SEX ON CAMPUS 2001

Sex on campus is more casual than ever... and even more alienating By Chris Harris College is the best four years of your life, right? That's what they say, anyway--whoever "they" are. And for good reason: College, any college, is fornication central. And why shouldn't it be? Take hordes of horny, inexperienced kids, thrust them onto some campus far removed from their parents, strip away all responsibility--what do you think's going to go down? I'll tell you! Hordes of horny, inexperienced freshmen--on each other. It isn't just a time for young adults to expand their intellects, to break free from the protective shell of youth. It's a time for freedom and self-expression. Experts say one way college students express this newfound freedom is through sex. "College is the time when we find out who we are, so there's a lot of experimentation going on," says Dr. Patti Britton, a clinical sexologist and ivillage.com's "sex coach." "We find out who we are as a person, but probably most significantly [we] find out who we are as a sexual being. Nowadays, though, these kids are coming into college with a lot more sexual experience than they did." Yes, Virginia, sex is a naughty little cocktail college students have always shared. But now, more than ever, it seems a majority of college students are raging alcoholics, and the campus grounds, the old watering hole. Sex is easier than ever, so it seems, but if the testimony of students is accurate, it also seems to have lost some of its luster, mystery and joy. Increasingly, sex is becoming less and less an intimate act experienced between two people who "like each other, a lot." Instead it's more of a recreational activity, engaged in freely by two--sometimes more--people as a way to remedy chronic boredom or alleviate the tensions that come with college life. And, more often than not, that sex is being had by naïve, uninhibited, freedom-abusing freshmen, under the influence of either drugs or alcohol, without condoms or any other form of protection. "It's not as precious as it used to be," says Cynthia*, a University of Hartford student who last year slept with five of her fellow students. "It's more of a social thing than an emotional thing, and I think that's bad, really." "Some students see it as part of making friends and being part of the college life, instead of being like an emotional attachment to somebody," says Diane, who is entering her senior year at Boston College. "It's more like a way to fit in and make friends and stuff." Surprised? You shouldn't be. After all, this is a country where one in every five college students loses their virginity at or before age 13, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. "It's scary because it is the way it is," says Joanne, a SUNY Albany student with 10 notches on her belt since attending college. "Sex doesn't mean anything to anyone. It's not a special thing like it was back in the day of our parents. They used to wait around forever for it, and you finally got it, and it was like WHEEEEE. Sex is like nothing anymore. It's nothing. It comes right after a kiss. And that's what's scary." "It's completely casual," says Heather, a University of Connecticut junior. "You hang out, you hook up, and it's like, 'See you around.'" The hand job has replaced the handshake, and the blow job the peck on the cheek as the most common forms of exploratory male and female contact. No more windy walks, moonlit picnics on the beach, or handwritten letters scrawled with sweet nothings slipped under dorm room doors; no more romance, essentially. "It's part of hooking up. Now, there's hooking up hooking up, and then there's getting freak nasty hooking up," laughs Heather. "It's expected now. It's seen more as a noncommittal type of activity." Nailing down hard statistics on the actual number of students "getting any" is as tough as tracking down monogamous long-term relationships on campus. On average, however, it's believed about 83 percent of college students are getting laid on a regular basis. According to the most recent, wide-scale survey of college students, published by the CDC, which tracks and reports on health-related issues, 79.5 percent of college students aren't virgins, by the truest form of the definition. Of those, only 37.7 percent had used a condom during their last sexual encounter. Information based on sex survey responses, however, is notoriously problematic. Experts say survey data on sex is unreliable because respondents are more likely to lie to make themselves look good. Tyler, a UConn junior, is living proof of sexual embellishment--trust me on this. "How easy is it to get laid? As easy as one, two, three, man," he says, matter-of-factly. "If you want it, you can get it. Just go to the bars where all the freshman chicks hang out, and it's cake, bro. These girls wanna fit in, so they give that shit up quick. You just gotta know the right things to say." Such as? "You know, 'I really like you' or 'I've seen you around campus, and I've wanted to talk to you for so long.' 'You're so pretty.' 'I wanna take you out sometime.' Invite 'em to parties, like frat parties and shit, and they're yours." Right. Females asked the same question--"How easy is it to get laid on campus these days?"--offer a variation on the theme. Jenna, a sophomore at SUNY Albany, is typical. "Very. It depends on if you want it. As a girl, if you want it, you can go out and get it. Boom--there it is. Right there. Basically, it's just a matter of going up to someone," she says. "But, it has to be in the right setting, like if you're out at a bar. You can't go up to someone on campus and expect to get laid. If you're out at a party situation, a bar situation, something where you've got a bunch of college kids partying, you're going to get laid if you want to. Alcohol. It helps." Alcohol. Yep, alcohol and sex make interesting bedfellows (no pun intended). Alcohol and college date rape go hand-in-hand as well. Hell, if there's more casual sex going on on campus, then one could assume that the incidences of date rape would increase proportionately, right? Of course. One in 12 college males admits to having committed acts that meet the legal definition of rape or acquaintance rape, according to recent data provided by Phoenix House, a residential and outpatient substance abuse program based in the Midwest. And 55 percent of female students and 75 percent of male students involved in date rape admit to having been drinking or using drugs when the incident occurred. Female college freshmen are at the highest risk for sexual assault, especially between the first day of classes and Thanksgiving break. But while casual sex, according to sexologists and