ZT My daughter's article "Let’s talk about sex on campus "

Students have always had to deal with balancing schoolwork with their social lives, but more and more they are pressured to confront their sexuality. In this endeavor, students are barraged from all sides with messages of sex. From racy commercials to the recent resignation of the president of The College of William and Mary for deciding not to ban the Sex Workers’ Art Show, the underlying message of sex has become a fundamental aspect of daily life.

Other students agree that the unlimited forms of media are a useful springboard for informing young people about issues of sexual activity and health. “A show like ‘Loveline,’ is a public forum where people can discuss their sexual situations that are more common than they might think, but still not addressed by any traditional means,” said Junior John O’Malley. “Yet, ‘Loveline’ isn’t the operative in that sense; any open forum can be an example.”

The culture of sexuality has become pervasive among college students, influenced by the abundance of quickly accessible outlets of information from friends and mass media, especially the Internet. On a college campus like CNU, different sexual lifestyles exist side by side, with students who abstain from sex to students who engage in more frequent sexual encounters. The problem is that members of these groups rarely discuss their choices with each other.

Dr. Juliana Mills, assistant director of Counseling Services and a personal counselor insists that there is a deficit of frank dialogue on sexual practice. “As integral as sexuality is to cognitive, psychosocial and biological development, it is often the one domain that is absent from academic discussion and research. Sexuality, sexual orientation, sexual decisions and sexual practices are often regarded in an uncomfortable, somber manner. In most contexts, sex talk is taboo,” said Mills.

The multiple meanings our generation places on our sexuality have created a vacuum of misinformation. Students seeking answers rely on quick resources, which feed into the shallow perception of one’s sexuality.

“Most students want to be able to trust their teachers, friends and parents but most people don’t realize that all these people have gotten their information from the resources around them and seldom have any of them done in-depth research to become knowledgeable. And we end-up in this vicious cycle of generation after generation having misinformation,” said Junior Patrick Allen McBride.

Rita Cenname, nurse supervisor at the Health and Wellness Center, said that freshmen tend to come into college with expectations for their relationships but fail to grasp the reality of the situation. “One of the problems with young women is they have the ‘prince charming fantasy’ where they want to find their prince charming and give themselves to them, they are then left off with emotional fallout,” said Cenname. But who is to blame for giving them this misinformation.

“We know that the media has sex in everything. I was just overwhelmed by this ‘love equals sex.’ When did love become intimacy?” asked Cenname, “Why do we associate love and caring with sexuality?”

The contradictions the media sends young adults can be a daunting task to untangle with the various implications of love and sexuality. “We give kids a very perplexing double message about sex – ‘your genitals are dirty so you should save them for someone you love,’” said Sanford Lopater, professor of psychology.

Information on sexuality comes from school systems, parents, and even their own personal experiences. Often students will get their most authoritative view on sexuality from academic settings, though many feel that schools focus too heavily on abstinence and skirt around the topic of sex in general.

“Since 1996, federal and state governments in the USA have spent about $1 billion on so-called abstinence programs, which are endorsed by some church organizations and the Christian right,” according to an article published in the peer-reviewed journal “Reproductive Health Matters.”

Critics of abstinence education campaigns have claimed these programs are unsuccessful, as 88 percent of these students have engaged in sexual behavior before marriage. “Those pledging abstinence were less likely to use condoms when they did have sex and were less aware they were at risk of or had Sexually Transmitted Infections [STI] and less likely to seek medical care for an STI.” Reports indicate that students who participated in abstinence-only programs were just as likely to have an STI and also showed that it did not prevent early pregnancy.

“Realistically, it’s also a parent’s job to teach kids about sex, to fill in the gaps and make sure that your children know you’re not just being taught propaganda,” said John O’Malley, a junior.

Many students at CNU look to their parents for sexual counsel, which can range from either ignoring the issue to openly discussing it.

“My parents are extremely religious; their religious beliefs taught me a lot about commitment, so growing up, whenever my siblings and I were interested in someone in a romantic way, they encouraged us to treat each dating endeavor as if it were a relationship and a friendship we’d be in forever,” said Junior Amy Benitez.

Senior Bekah Garton expressed her mother’s candor in discussing sexual relationships. “A lot of parents are scared about talking about it, but my mother has always been incredibly open on the subject she made it seem natural and stressed that it could be hurtful,” said Garton, “but she always left the choice up to me health-wise.”

