National Outdoor Intercourse Day

Wanna make your professor blush? If they've been at EWU for more than 20 years, chances are an inquiry into their experience with National Outdoor Intercourse Day (NOID) might do the trick.

Known by many as the original Mayfest, NOID was an annual celebration that took place May 8 at various universities across the nation until the 1970s gave way to the '80s.

Trying to track down any solid evidence of NOID's origins is difficult at best, as most of those with first-hand information prove to be understandably tight lipped about their experiences.

One thing's for sure - NOID sprung up sometime in the early '60s, when inhibitions were low and there was still an easily defined "man" to stick it to. Professor of journalism Bill Stimson, who graduated from EWU in 1969, said the event was taken about as seriously as April Fool's Day by most people.

"My basic memory is that pretending there was actually such a day was a way to twit the establishment," Stimson wrote in an e-mail. "You have to remember that the average Eastern student in that era was 15 years old, mentally. And the establishment was easier to twit. Also, in those days there was an establishment to twit."

Another professor, who asked not to be named, but who was a student at EWU in the late '60s, spoke of the event in more reverent, albeit coy, terms. "Me and my buddies used to take our girlfriends and go out with a blanket and a picnic to shoot ground squirrels. Whatever happened, happened," he said.

Dana Elder, Eastern professor and director of the honors program, said NOID was celebrated in a different fashion at the University of Washington, where he was an undergrad in the early 1970s. "This event may have been honored by some of a generation marching in the streets suggesting Americans 'make love and not war,'" Elder wrote in an e-mail. "I have no knowledge of EWU students of that era." A quick Internet search reveals the "holiday" likely originated in the state of Washington, and at least one hazy source credits Washington State University's Delta Tau Delta fraternity with furnishing the idea in 1960.

Dan Westley, a Delta Tau Delta member at WSU before graduating in 2005, said he'd unfortunately never heard of NOID. "I wish I would have known about this," he said. "We could have really capitalized."

Another Delta Tau Delta member of Westley's era boasted frequent participation in the event, saying he "used the roof of the frat" for his yearly observance.

Dave Hawthorne, WSU Delta Tau Delta member class of 1979, was unable to confirm or deny the rumor. "Not sure if we originated the tradition at the fraternity, but we certainly perpetuated it through the '70s," he wrote in an e-mail.

Hawthorne also offered up the cheer usually associated with NOID: "Hooray, hooray for the 8th of May."

Many of those asked about NOID said they thought it might be a modern-day take on an ancient Pagan ritual. In her book, "Ostara: Customs, Spells and Rituals for the Rites of Spring," Edain McCoy notes, somewhat clinically, "This impulse to carouse in the spring is another of those genetic traits we inherited that especially affects the young of any species."

McCoy goes on to say that at spring festivals in medieval Europe, communities gave the youth "great sexual license" in order to foster a symbol of hope for the future and for the continuation of life. "It was hoped that the young people would choose mates with whom they could be fertile and with whom they could contribute to the future of the community," she writes. "The young people just wanted to have fun."

Whatever its origins, various campus groups at Western Washington University tried to revive NOID in the early '90s, intending the day more as an invitation to discuss sexuality than an invitation to have sex outdoors.

In 2002, Joanna Johnston of the WWU Sexual Awareness Center said in The Western Front that NOID should be seen as an opportunity to challenge the hush-hush climate surrounding sex in our society.

"There is so much sex in the media, and we're just bombarded with messages, but there is still no open communication about it," Johnston said in the article. "We're fed messages that sex is desirable, but at the same time we're told that it's wrong."

The spring of 2003 brought a major controversy over the perceived showing of pornographic films during a NOID event at WWU. Kay Rich, interim director of student activities, told The Western Front she'd received more than 100 calls and e-mails condemning NOID. The event was subsequently canceled as a result. "If people thought we had porn shown all over campus and people having intercourse outside all week, that has left a black mark on the university," Rich said at the time.

Because of the probability of a similar uproar, a resurgence of NOID isn't likely to happen at EWU or anywhere else anytime soon. But while the original Mayfest's heyday may be over, its legend, and some vivid memories, will likely live on in the minds of alumni everywhere.