students, is growing in popularity with the passing of each semester, the use of condoms is on the decline, even in this era of increased awareness to fatal, sexually transmitted diseases, such as HIV and AIDS. Take James, a University of Hartford junior, for example. "I never use condoms," he says with pride. "I know I don't have anything, and these girls, they're clean. Half the time I'm so fucked up, a condom's the last thing on my mind, you know what I'm saying? It's like, once you fuck without one, it's hard to go back to that. I want to feel it, you know?" James is the all-too-frightening norm. More than 85 percent of the students the Advocate spoke with--both at local campuses and others not so local--admitted they rarely, if ever, use protection. And less than half of those said they'd been tested for HIV within the last year. About half of those students told us they did so to satisfy the concerns of a fearful partner, who vowed to withhold sex until the test was administered. Today, sexually transmitted diseases, particularly herpes and gonorrhea, are epidemic on campus. According to the most recent data, 60 percent of college women diagnosed with a sexually transmitted disease were drunk at the time of infection. At least one out of five drunk college students abandon safe sex practices that they ordinarily use when sober, putting them at greater risk for unplanned pregnancies and AIDS. More than 134,000 new cases of syphilis are occurring each year, the highest infection rate in 40 years. About 1.3 million new gonorrhea cases are diagnosed annually, and 24 million new cases of human papilloma virus, which causes genital warts, are diagnosed annually, including a high percentage among teens and young adults. "No one's using condoms these days. I think everybody's aware of AIDS, they can't help but be aware of it," says Dr. Vern Bullough, a medical historian who lives in California and specializes in the history of sex, sexual practices and taboos, and the diverse groups of "sex workers." "I don't think the fear of disease has ever really prohibited sexual activity. It's been a fear factor in which many people try to frighten people into not having sex. But it hasn't worked very well." About 63 percent of all STD cases occur among people less than 25 years of age. AIDS is the leading killer of Americans between the ages of 25 and 44. According to the CDC, 1 in 1,500 college students is HIV positive, and the fastest-growing populations of Americans infected with HIV are teen-agers and young adults. "People don't even think about safety anymore," says Joanne, the SUNY student. "Nobody's being safe." When it comes to college boot-knockin', it's not all shame, shame, I know your name, though. Positive shifts in campus sexual behaviors have been noted by scholars. 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 Company, and its subsequent growth in popularity over the course of the decade, is 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, counter-culture movements, and medically prescribed contraceptives, ushered in a decisive break with the preceding values, which prescribed confinement of women's sexual pleasure within the suburban walls of heterosexual marriage and the regulation of man'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 or not 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, less 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 Bill, a UConn student. "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 Long Island University student, entering his senior year. "I don't have to do much, and usually, I'm not expected to do much after I cum. And there's no way she'll ever get pregnant. It's a win-win for me!" Oral sex very often precedes sexual intercourse. The reverse was true 40 years ago, says Britton, because oral sex was viewed as "more intimate than, quote unquote, fucking." In fact, many college students don't think of oral sex as sex at all, and the "Bill and Monica" situation only added to that confusion. "Most girls think guys will like them if they give them head," says Molly, who attends UMass at Amherst. "Instead of having sex, they'll just do that. They think it's OK, because, 'I'm not having sex, I'm just sucking his cock. People can't call me a slut if I'm not having sex.' Girls do that all the time, before they ever fuck a guy." Is it always OK to go down on someone? Is there at least a dinner involved, somewhere along the line? No way, José. Heather says that if a guy takes her out for dinner, he's not getting his helmet polished for dessert. Why? "Dinner means dating, dating means respect. No. It's going to be a little while before you give it up. Blow jobs happen during random hookups. They're dirty, so you do dirty things." Britton says there's more of an "OK-ness" with oral sex today, an attitude that was never prevalent before. Technically, she says, "you can still be a virgin." You're not regarded as a prude or inexperienced, yet you're not thought of as easy or slutty. After all, "if the president does it, it's OK if they do, is the thinking," says Britton. Of course, there are students out there not having any sex at all. Not only that, but some of the undergrads who do fornicate like floppy-eared rabbits are getting sick of the highly sexual scene. "Now that I'm getting older, it's not like that," says Holly. "I want something more. Back in the day, it didn't matter. As a freshman, nobody cares. You're not looking for a relationship, because you know it won't last. You'll hang out with one dude, and things will be cheesy, and you'll move on to the next. Why? Because there's a million dudes out there. You're all living around each other, and you're all the same age, and you're all looking for the same thing. "When you get over the novelty of college, you want someone to hang out with, who's more than just that kid you're seen around with," she continues. "Sometimes, I want something more meaningful than 'Let's hang out in my room, and we'll have sex, and then hit the bars.'" "It gets old," agrees Joanne, "especially when you know you're done with the whole party, drinking, sex, drugs, hangin' out thing. Some people never get over it. Some people never go through it. Your first year or two of college, it's new. A whole new world. You're buggin' out. But you do get over it." *All students' names have been changed to ensure anonymity if, perchance, their parents read this. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- For details on colleges and universities in the Hartford area, go here: College Guide 2001 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Hartford Advocate home page Copyright ©2001 New Mass. Media, Inc. All rights reserved.

