Hicham El Ouahabi | Of course students use a meditation booth to shag
It is not surprising that students of Maastricht used the meditation room for sexual escapades, writes columnist Hicham El Ouahabi. After all, where else would they do it? “Students languish in sheds where you catch every breath of your roommate or still live with their parents because affordable rooms are extinct.”
The people from Amsterdam are rightly accused of being too concerned with Amsterdam. So let me talk about another part of the Netherlands: Maastricht. Specifically, Maastricht University, where they came up with the genius idea to put up a soundproof meditation cabin on campus. There, students could escape the hustle and bustle for a while, clear their heads and de-stress. The cabin soon proved to be a multifunctional space. Meditation? Yes definitely, but also in a rather active form. There was a lot of banging in there.
As always when the word ‘sex’ drops, the inevitable happens: moral Netherlands gets scared. ‘Do that at home!’ and ‘Outrageous!’ is heard loudly at social media. What is striking is that the fiercest reactions come from the generation that was still loudly celebrating the sexual revolution in the 1970s. The same generation we can thank for breaking the sex taboo, you would think.
Home humping, is the preaching. Perfectly logical, because students these days live in gorgeous castles, where the candlelight always flickers atmospherically and the incense gently wafts with a beautiful garden full of yoga mats, right? That students languish in sheds where you catch every breath of your roommate or still live with their parents because affordable rooms are all but extinct is, of course, a fairy tale. Just look around you - castles everywhere, for the taking ...
Who can really blame those Maastricht students for using the meditation booth creatively? Me, at least. Would I myself, in any form, meditate in a cabin? Probably not. Do I wish it on others? Absolutely. Especially now that it is considered important to escape and unwind in any place. So why should we suddenly act shocked when students unwind in their own way in such a cabin? And above all, why so surprised? Surely everyone knows that in the strangest places, all sorts of things secretly happen. It is thé public secret. This became clear to me again last summer in Italÿ when the waiter on the terrace told me that the beautiful church opposite me is also used by young people as a place to make love. Pray or get laid, choice enough.
What now? Maastricht is done with it. The meditation booth has to go, and it may already be gone. A shame. But as clerics and spiritualists often say: when one door closes, another opens. So I say: put that thing on Roeterseiland in Amsterdam and call it the Let go & Lust Cabin. If only to show that in Amsterdam - as always - we understand it just a little bit better.
