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Back to School, Back to Sex
Sex on campus is more casual than ever, say many college students - and more alienating and dangerous, too
By Chris Harris
Page 3 of 4
"People don't even think about safety anymore," says Joanne. "Nobody's being safe."
When it comes to college boot-knockin', it's not all "shame, shame, I know your name," though. Scholars have noted positive shifts in campus sexual behaviors. For example, it seems there's more of a willingness to accept varying kinds of sexual behaviors and lifestyles on college campuses today. Practically every college in this country offers a course in gay and lesbian studies; that wasn't the case in the 1970s.
And there's more experimentation, more curiosity; more and more students are reporting sex toy use, bisexual dabblings and anal play than ever before. Plus, experts say women are now free to be sexual beings, a welcome change on campus mostly attributed to the sexual revolution of the 1960s and the advent of the birth control pill.
"Girls were supposed to be virgins before they were married, to tantalize the men into marrying them. That's not so true anymore," says Bullough.
The introduction of the birth control pill in 1960 by G.D. Searle and Co. and its subsequent growth in popularity over the course of the decade are both lauded and blamed for the start of the modern sexual revolution. The detractors maintain, among other arguments, that the greatly reduced chance of pregnancy led to a decline in the moral values of society. Supporters, while often in agreement about the role of the pill in the revolution, may also take the position that there is no such degradation in our social mores.
Throughout the late "60s and early "70s, the combination of student protests, counterculture movements and medically prescribed contraceptives ushered in a decisive break with preceding values, which prescribed confinement of women's sexual pleasure within the suburban walls of heterosexual marriage and the regulation of men's sexuality in public.
There is no denying that the pill profoundly affected the lifestyles of young women and, logically, those of young men as well. Whether this change was detrimental will be the subject of ongoing debate in the sexology world for years to come. There is a distinct probability, though, that no clear-cut answer to the debate is possible without an accurate way to measure the societal changes that may have occurred without the birth control pill.
While there appears to have been a continually increasing casualness about sexual contact over the last 100 years, there are still rules, still mating codes, that have to be observed.
Certainly, being perceived as a prude has never been popular. Eleanor Rowland Wembridge, in a survey conducted in 1925, spoke with female college students about sex. Wembridge wrote of the girls: "Whether or not they pet, they hesitate to have anyone believe that they do not. It is distinctly the mores of the time to be considered as ardently sought after, and as not too priggish to respond. As one girl said -- "I don't particularly care to be kissed by some of the fellows I know, but I'd let them do it any time rather than think I wouldn't dare.'"
During the Roaring "20s, the number of young women engaging in premarital sex jumped sharply, to about 50 percent. In the 1950s, fewer than 25 percent of Americans thought premarital sex was acceptable; by the "70s, more than 75 percent found it acceptable, say experts.
"That's really the big change in sexual mores, in the sexual willingness to participate by the females," says Bullough. "Women have accepted sex, and say sex is enjoyable, and like to do it as much as men, although they're not quite as promiscuous."
There was a time when students would be expelled from college for premarital sex. In 1960, no campus physician was permitted to provide birth control for unmarried female students. Today, of course, undergraduates take access to the pill and other birth control methods for granted, and female students have to worry about an almost epidemic date-rape rate.
"I'm more worried about getting a girl pregnant than anything," says a student I'll call Bill. "So, if she's on the pill, that's great. Sometimes I just pull out, to be extra safe. I can't have a kid now, or it would ruin my life."
On today's college campus, oral sex is the common ground, the no-threat area -- it's the 2001 equivalent of the kiss goodnight of the 1950s. It's viewed as safer than penetration, and some students think of it as a "fun" form of birth control.
"I actually prefer it," says Tony, a student entering his senior year. "I don't have to do much, and usually, I'm not expected to do much after I come. And there's no way she'll ever get pregnant. It's a win-win for me!"
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