           Sex on campus is more casual than
                        ever...
                and even more alienating

By Chris Harris

           College is the best four years of your life, right?
           That's what they say, anyway--whoever "they"
           are. And for good reason: College, any college, is
           fornication central.

           And why shouldn't it be? Take hordes of horny,
           inexperienced kids, thrust them onto some campus
           far removed from their parents, strip away all
           responsibility--what do you think's going to go
           down? I'll tell you! Hordes of horny,
           inexperienced freshmen--on each other.

           It isn't just a time for young adults to expand their
           intellects, to break free from the protective shell
           of youth. It's a time for freedom and
           self-expression. Experts say one way college
           students express this newfound freedom is through
           sex.

           "College is the time when we find out who we
           are, so there's a lot of experimentation going on,"
           says Dr. Patti Britton, a clinical sexologist and
           ivillage.com's "sex coach." "We find out who we
           are as a person, but probably most significantly
           [we] find out who we are as a sexual being.
           Nowadays, though, these kids are coming into
           college with a lot more sexual experience than
           they did."

           Yes, Virginia, sex is a naughty little cocktail
           college students have always shared. But now,
           more than ever, it seems a majority of college
           students are raging alcoholics, and the campus
           grounds, the old watering hole. Sex is easier than
           ever, so it seems, but if the testimony of students
           is accurate, it also seems to have lost some of its
           luster, mystery and joy.

           Increasingly, sex is becoming less and less an
           intimate act experienced between two people who
           "like each other, a lot." Instead it's more of a
           recreational activity, engaged in freely by
           two--sometimes more--people as a way to remedy
           chronic boredom or alleviate the tensions that
           come with college life. And, more often than not,
           that sex is being had by naïve, uninhibited,
           freedom-abusing freshmen, under the influence of
           either drugs or alcohol, without condoms or any
           other form of protection.

