(9/9/13) Got your pens or stylus? Got your notebooks or tablet? Got your condoms or what? As the new school year kicks off, keeping up with new terminology, technology and trends is getting to be a full-time gig. With chalk boards quickly become a relic of the past in favor of touch screens, life at colleges across the country is obviously in flux–making it the perfect time to chase down some current sex-related trends at American colleges.
Two interesting items popped right out that we’d like to focus on:
1) There’s slightly less sex at America’s campuses today than a decade ago, but attitudes towards sex are much more casual and liberated today.
2) There’s a growing movement by students themselves to take responsibility for comprehensive sex education, moving it outside the classroom and into campus-wide events–often without official institutional sanctioning or sponsoring.
The first claim is based on a study published last month by the University of Portland. Researchers used nationally representative samples of approximately 1,800 18-25 year-old high school graduates who have completed at least one year of college, comparing data from respondents during 1988-1996 with those from 2002-2010. The results showed a 6% decrease in sexual activity between the two samples (65.2% in the first group reporting at least weekly sexual activity to 59.3% currently), but also indicated a shift in attitudes about casual sex with today’s collegiate crowd being about 10% more likely to have sex with a casual date or “pickup” (44.4% today versus 34.5%). Additionally, the study reported that student’s today are more likely to be accepting of sex between adults of the same sex—an indicator that may have much broader implications when it comes to the near future of several matters on the current political horizon.
While the study draws an overall conclusion that there hasn’t been a significant change in sexual attitudes over the past couple of decades, it’s pretty clear that the pendulum is starting a more progressive arc, shifting away from what used to be known as a “friends-with-benefits” philosophy to what’s now called a “hook-up culture.” (And, actually, we didn’t realize the former had become passé already. L’sigh. The ravages of age.) There may be a myriad of reasons for this, but one explanation might be found in the apparent unwillingness of today’s college generation to accept a lacking sex education system as it is, opting instead to take their own lead in order to fill in the gaps as they see them.
For example, more and more university student bodies are organizing events such as “Sex Week” where frank panel discussions, lectures and presentations cover an eclectic range of topics such as talking about sex with your doctor, sex and religion, alternative sex lifestyles and even careers in sex-oriented occupations. While it’s easy to imagine the political nonsense that’s popping up with such activities, students are not being deterred; pressing on with first-rate events that feature diverse points of view including educators, activists, religious figures and health-care professionals, to name a few. Ultimately, the trend is to focus less on associated political and social agendas and, instead, more on how a huge variety of sex-related topics impact individuals uniquely and on a more personal basis. It’s also a perfect opportunity for the educators of today to sharpen their repertoires by keeping up with modern science, technologies and social attitudes.
Regardless of how these items are interpreted (and we fully recognize that there are multiple ways they can be spun depending on one’s strategic aim), the key factor is that a growing number of young adults are taking more direct responsibility regarding their dissatisfaction with the status-quo rather than just complaining or assigning blame elsewhere. If any trend regarding sex at American campuses today is worthy of note, it’s that one. It’s a positive swing that speaks highly of “Generation Next” and their potential to change the American social landscape for the better.
At Sex Across America, we support these efforts and encourage other educators and activists to be more proactive in supporting the types of events described above. We also hope that our readers will publicize this article through their own channels as a means for bringing more light to what’s developing at America’s colleges and encouraging others to offer their support as well.