“No to Sex on Roundabouts” – how Norwegian teenagers maximize debauchery through careful planning and good sense

A common question we get is, “what in Norway is most different to the US?”  The answer is probably the Russfeiring, an annual debaucherous coming-of-age celebration for high school seniors.  To be more precise, it isn’t the celebration itself — after all, teenagers everywhere like sex and alcohol.  Instead, it’s the public acceptance, encouragement, and planning from an otherwise-reserved country that wants to watch its 18-year-olds be publicly stupid.

The Russfeiring is a nation-wide celebration of the end of high school, which lasts several weeks, always ending on May 17 (Norway’s July 4 equivalent, and one of the biggest holidays on the calendar).  Celebrants are easy to spot, as they wear an increasingly-filthy, colored pair of overalls which designate their future fields of study.  The most common colors are red (“general studies,” including math, science, some humanities), and blue (business and economics).  They may also introduce themselves, offering you a lewd or profane business card (some carry a second set of more-appropriate business cards to give to children).  Also, they’re drunk.  And maybe naked.

Red and blue overalls

Business card.  Address: “Find me where the action is”

The thread of organization that binds together their hijinks are the “knots,” or a list of 100 goals for that region’s Russ, which has been negotiated in advance with police and other civil authorities by student leadership.  For each goal achieved, the celebrant earns the right to tie a knot or hang some identifying trophy from the hats worn on the concluding May 17.  Trondheim’s full list of knots can be Google-translated here.  Below, however, is a representative sample, including the service-oriented, the funny, the sexual, and the nasty.

• Collect and recycle all bottles from a party
• Deliver business cards to the Children’s Department at St. Olav’s Hospital
• Take the meningitis vaccine
• Get five teachers to sign your underwear
• When the teacher turns his back to the class, try to touch the board in the front of the room without being seen
• Sleep in a teacher’s yard and make breakfast for them in the morning
• Buy condoms using only body language
• Have safe sex with two others with the same name in one evening
• Enter a younger class and provide thorough sexual education with demonstration
• Have safe sex while wearing: helmet, condom, life jacket, knee protectors, ear plugs, goggles, and rubber gloves
• Have safe sex every day of the celebration
• Take a tablespoon of chocolate powder in your mouth, then another takes a mouthful of milk.  Then you make chocolate milk using your mouths.  A third should drink the milk, again without using hands
• Hug a policeman (ask permission first!)

For a representative example of the general public’s reaction to these events, we consider the Ringsaker region of Norway, which has an annual challenge to “have sex outdoors in the middle of three area roundabouts.”  This year, the government felt it had to intervene, not because this is inappropriate behavior to encourage in youths, but because drivers, when encountering the young lovers, may be startled into having an accident.  This resulted in a statement from Terje Moe Gustavson, Norway’s director of the Public Roads Administration, entitled “No to sex on roundabouts,” which you can read here.  The statement is very clear: Terje is cool.  He’s not trying to ruin your fun.  If it weren’t for traffic accidents, sex in public by children would be great!  But as is, maybe focus on the other outstanding knot options that invoke less concern from the Public Roads Administration.

Terje

In the end, the government entered into negotiations with the student leadership, and the challenge was changed.

So, go forth, young Norwegians!  Wear your mandated overalls and do things with your bodies as enumerated by a formal checklist negotiated by your representative leaders!  And be glad you live in Norway, because all this would not fly in the US.

But, as Terje wrote, “Viewed from an “adult” point of view, some of the nodes call some words foolish and strange in the brain, but it is meant to be an expression of celebration and fun.”  (Google Translate may not have gotten all that right).