed our attention to items in the kitchen.

Armed with carrots and bananas (both extremely poor penis models), we experimented with this unfamiliar procedure. All we could do was go up and down and pretend to suck.'"

It's a pretty intense correlation, but also a pretty intense accusation. We're not sure what the answer is. Opinions?

+ 8 comments

The Merry Widow says,

I vote no. I'm guessing plenty of girls have tried to experiment with whatever was available in the kitchen, and bananas and carrots fit the bill. (I mean, I guess cucumbers do too...) It's not such a unique statement that it screams plagiarism, to me anyway. Posted 09/26/2007 11:12 PMReply

Ms.RedCup says,

If it is plagiarism, homegirl sounds like she's in the 7th grade. If this is a serious example of the Tuft's sex columnist, a better investigation might be into why underage tweeners are giving head and then writing about it. Posted 09/26/2007 11:51 PMReply

The Merry Widow says,

Man we so need to add the tag "bananas" to this... just so we can have 2 posts in one day tagged "bananas." Posted 09/27/2007 12:03 AMReply

Anonymous says,

haha I certainly hope a huge story is made of this supposed plagiarism...I would just love to see people argue over the degree to which the phallic objects correlate... Posted 09/27/2007 12:13 AMReply

The Philosopher says,

@ The Merry Widow: I will add the tag "bananas!"

I don't know what my opinion is quite yet. I'm definitely not jumping to accusations at all, just posting verbatim what an insider communicated. It'll be interesting to see how it plays out, though I wouldn't be surprised if the Daily does reprimand her, seeing how Tufts is so insane about plagiarism. Posted 09/27/2007 06:36 AMReply

Steph says,

Interesting... I once had a Brown student plagiarize an article I wrote. I'm generally not an angry person, but I was PISSED. As for this, tough call. I bet it's a case of "reading a bunch of article to get inspiration" and then unintentionally mimicking what you read. However, she should know to be careful about that. Otherwise, you get called out by lovely Tufts bloggers! Posted 09/27/2007 07:00 AMReply

Anonymous says,

this doesn't seem at all like plagiarism. the fact that two writers mentioned "carrots and bananas" doesn't attest to much, besides being like-minded when it comes to practicing. beyond that, maybe the idea for the article was somewhat similar. but she needed somewhere to start for a sex column. Posted 09/27/2007 3:15 PMReply

Anonymous says,

NOT PLAGIARISM...

The fact two people use Carrot and Bananna for the same purpose... Unless all the textbooks in the world and cookbooks, ect... come on similiar but not plagiarism. Posted 10/03/2007 9:19 PMReply