Ass-factor: something so perceptible and tangible that it could be quantified on a numerical scale, hence the ‘factor’ part of it. That chick you see on the Precor every Thursday afternoon at Arrillaga? Ass-factor. That guy who sits 3 rows from the front in IHUM lecture? Ass-factor. The working definition of ass-factor is “an amount of sexual attraction.” Ass-factor, grammatically speaking, is a noun rather than an adjective, so a person would have or give off ass-factor as opposed to being ass-factor.

Now you may be thinking, “The grammar lesson is nice but how does this apply to me?” Where decisions involving interaction with potential mating partners are concerned, my reliable calculations show that ass-factor pretty comfortably makes up around 20-35 percent of your decision and sometimes completely dominates your thoughts. These interactions aren’t just your attempts to hookup at a party. Ask yourself: what inspired you to sit in that particular seat for lecture when there were other, more convenient seats available close to friends? Why did you get up for that 9 a.m. class when you stopped caring a long time ago?

Ass-factor is the key ingredient. We weren’t put on this Earth to become doctors; our purpose is to procreate the human species. Your biological role is to pass on your particular set of genes, and that goes hand in hand with chasing ass-factor.

So embrace it! Freud didn’t blow all those coke lines for nothing — he was trying to make us more aware of our sexual desires. Chasing ass-factor is more than just a duty; it’s a downright noble cause. Why else are 80 percent of songs about love? You should be able to stand up on a table in Meyer during finals and yell, “Hey, you know what? I’m sick and tired of studying, and all I want to do is get down and dirty with 20 of you fine-looking Stanford students right now!” And you ought to receive thunderous applause for it. If any of you are chasing ass-factor under a guise right now, stop the justifications and pat yourself on the back.

Good things come out of ass-factor, too: community service, free drinks for girls and, when the professor is good-looking, really high lecture attendance. Do you go on a study date unprepared? No way! You are ready to impress for any question, academic or otherwise. I myself have stayed in classes where only the ass-factor kept me going. The result? A+ grades in both. While studying abroad in Australia, I had to choose to work with one of two groups for a project worth 50 percent of my grade for a class: (1) a despondent, less-organized group with a smiling, sexy and amazingly accented Aussie babe radiating ass-factor like a nuclear meltdown, or (2) a diligent group of dudes. I chose the latter ... and you know what happened? Two of those dudes dropped out of the class and the other two left me two hours to turn 13 pages of garbage into an essay, while Aussie chick was on top of her shit the whole way through. Main point of the story — always go for ass-factor.

Sometimes, though, ass-factor can get the best of you — it leads to heartbreak, it won’t hold a relationship together and overestimating the ass-factor can leave you coming up short. And you might have to just plain sacrifice it for competing interests, like admission to the School of Engineering.

These days, Stanford women are looking mighty fine, and without a clear ass-factor policy in place, the impending wave of Stanford goddesses that appear at springtime can be overwhelming. Plus, we are in college — COLLEGE — where people have their bodies looking right, the need to procreate almost, not quite, but almost, trounces that of getting a good GPA and everyone is at the peak of their hotness.

So write the Provost, pressure the Registrar and ask to have ass-factor put on the curriculum. Our school should become a leader in this illustrious subject and create “The Journal of Ass-Factor,” a publication that could rival Playboy, if not in photography, then at least with well-written academic articles. And then maybe we’ll have a subject we won’t mind cramming for during midterms and finals.