Every once in a while, we feel the need to draw your attention to a piece that carries eternal resonance. You may have read Blue and White alum Chris Beam's piece before, it may be new, but it's getting around to Butler season, and we can always use a little reminder that the library can be an exciting place.

When it comes to self-aggrandizing myths, Columbia rivals the Greeks. The owl, 1968, Kerouac and Ginsberg at The West End—they all supposedly comprise Columbia's collective unconscious. But despite what the tour guides tell you, these legends are dead to the average student. Only one myth still matters, as proven by the hush that descends when an anecdote begins—and ends—with "So we got off on level nine. . ."

"When you get to school, one of the first things people say about [the stacks] is, did you know Ghostbusters was filmed there?" said Andrew, a recent Columbia graduate who preferred to withhold his real name. "The second thing is, did you have sex in the stacks?"

Butler sex is our generation's equivalent of panty raids—the tales emerge late in the party, after all other conversation topics have been exhausted. One person in the room has done it, five people have friends who did, and everyone else has thought about it but never acted on the urge.

It is one of Columbia's few unacknowledged subcultures, and perhaps its most universal—an extracurricular that unites students of all political bents, racial make-ups, and religious persuasions. We all know the regular Butler cliques: the smokers, the boho-chic grad students who pound fists outside Room 301, the bearded men who sip tea in the lounge and loudly quote Heidegger. But the Butler sex community has no identifying mark. No secret handshake, no pinky ring. Most Butler lovers show scruples in revealing their secrets, and then only in hushed tones. The movement's existence may be universal, but its stories have gone untold. Until now.