           "It's not as precious as it used to be," says
           Cynthia*, a University of Hartford student who
           last year slept with five of her fellow students.
           "It's more of a social thing than an emotional
           thing, and I think that's bad, really."

           "Some students see it as part of making friends
           and being part of the college life, instead of being
           like an emotional attachment to somebody," says
           Diane, who is entering her senior year at Boston
           College. "It's more like a way to fit in and make
           friends and stuff."

           Surprised? You shouldn't be. After all, this is a
           country where one in every five college students
           loses their virginity at or before age 13, according
           to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

           "It's scary because it is the way it is," says Joanne,
           a SUNY Albany student with 10 notches on her
           belt since attending college. "Sex doesn't mean
           anything to anyone. It's not a special thing like it
           was back in the day of our parents. They used to
           wait around forever for it, and you finally got it,
           and it was like WHEEEEE. Sex is like nothing
           anymore. It's nothing. It comes right after a kiss.
           And that's what's scary."

           "It's completely casual," says Heather, a
           University of Connecticut junior. "You hang out,
           you hook up, and it's like, 'See you around.'"

           The hand job has replaced the handshake, and the
           blow job the peck on the cheek as the most
           common forms of exploratory male and female
           contact. No more windy walks, moonlit picnics on
           the beach, or handwritten letters scrawled with
           sweet nothings slipped under dorm room doors; no
           more romance, essentially.

           "It's part of hooking up. Now, there's hooking up
           hooking up, and then there's getting freak nasty
           hooking up," laughs Heather. "It's expected now.
           It's seen more as a noncommittal type of activity."

           Nailing down hard statistics on the actual number
           of students "getting any" is as tough as tracking
           down monogamous long-term relationships on
           campus. On average, however, it's believed about
           83 percent of college students are getting laid on a
           regular basis. According to the most recent,
           wide-scale survey of college students, published
           by the CDC, which tracks and reports on
           health-related issues, 79.5 percent of college
           students aren't virgins, by the truest form of the
           definition. Of those, only 37.7 percent had used a
           condom during their last sexual encounter.

           Information based on sex survey responses,
           however, is notoriously problematic. Experts say
           survey data on sex is unreliable because
           respondents are more likely to lie to make
           themselves look good. Tyler, a UConn junior, is
           living proof of sexual embellishment--trust me on
           this.

           "How easy is it to get laid? As easy as one, two,
           three, man," he says, matter-of-factly. "If you
           want it, you can get it. Just go to the bars where
           all the freshman chicks hang out, and it's cake,
           bro. These girls wanna fit in, so they give that shit
           up quick. You just gotta know the right things to
           say."

Such as?

           "You know, 'I really like you' or 'I've seen you
           around campus, and I've wanted to talk to you for
           so long.' 'You're so pretty.' 'I wanna take you out
           sometime.' Invite 'em to parties, like frat parties
           and shit, and they're yours."

Right.

           Females asked the same question--"How easy is it
           to get laid on campus these days?"--offer a
           variation on the theme. Jenna, a sophomore at
           SUNY Albany, is typical.

           "Very. It depends on if you want it. As a girl, if
           you want it, you can go out and get it.
           Boom--there it is. Right there. Basically, it's just a
           matter of going up to someone," she says. "But, it
           has to be in the right setting, like if you're out at a
           bar. You can't go up to someone on campus and
           expect to get laid. If you're out at a party
           situation, a bar situation, something where you've
           got a bunch of college kids partying, you're going
           to get laid if you want to. Alcohol. It helps."

           Alcohol. Yep, alcohol and sex make interesting
           bedfellows (no pun intended). Alcohol and college
           date rape go hand-in-hand as well. Hell, if there's
           more casual sex going on on campus, then one
           could assume that the incidences of date rape
           would increase proportionately, right? Of course.

