Harvard group promotes abstinence on campus

Parents Forum
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<p><a href="http://www.cnn.com/2007/EDUCATION/03/22/harvard.abstinence.ap/index.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.cnn.com/2007/EDUCATION/03/22/harvard.abstinence.ap/index.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>Harvard group promotes abstinence on campus
POSTED: 2:56 p.m. EDT, March 22, 2007</p>

<p>CAMBRIDGE, Massachusetts (AP) -- Sometime between the founding of a student-run porn magazine and the day the campus health center advertised "Free Lube," Harvard University seniors Sarah Kinsella and Justin Murray decided to fight back against what they see as too much mindless sex at the Ivy League school.</p>

<p>They founded a student group called True Love Revolution to promote abstinence on campus. The group, created earlier this school year, has more than 90 members on its Facebook.com page and drew about half that many to an ice cream social.</p>

<p>Harvard treats sex -- or "hooking up" -- so casually that "sometimes I wonder if sex is even a remotely serious thing," said Kinsella, who is dating Murray.</p>

<p>Other schools around the country have small groups devoted to abstinence. On most campuses, they are religious organizations. Princeton and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have Anscombe Societies, secular organizations named after an English philosopher and Roman Catholic. True Love Revolution is secular as well.</p>

<p>Some feminists, in particular, have criticized True Love Revolution's message.</p>

<p>Harvard student Rebecca Singh said she was offended by a valentine the group sent to the dormitory mailboxes of all freshmen. It read: "Why wait? Because you're worth it."</p>

<p>"I think they thought that we might not be 'ruined' yet," Singh said. "It's a symptom of that culture we have that values a woman on her purity. It's a relic."</p>

<p>Others on campus have mocked the group. Murray said his friends take pleasure in loudly, and graphically, discussing their sex lives just to taunt him.</p>

<p>"On campus there is such a strong attitude of pluralism and acceptance, but then it doesn't extend to this," Kinsella said.</p>

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<p>Well, good for them. If they want to wait, they certainly can. Nobody is putting a gun to their heads. However, everything has a shelf life.</p>

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<p>
[quote]
"On campus there is such a strong attitude of pluralism and acceptance, but then it doesn't extend to this," Kinsella said.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>All power to the correct people!</p>

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<p>However, everything has a shelf life.</p>

<p>fer'shure</p>

<p>Never use an outdated condom</p>

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<p>
[quote]
However, everything has a shelf life.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>I have no idea what this means.</p>

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<p>"I have no idea what this means."</p>

<p>Then I'm not going to tell because I'm sure you'll be offended. ;)</p>

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<p>For some reason, picturing all those Harvard students having "mindless sex" made me smile.</p>

<p>And Opie's response was priceless! Thanks for the laugh!</p>

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<p>It's true the prevailing culture on campuses is "just do it" and it doesn't refer to Nike ads. Students can be reminded that they do have a choice, that it's o.k. to wait, and sex is a private matter.</p>

<p>Just not that those who don't/didn't wait are inferior in any way.</p>

<p>My friends and I used to get so annoyed at the Student Health Center (and this was in the 70s) because they assumed you might be pregnant before they assumed anything else. And they wouldn't listen to you, the patient, when you told them there was NO way you could be! My roommate was most indignant at their amused condescension.</p>

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<p>Haha Mommusic. The same thing happened to my roommate in the 70s. Your story brought back the memory of my roommate returning from visiting the infirmary for a sore throat or something and mocking the nurse who asked her (in a really annoying condescending voice that I can't replicate in print), "ARE WE PREGNANT???" My roommate (who was a really sarcastic Long Island native) told me that she replied, "I don't know about YOU, lady, but I'M sure as h*ll not!!!!" Thank's for bringing back a funny memory to me!</p>

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<p>Actually, indignant doesn't quite describe my roommate's feelings. She was from a strong Irish-Catholic background, and I think was honestly shocked and offended by their attitude.</p>

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<p>And I was offended too. You'd think that my deep voice and mustache would be a dead give away, but no..... </p>

<p>:) </p>

<p>Kids today do what kids yesterday did and the kids before them did. They've just lost the art of being suttle about it. Of course the woods, where I used to park are now a housing developement and a kid might have to drive 30 miles for some privacy and with the price of gas these days.....</p>

<p>and don't get me started on the loss of the drive in theater....</p>

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<p>
[quote]
I have no idea what ["everything has a shelf life"] means.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>The quantity and quality of mating opportunities will decline in time, and will take a steep drop after they leave top-level academia. That these kids want to squander one of the best parts of the undergrad experience is their problem, but I wonder if they know how stupid it looks to seek publicity for this "issue".</p>

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<p>siserune--I think that's what the Harvard students are objecting to--the assumption that "meeting" necessarily implies "mating."</p>

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<p>Opie--you too? It's just rampant, isn't it? :)</p>

<p>The male version would be to joke with a shy freshman boy about "how many girls he impregnated this week" or assume he was in to be treated for an STD while he insisted he probably had the flu.</p>

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<p>"Everything has a shelf life." </p>

<p>The case could also be made that some (and I mean some) kids are so busy sleeping around with other attractive & freely-available kids that they never make the deeper connection with Mr or Ms Right while they are in the position to meet the widest variety of potential life partners.</p>

<p>Women of yesteryear were derided for going to school to get their "MRS" degree. Actually, it was not a bad plan.</p>

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<p>Well I have never had sex on Harvard's campus and can undoubtedly live without ever having sex on Harvard's campus so I am all for it.</p>

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<p>Oh, please. How many people do you know who failed to find Mr. or Ms. Right (who wanted to find Mr. or Ms. Right -- not everyone does) because they were so busy sleeping around? Honestly, I don't know any. I only know a few straight people who have never been married, and with one exception they have never wanted to be married. And that one exception spent just about no time sleeping around -- one steady boyfriend in college, who asked her to marry him and she said no.</p>

<p>I'm not a big fan of indiscriminate sex, but I'm not a big fan of ostentatiously prissy abstinence movements, either.</p>

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<p>"I'm not a big fan of indiscriminate sex, but I'm not a big fan of ostentatiously prissy abstinence movements, either. "</p>

<p>There you go, a good application of common sense. </p>

<p>Besides anyone ever notice the tone of the "Awwwhh" and posture of when someone hears about a 20 year old virgin and a 40 year old one?<br>
The Awwwh for a 20 year old is about "isn't that sweet? "
The Awwwh for a 40 something is about " oh, that's too bad." </p>

<p>Everything has a shelf life.</p>

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<p>You all might have missed one of the best lines of the article, since it wasn't quoted by OP"</p>

<p>
[quote]
"Sometimes that voice on campus is so overwhelming that students committed to abstinence almost feel compelled to abandon their convictions," Murray said. He acknowledged he "slipped up" and had sex earlier in college but said he has returned to abstinence with Kinsella.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Oops!!</p>

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<p>The only thing that fascinates me about this subject is that many of the people on this board who hoot at the thought of abstaining from sex are card carrying members of the Women's Christian Temperance Union (or whatever the secular equivalent is these days) and would take an axe to the dorm room door in order to root out some 19 year old downing a Miller lite. </p>

<p>I am supposed to believe that it is humanly impossible to keep your willie in your BVDs but the road to perdition begins as soon as you throw back a couple of brewskis. Oddly part of the evidence they give for this is that the lowered inhibition that alcohol causes will lead to unwanted sex. That is the same sex you cannot control when you are sober by the way. personally I think too many of these folks had sex they did want with people who didn't want them and they ought to drown their sorrows in a bottle of grog and leave the rest of us alone - including those of us who don't want to have sex outside of marriage.</p>