<p>This “sex board” was quite large, the first thing you saw as you walked in, and had about 15-20 “reasons” sex was ok so to speak. In a freshman dorm, I didn’t appreciate it!</p>
<p>I don’t see it as a problem so much as a baffling waste of space and energy. As far as I’m concerned, sex <em>is</em> OK, under the right circumstances, which aren’t at all uncommon. It’s just that if there’s one group of people who really don’t need to be reminded of that, it’s college freshmen. Talk about carrying coals to Newcastle.</p>
<p>Interjection: Living in the midwest, I don’t think I can say with any conviction whatsoever that scandinavians are particularly open-minded. Just saying… </p>
<p>This said…
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<p>While I am not sure what this means exactly, it still cracked me up.</p>
<p>Newcastle is a coal mining town in Wales. Similar analogy to “selling ice to Eskimos.”</p>
<p>I think they mean that college frosh think about sex all the time anyway, they hardly need a board to be reminded.</p>
<p>Still seems on the wholesome spectrum to me.</p>
<p>Some of the sex seminars that have been held in recent years don’t always seem wholesome, but again, who am I to judge?</p>
<p>Such silly little reminders don’t strike me as offensive, at all. I understand from here, that not everyone feels the same. Fair enough.</p>
<p>^I hear “sex toy” parties are all the rage now–selling them and demonstrating how to use them. Remember a few years back when the NYTimes Magazine ran that cover story about Harvard’s and other top U’s “sex” publications in which students were posing nude–that was quite the scandal, too. I think you can’t avoid being confronted by these things on most campuses these days. I try to find the humor in them but admit sometimes I am a bit dismayed. ;/</p>
<p>When my sons were younger, I took them to the Texas campus and showed them the dorm I lived in. When I lived there in the early 80s, it was very strict. NO men on the floors, ever, except for a couple of open houses each year. A lot of other rules, too. When the boys and I were walking through the halls, I was very surprised to see a BIG poster about birth control! Kind of cracked me up. Things do change!</p>
<p>The one school that D immediately crossed off her list - practically before the info session was over was BAtes.
First, we heard that an overwhelming majority of students play intercollegiate sports. Great, right?
Then another mom asked what do the students do for fun on weekends. I kid you not - the answer was hang out in the library. At that point, I had to restrain D from leaving. (No wonder they all play sports - a chance to get off the campus.)
It didn’t help that the info session was in the front parlor of this lovely old Maine home. D thought she was in a funeral parlor.
PS Re: Sex poster for freshman –> kindof like preaching to the choir!</p>
<p>kantainethist, one of my relatives was bombarded with sex toy demonstrations for about a week but she avoided them and then things were basically tame. She thought having something like that in her dorm was a bit dismaying especially since they made it seem like they wanted everyone to attend. She is far from a prude, but has certain values and didn’t think sex was a game. She found things like that are fun for some students, others find like-minded students that think it is silly. Educating students is a good thing, how you do it will always be open to interpetation.</p>
<p>I’ve always found that the best way of dealing with folks, particularly kids, trying to shock is to refuse to be shocked. Takes all the wind of out their sales and literally drains everything of significance and upset.</p>
<p>The sex poster stuff is a common strategy by Res Life folks to get students to take control of their sexual experiences, by pointing out what they have the right to expect (i.e. safe sex, respect, total mutual consent, etc). Posters about what NOT to do are not an approach that has been proven to work very well (i.e. just say no) so now they are trying to meet the students where they are, so to speak, and at least get them to think about what their standards are, instead of just blindly (and drunkenly) rushing into hook-ups.</p>
<p>MythMom: you shock me.</p>
<p>@TheDad: There, there, sweetie.</p>
<p>IMHO the tragedy here is that the casual sex and hooking up </p>
<p>-shows a great lack of self esteem…
-we need to consider why teens (especially girls) use sex as a currency …
-why is it ok to let people who don’t care about you nor have a commitment and investment in a relationship have sex
- hpv -which has many strains (maybe 60-80 i believe) is very difficult /near impossible to detect by the teen and many cause cervical cancer
-hpv also is connected with throat cancers</p>
<p>having sex with someone is like having sex with everyone they had sex with because of the biology/body fluids/germs issues and its an exponential thing…think pyramid</p>
<p>Both of our sons have made commitments to themselves to preserve their purity and they both hope to fall in lve and marry a young woman with the same values. Neither wants a girl who has been passed around.</p>
<p>They/we realize that many will sneer at that but like choosing not to smoke, to study, or be varsity athletes etc, Its their choice and we support them. Our sons may someday be the only virgins in their schools (like Tim Tebow) but we don’t think so.</p>