           One in 12 college males admits to having
           committed acts that meet the legal definition of
           rape or acquaintance rape, according to recent
           data provided by Phoenix House, a residential and
           outpatient substance abuse program based in the
           Midwest. And 55 percent of female students and
           75 percent of male students involved in date rape
           admit to having been drinking or using drugs
           when the incident occurred. Female college
           freshmen are at the highest risk for sexual assault,
           especially between the first day of classes and
           Thanksgiving break.

           But while casual sex, according to sexologists and
           students, is growing in popularity with the passing
           of each semester, the use of condoms is on the
           decline, even in this era of increased awareness to
           fatal, sexually transmitted diseases, such as HIV
           and AIDS. Take James, a University of Hartford
           junior, for example.

           "I never use condoms," he says with pride. "I
           know I don't have anything, and these girls,
           they're clean. Half the time I'm so fucked up, a
           condom's the last thing on my mind, you know
           what I'm saying? It's like, once you fuck without
           one, it's hard to go back to that. I want to feel it,
           you know?"

           James is the all-too-frightening norm. More than
           85 percent of the students the Advocate spoke
           with--both at local campuses and others not so
           local--admitted they rarely, if ever, use protection.
           And less than half of those said they'd been tested
           for HIV within the last year. About half of those
           students told us they did so to satisfy the concerns
           of a fearful partner, who vowed to withhold sex
           until the test was administered.

           Today, sexually transmitted diseases, particularly
           herpes and gonorrhea, are epidemic on campus.
           According to the most recent data, 60 percent of
           college women diagnosed with a sexually
           transmitted disease were drunk at the time of
           infection. At least one out of five drunk college
           students abandon safe sex practices that they
           ordinarily use when sober, putting them at greater
           risk for unplanned pregnancies and AIDS.

           More than 134,000 new cases of syphilis are
           occurring each year, the highest infection rate in
           40 years. About 1.3 million new gonorrhea cases
           are diagnosed annually, and 24 million new cases
           of human papilloma virus, which causes genital
           warts, are diagnosed annually, including a high
           percentage among teens and young adults.

           "No one's using condoms these days. I think
           everybody's aware of AIDS, they can't help but be
           aware of it," says Dr. Vern Bullough, a medical
           historian who lives in California and specializes in
           the history of sex, sexual practices and taboos,
           and the diverse groups of "sex workers." "I don't
           think the fear of disease has ever really prohibited
           sexual activity. It's been a fear factor in which
           many people try to frighten people into not having
           sex. But it hasn't worked very well."

About 63 percent of all STD cases occur among
people less than 25 years of age.

           AIDS is the leading killer of Americans between
           the ages of 25 and 44. According to the CDC, 1 in
           1,500 college students is HIV positive, and the
           fastest-growing populations of Americans infected
           with HIV are teen-agers and young adults.

           "People don't even think about safety anymore,"
           says Joanne, the SUNY student. "Nobody's being
           safe."

           When it comes to college boot-knockin', it's not
           all shame, shame, I know your name, though.
           Positive shifts in campus sexual behaviors have
           been noted by scholars. 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 Company, and its subsequent
           growth in popularity over the course of the
           decade, is 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, counter-culture
           movements, and medically prescribed
           contraceptives, ushered in a decisive break with
           the preceding values, which prescribed
           confinement of women's sexual pleasure within
           the suburban walls of heterosexual marriage and
           the regulation of man'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 or not 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, less
           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 Bill, a UConn student. "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 Long Island
           University student, entering his senior year. "I
           don't have to do much, and usually, I'm not
           expected to do much after I cum. And there's no
           way she'll ever get pregnant. It's a win-win for
           me!"

           Oral sex very often precedes sexual intercourse.
           The reverse was true 40 years ago, says Britton,
           because oral sex was viewed as "more intimate
           than, quote unquote, fucking." In fact, many
           college students don't think of oral sex as sex at
           all, and the "Bill and Monica" situation only
           added to that confusion.

           "Most girls think guys will like them if they give
           them head," says Molly, who attends UMass at
           Amherst. "Instead of having sex, they'll just do
           that. They think it's OK, because, 'I'm not having
           sex, I'm just sucking his cock. People can't call
           me a slut if I'm not having sex.' Girls do that all
           the time, before they ever fuck a guy."