Mills says friends may also be a positive outlet for frustrations in college students, but friends are not the only option for information. “Peer groups can be a positive way to talk about issues of sexuality and being able to ask questions to each other about sexuality, but I don’t think it should be the only source of sexual education,” said Mills.

Garton, who has heard many negative experiences from her friends, cited her peers as her choice to remain abstinent, “I’ve seen a lot of my friends hurt by it, and they complained about doing stupid things at parties–it didn’t seem worth it to me. I think waiting is a lot more special,” said Garton.

Other students, such as Junior CJ Easton, use their own sexual experience to determine their choices. Easton bases his sexual preferences on a person-to-person, case-to-case basis. “I don’t use a condom because I’ve been sexually active since I’ve been 12, so control and experience is something that’s second nature to me. The stereotypical response of ‘don’t worry I will pull out’: I have never finished inside of a woman, ever, unless there has been a condom present. While, there is the potential health problem, if I know that she’s clean and I know that I’m clean then I don’t see it as an issue,” said Easton.

The current generation of increasingly sexually active college-aged students suffers from a lack of accurate, reliable information, Lopater said, leaving students to be confused or unaware in sexual situations.

Without a comprehensive understanding of sexuality, students engage in behavior that may lead to problems in the future. Many students, faced with these conflicting messages from all sides, are challenged to make the right choices.

“There is a greater exchange of information and we know a lot more,” said Benitez, “with exposure to sexually explicit behavior we also know a lot more about STDs, rapes and sex crimes. So, the exposure leads people to be more sexually active, but I believe that it’s also the same reason to remain abstinent.”

Much of what media, parents and academic institutions do not cover is the psychological dialogue that goes on under the radar for young adults, especially females.

Mills presents the idea that females receive the most challenging role with examining their sexuality.

In her dissertation on sexuality, Mills explains the conflicting messages the media sends to young women. “The sexual isolation is made more prevalent and troublesome because it is coupled with inadequate opportunities to integrate accurate sexual information, within a cultural and moral context. Women are not afforded a safe environment to examine their effective responses and reasoning within the context of sexuality.”

“I think that sex is a choice. I think that you need to be responsible not only for your own choice, but how it will affect another person. I don’t believe that people realize how often the choice to have sex is taken away,” said a CNU student, who was sexually assaulted.

“I went in thinking that I could control the situation, even though my friends had warned me,” the student said. “You think you are in control, you think you are invincible, and you think that you’ve learned from the stories, but you actually haven’t. But until you’ve been through it all you hear the ‘what ifs.’

“It took away my trust, my control and it still affects my relationship with my hu*****and,” she added.

Mills proposes that a more advanced system for sexual education, comprised of multiple aspects of sexuality, should be explored, “I believe that a comprehensive sexual education deals with biology, mechanics, but I also think that it involves how to make sexual decisions.”

CNU alumna, Annalise Hernandez, who has studied sexuality in Amsterdam and California on a six-week program, agrees. “Our whole country’s dialogue needs to change concerning sexual health,” she said.

link: http://www.thecaptainslog.org/story.php?id=532

所有跟帖： 

• The above article was written by my daughter, and posted -gzlady- ♀ (473 bytes) () 03/08/2008 postreply 18:28:35

• 你女儿多大了. 其实说实在我们所受的教育, 教给我们的孩子大概并不适用. -gossipgirl8- ♀ (38 bytes) () 03/08/2008 postreply 18:50:28

• My daughter is 21 years old, a university student. I agree -gzlady- ♀ (243 bytes) () 03/08/2008 postreply 19:05:18

• Have you watched the movie "American Pie?" It talks about -gossipgirl8- ♀ (225 bytes) () 03/08/2008 postreply 19:17:18

• 打压越重，反抗越重。孩子会觉得你根本不理解他们所处的环境。 -babylisa- ♀ (0 bytes) () 03/08/2008 postreply 19:21:08

• Totally agree. Try to be their friend is the key -gzlady- ♀ (0 bytes) () 03/08/2008 postreply 19:25:00

• Yes, I have seem that movie. My daughter went through -gzlady- ♀ (50 bytes) () 03/08/2008 postreply 19:40:01