The Dunyun Detective: Slitzing

Every upperclassman remembers that magical moment, that passionate eclipse, when she lost her Slitzinity.  We all know the story: that Writing 5 cutie blitzes you asking when the first draft of that 3 page final paper is due, this leads to mild, then heavy Flitzing, and finally, full-on Slitzing.  Recently, Slitzing has become a pillar of the Dartmouth hookup culture. But is it healthy?  How is Slitzing really affecting us?  The Dunyun takes a look.
What is "Slitzing," a Dartmouth outsider (Grandma) might ask?  It’s an amalgamation of the term "blitzing," Dartmouth's version of barking at other people, and "sex," defined alternately as “the penetration of any orifice by another object” and “a highly designed coffee table book written by Madonna.” 
We caught up with Mike Neuenglander '11, an avid Slitzer.  "I mean, I’m basically your average kid.  I do all the normal stuff—like, I go to the library sometimes.  People know what I look like.”  But Neuenglander, like most of us, isn’t satisfied with “normal” platonic interactions.  “I’m incredibly horny.  But I usually just don't have the time or the energy to devote to actual physical contact.  One of my classes uses the X hour this term."  So what does one such as our Mr. Lonelyloins do in this time of crisis?
Enter Slitzing.
Neuenglander had no qualms with discussing the matter frankly with the Dunyun: “Yeah, I Slitz.  I’m not embarrassed to say it.  It works for me.  I’m not into relationships.  Or people, honestly.”
Slitzing clearly has its following at Dartmouth—those of us who don't like to see the face of the person on the receiving end, who are interested in brief and perfunctory encounters, and are used to firing blanks anyway.
But not everyone subscribes to Slitz culture quite so wholeheartedly—that is, not without first bemoaning its flaws in public media.  Tracey Tresdelte, ’12, described feeling humiliated upon coming face-to-face with a recent Slitz partner freshman year: “Oh my God. It was in the Hop.  And I—being a freshman, actually went up to him and his bros in the grill line and said ‘hi’…like out loud.  He just stared at me.”
Tresdelte continued quietly, “I guess I shouldn’t have expected him to recognize me or even know what my voice sounded like.  The fact is we didn’t know each other. But, I thought, we Slitzed.  Shouldn’t that mean something?  It just wasn’t a big thing for him.”
But Tresdelte doesn’t regret her early Slitz follies. “If anything, my experiences have made me stronger.  Slitzing is just the scene here, so get used to it.  It’s not my favorite, but it works for a lot of my friends.  I really think the best way to effect change in our culture is to embrace it, talk about it to death, and never question it openly.”
Not every Slitz victim bounces back quite so insistently.  A ’13 girl who wished to remain anonymous admitted to feeling “used” by an upperclass Slitzer during Fall term: “Okay, I was naïve.  But in my defense, it said he was a ’10 on DND and one of his nicknames was ‘goldmanballsax.’ ”
She continued, “When he first started Slitzing me I thought it would lead to dinner in Foco.  Just so that my friends could see he was real.  And…so that I could see he was real.  It took me months to just start hitting ‘Delete.’ ”
Another ’13 girl who did not wish to remain anonymous, but whose face the Dunyun feels obliged to save, commented “F*** MEN!”
All in all, Slitzing is an imperfect art. It’s a divisive phenomenon with no clear socio-economic, racial, or political indicator of how the campus aligns itself.  But what’s clear is that Slitzing is here to stay.  So gird your inboxes and type, Dartmouth, type, lest the old traditions fail!