           Is it always OK to go down on someone? Is there
           at least a dinner involved, somewhere along the
           line? No way, José. Heather says that if a guy
           takes her out for dinner, he's not getting his
           helmet polished for dessert. Why? "Dinner means
           dating, dating means respect. No. It's going to be
           a little while before you give it up. Blow jobs
           happen during random hookups. They're dirty, so
           you do dirty things."

           Britton says there's more of an "OK-ness" with
           oral sex today, an attitude that was never
           prevalent before. Technically, she says, "you can
           still be a virgin." You're not regarded as a prude
           or inexperienced, yet you're not thought of as easy
           or slutty. After all, "if the president does it, it's
           OK if they do, is the thinking," says Britton.

           Of course, there are students out there not having
           any sex at all. Not only that, but some of the
           undergrads who do fornicate like floppy-eared
           rabbits are getting sick of the highly sexual scene.

           "Now that I'm getting older, it's not like that,"
           says Holly. "I want something more. Back in the
           day, it didn't matter. As a freshman, nobody
           cares. You're not looking for a relationship,
           because you know it won't last. You'll hang out
           with one dude, and things will be cheesy, and
           you'll move on to the next. Why? Because there's
           a million dudes out there. You're all living around
           each other, and you're all the same age, and you're
           all looking for the same thing.

           "When you get over the novelty of college, you
           want someone to hang out with, who's more than
           just that kid you're seen around with," she
           continues. "Sometimes, I want something more
           meaningful than 'Let's hang out in my room, and
           we'll have sex, and then hit the bars.'"

           "It gets old," agrees Joanne, "especially when you
           know you're done with the whole party, drinking,
           sex, drugs, hangin' out thing. Some people never
           get over it. Some people never go through it.
           Your first year or two of college, it's new. A
           whole new world. You're buggin' out. But you do
           get over it."

College is the best four years of your life, right? That's what they say, anyway--whoever "they" are. And for good reason: College, any college, is fornication central.

And why shouldn't it be? Take hordes of horny, inexperienced kids, thrust them onto some campus far removed from their parents, strip away all responsibility--what do you think's going to go down? I'll tell you! Hordes of horny, inexperienced freshmen--on each other.

It isn't just a time for young adults to expand their intellects, to break free from the protective shell of youth. It's a time for freedom and self-expression. Experts say one way college students express this newfound freedom is through sex.

"College is the time when we find out who we are, so there's a lot of experimentation going on," says Dr. Patti Britton, a clinical sexologist and ivillage.com's "sex coach." "We find out who we are as a person, but probably most significantly [we] find out who we are as a sexual being. Nowadays, though, these kids are coming into college with a lot more sexual experience than they did."

Yes, Virginia, sex is a naughty little cocktail college students have always shared. But now, more than ever, it seems a majority of college students are raging alcoholics, and the campus grounds, the old watering hole. Sex is easier than ever, so it seems, but if the testimony of students is accurate, it also seems to have lost some of its luster, mystery and joy.

Increasingly, sex is becoming less and less an intimate act experienced between two people who "like each other, a lot." Instead it's more of a recreational activity, engaged in freely by two--sometimes more--people as a way to remedy chronic boredom or alleviate the tensions that come with college life. And, more often than not, that sex is being had by naïve, uninhibited, freedom-abusing freshmen, under the influence of either drugs or alcohol, without condoms or any other form of protection.

"It's not as precious as it used to be," says Cynthia*, a University of Hartford student who last year slept with five of her fellow students. "It's more of a social thing than an emotional thing, and I think that's bad, really."

"Some students see it as part of making friends and being part of the college life, instead of being like an emotional attachment to somebody," says Diane, who is entering her senior year at Boston College. "It's more like a way to fit in and make friends and stuff."

Surprised? You shouldn't be. After all, this is a country where one in every five college students loses their virginity at or before age 13, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

"It's scary because it is the way it is," says Joanne, a SUNY Albany student with 10 notches on her belt since attending college. "Sex doesn't mean anything to anyone. It's not a special thing like it was back in the day of our parents. They used to wait around forever for it, and you finally got it, and it was like WHEEEEE. Sex is like nothing anymore. It's nothing. It comes right after a kiss. And that's what's scary."

