By Jessi Savino
To score a date at the first-ever Pansexual Date Auction, freshman criminal justice major Alex Cheung adopted the age-old belief that “sex sells.”
So, he took off his shirt.
“[It was] pretty nerve-racking,” Cheung said.
His action sparked a bidding war between the night’s hosts, Peter Karpathakis and Becky Blasenheim, Northeastern University Bisexual, Lesbian and Gay Association’s (NUBiLAGA) president and director for public relations, respectively. Cheung eventually went home with Karpathakis, for $28.
The auction, co-sponsored by NUBiLAGA and The Great White Way, raised $505 for The Jimmy Fund Clinic at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. Twenty students were auctioned off for prices ranging from $8 to $120.
Each contestant was introduced by the hosts who read about their best feature, perfect date or a personal story.
Sophomore biochemistry and theatre major Kyle Piers shared his story about the time he accidentally got on the high school bus on his first day of middle school.
Will English, a middler cinema studies major, shared an embarrassing moment: forgetting to get dressed before leaving for class.
The auction was originally planned as a fundraiser for the sponsoring groups, and started as a joke, Karpathakis said.
“The first time we discussed a date auction we made jokes about having it be a pansexual one to spice things up, but before we knew it we were taking the idea a lot more seriously,” he said.
Karpathakis said fundraising for charity was the main purpose of the auction, and raising awareness for gay, lesbian or bisexual relationships wasn’t a factor.
“We are doing this first and foremost for charity; the pansexual part was just to make this a new and different kind of event,” he said.
Raising money for charity seemed to be the main motivating factor for all those involved, and because of the uniqueness of the event.
“Date auctions are something you see on like, ‘Saved by the Bell,'” said Nathaniel Le Treize, a sophomore business major who was sold for $10. “I didn’t think they actually happened