<p>Anyone familiar with this book:</p>
<p>Unhooked: How Young Women Pursue Sex, Delay Love and Lose at Both
by Pulitzer Prize Winner Laura Sessions Stepp</p>
<p>“In Unhooked, Stepp gives readers an inside view of the hook-up culture where young people’s sexual contact rarely comes with long-term expectations. What she discovers is both disturbing and enlightening: a successful and fiercely independent generation of young women who are ill-equipped to balance sexual freedom with commitment. Although their sexual intelligence is higher than ever, they’re disillusioned by love and unsure how to build lasting, meaningful relationships. Scrupulously researched and unsparingly honest, Unhooked is an eye-opening look at how young people cope with the dating challenges they confront every day.”</p>
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<p>Well, women have been using sex as a currency since the Nile was a river. </p>
<p>As far as the ‘hook-ups’, I’m guessing that young women compartmentalize segments of their dating lives with college being the 'experimentation / ‘no judgment’ phase. Post - college, this changes as they focus on career reputations and finding a suitable mate.</p>
<p>I am actually not a fan of casual sex, but I have no problem with it. And there are a lot of misconceptions here. And, there’s almost nothing I’m more fiercely passionate about than eliminating “the purity myth.” Have values and enforce them, but the purity thing has got to go. Marry a virgin because you love her, not because she hasn’t been “passed around,” whatever that means (especially implying that she herself did not willfully do the “passing”).</p>
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<p>Do you really think so? I don’t. Casual sex is a lot like masturbation - you do it because you need it or you want it, but it has little to do with self esteem. If you’re one of those few people using casual sex as an outlet for something that’s wrong with you, then maybe - but there are remarkably few of those people out there, at least comparatively speaking. And in that case, casual sex isn’t the problem.</p>
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<p>I agree with you, but not everyone feels the same way. I certainly can’t bash them for that.</p>
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<p>Er… did you teach your kids about condoms? This is a problem even without having sex.</p>
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<p>Okay, though, this is what I really came to comment on. Have you ever heard of hygiene? That gets rid of other peoples’ body fluids and germs, and any college health center administered drug test can get rid of STDs. Sleeping with a person is like sleeping with a person, not a million people. This is one sex scare factor that really does not make any sense to me. Unless he doesn’t take a shower ever, it’s nothing like sleeping with a dozen people.</p>
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<p>It is my desperate hope that the purity myth is on the way out. Go for a woman with the same values (I probably will as well), but please let “the purity myth” die with the ages.</p>
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<p>And clearly, there are no problems for young men.</p>
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<p>Well said. </p>
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<p>If you’re a guy who has been with multiple women it’s okay and (by some) even encouraged. IF you’re a gal you’ve been ‘passed around.’ </p>
<p>Enough.</p>
<p>Actually
one of the biggest traps for men is the “internet and girls who always say yes”…
clinicians say the addiction rate is as high as 60+%
which is all about self and taking --not giving</p>
<p>and teens/young women are competing in a sense with that…</p>
<p>this issue is alot more complex than what we discuss here–</p>
<p>so back to colleges your kid eliminated …</p>
<p>Wow, I didn’t mean to turn this thread around to this!!!</p>
<p>Oceansaway, what I was able to read on the large bulletin board (not a poster - we’re talking a board probably 4ft by 5ft - BIG) was NOT focussed on prevention/safe methods per say. Not saying it wasn’t there, but I didn’t catch that in my minute or so to glance at it.</p>
<p>I did call the school today and mention my concern as “food for thought”.</p>
<p>I went to the Quinnipiac’s open house this past weekend and now I’m not even planning on applying there. This was a school that was in my top three and now I would tell anyone who asked to not even think about it. It was awful and impersonal. The admissions head of the business department was a 23 year old grad student, which is just rediculous. All of the buildings and all of the people look the same. There is no diversity and the uniform is leggings, uggs, and a northface. if you aren’t from Long Island or New Jersey you are not going to fit in. There was also absolutly no surrounding area. It was completly shut off from civilization. There wasnt much campus safety to speak of either. I saw about 3 blue emergency lights across the whole campus. Overall it was just an awful time. Do not waste your Saturday touring this place.</p>