"It's completely casual," says Heather, a University of Connecticut junior. "You hang out, you hook up, and it's like, 'See you around.'"

The hand job has replaced the handshake, and the blow job the peck on the cheek as the most common forms of exploratory male and female contact. No more windy walks, moonlit picnics on the beach, or handwritten letters scrawled with sweet nothings slipped under dorm room doors; no more romance, essentially.

"It's part of hooking up. Now, there's hooking up hooking up, and then there's getting freak nasty hooking up," laughs Heather. "It's expected now. It's seen more as a noncommittal type of activity."

Nailing down hard statistics on the actual number of students "getting any" is as tough as tracking down monogamous long-term relationships on campus. On average, however, it's believed about 83 percent of college students are getting laid on a regular basis. According to the most recent, wide-scale survey of college students, published by the CDC, which tracks and reports on health-related issues, 79.5 percent of college students aren't virgins, by the truest form of the definition. Of those, only 37.7 percent had used a condom during their last sexual encounter.

Information based on sex survey responses, however, is notoriously problematic. Experts say survey data on sex is unreliable because respondents are more likely to lie to make themselves look good. Tyler, a UConn junior, is living proof of sexual embellishment--trust me on this.

"How easy is it to get laid? As easy as one, two, three, man," he says, matter-of-factly. "If you want it, you can get it. Just go to the bars where all the freshman chicks hang out, and it's cake, bro. These girls wanna fit in, so they give that shit up quick. You just gotta know the right things to say."

Such as?

"You know, 'I really like you' or 'I've seen you around campus, and I've wanted to talk to you for so long.' 'You're so pretty.' 'I wanna take you out sometime.' Invite 'em to parties, like frat parties and shit, and they're yours."

Right.

Females asked the same question--"How easy is it to get laid on campus these days?"--offer a variation on the theme. Jenna, a sophomore at SUNY Albany, is typical.

"Very. It depends on if you want it. As a girl, if you want it, you can go out and get it. Boom--there it is. Right there. Basically, it's just a matter of going up to someone," she says. "But, it has to be in the right setting, like if you're out at a bar. You can't go up to someone on campus and expect to get laid. If you're out at a party situation, a bar situation, something where you've got a bunch of college kids partying, you're going to get laid if you want to. Alcohol. It helps."

Alcohol. Yep, alcohol and sex make interesting bedfellows (no pun intended). Alcohol and college date rape go hand-in-hand as well. Hell, if there's more casual sex going on on campus, then one could assume that the incidences of date rape would increase proportionately, right? Of course.

One in 12 college males admits to having committed acts that meet the legal definition of rape or acquaintance rape, according to recent data provided by Phoenix House, a residential and outpatient substance abuse program based in the Midwest. And 55 percent of female students and 75 percent of male students involved in date rape admit to having been drinking or using drugs when the incident occurred. Female college freshmen are at the highest risk for sexual assault, especially between the first day of classes and Thanksgiving break.

But while casual sex, according to sexologists and students, is growing in popularity with the passing of each semester, the use of condoms is on the decline, even in this era of increased awareness to fatal, sexually transmitted diseases, such as HIV and AIDS. Take James, a University of Hartford junior, for example.

"I never use condoms," he says with pride. "I know I don't have anything, and these girls, they're clean. Half the time I'm so fucked up, a condom's the last thing on my mind, you know what I'm saying? It's like, once you fuck without one, it's hard to go back to that. I want to feel it, you know?"

James is the all-too-frightening norm. More than 85 percent of the students the Advocate spoke with--both at local campuses and others not so local--admitted they rarely, if ever, use protection. And less than half of those said they'd been tested for HIV within the last year. About half of those students told us they did so to satisfy the concerns of a fearful partner, who vowed to withhold sex until the test was administered.

Today, sexually transmitted diseases, particularly herpes and gonorrhea, are epidemic on campus. According to the most recent data, 60 percent of college women diagnosed with a sexually transmitted disease were drunk at the time of infection. At least one out of five drunk college students abandon safe sex practices that they ordinarily use when sober, putting them at greater risk for unplanned pregnancies and AIDS.

