How Otago students got it on in the 19th century The lads and lasses of Dunedin have a few tricks up their sleeves when it comes to dating and hookups. But how did students do it back in the day, before the technological lubrication of Tinder and Snapchat? Critic did a deep dive into old school dating, circa the 1800s, and here’s what we found.
The Dating Pool The dating pool back in the 19th century was vastly different to what it is now. There was no such thing as a breatha or beezy. Instead, due to the Otago Gold Rush, there were quite a few miners and farmers in Dunedin, as well as your standard office workers and pretentious law and med students. Alongside this, there was the brand-new Selwyn Theological College, and your choice of 26 different “houses of ill fame”, otherwise known as brothels. These were mostly concentrated around the present day Stafford Street area, then known as the ‘Devil’s Half Acre’. At the time, male homosexuality, or “buggery”, was punishable by death, which gave rise to an underground culture in the goldmines.