More than 134,000 new cases of syphilis are occurring each year, the highest infection rate in 40 years. About 1.3 million new gonorrhea cases are diagnosed annually, and 24 million new cases of human papilloma virus, which causes genital warts, are diagnosed annually, including a high percentage among teens and young adults.

"No one's using condoms these days. I think everybody's aware of AIDS, they can't help but be aware of it," says Dr. Vern Bullough, a medical historian who lives in California and specializes in the history of sex, sexual practices and taboos, and the diverse groups of "sex workers." "I don't think the fear of disease has ever really prohibited sexual activity. It's been a fear factor in which many people try to frighten people into not having sex. But it hasn't worked very well."

About 63 percent of all STD cases occur among people less than 25 years of age.

AIDS is the leading killer of Americans between the ages of 25 and 44. According to the CDC, 1 in 1,500 college students is HIV positive, and the fastest-growing populations of Americans infected with HIV are teen-agers and young adults.

"People don't even think about safety anymore," says Joanne, the SUNY student. "Nobody's being safe."

When it comes to college boot-knockin', it's not all shame, shame, I know your name, though. Positive shifts in campus sexual behaviors have been noted by scholars. 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 Company, and its subsequent growth in popularity over the course of the decade, is 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, counter-culture movements, and medically prescribed contraceptives, ushered in a decisive break with the preceding values, which prescribed confinement of women's sexual pleasure within the suburban walls of heterosexual marriage and the regulation of man'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 or not 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, less 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 Bill, a UConn student. "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 Long Island University student, entering his senior year. "I don't have to do much, and usually, I'm not expected to do much after I cum. And there's no way she'll ever get pregnant. It's a win-win for me!"

Oral sex very often precedes sexual intercourse. The reverse was true 40 years ago, says Britton, because oral sex was viewed as "more intimate than, quote unquote, fucking." In fact, many college students don't think of oral sex as sex at all, and the "Bill and Monica" situation only added to that confusion.

"Most girls think guys will like them if they give them head," says Molly, who attends UMass at Amherst. "Instead of having sex, they'll just do that. They think it's OK, because, 'I'm not having sex, I'm just sucking his cock. People can't call me a slut if I'm not having sex.' Girls do that all the time, before they ever fuck a guy."

Is it always OK to go down on someone? Is there at least a dinner involved, somewhere along the line? No way, José. Heather says that if a guy takes her out for dinner, he's not getting his helmet polished for dessert. Why? "Dinner means dating, dating means respect. No. It's going to be a little while before you give it up. Blow jobs happen during random hookups. They're dirty, so you do dirty things."

Britton says there's more of an "OK-ness" with oral sex today, an attitude that was never prevalent before. Technically, she says, "you can still be a virgin." You're not regarded as a prude or inexperienced, yet you're not thought of as easy or slutty. After all, "if the president does it, it's OK if they do, is the thinking," says Britton.

Of course, there are students out there not having any sex at all. Not only that, but some of the undergrads who do fornicate like floppy-eared rabbits are getting sick of the highly sexual scene.

"Now that I'm getting older, it's not like that," says Holly. "I want something more. Back in the day, it didn't matter. As a freshman, nobody cares. You're not looking for a relationship, because you know it won't last. You'll hang out with one dude, and things will be cheesy, and you'll move on to the next. Why? Because there's a million dudes out there. You're all living around each other, and you're all the same age, and you're all looking for the same thing.

"When you get over the novelty of college, you want someone to hang out with, who's more than just that kid you're seen around with," she continues. "Sometimes, I want something more meaningful than 'Let's hang out in my room, and we'll have sex, and then hit the bars.'"

"It gets old," agrees Joanne, "especially when you know you're done with the whole party, drinking, sex, drugs, hangin' out thing. Some people never get over it. Some people never go through it. Your first year or two of college, it's new. A whole new world. You're buggin' out. But you do get over it."

*All students' names have been changed to ensure anonymity if, perchance, their parents read this.

Sex on campus is more casual than ever...
and even more alienating