Sex. Sex! Sex!
Got your attention, didn’t it? Of course it did. Sex is our
attention getter. Sex drives us, shapes us and destroys us. For
college students, sex is a time bomb, tic-tic-ticking away. On a
college campus–even one that is a “sex-dry” campus–sex is the
looming battle of contesting wills.
The need for validation, the desire for acceptance, the pure
physical desire and the lack of inhibitions all can lead to the
advent of sex. But in truth, nothing but a pure emotional bonding
with another person should lead to sex. And even when that
emotional bond is made, sex isn’t religiously right until the
sacraments of marriage are fulfilled. So why is this supposed
“sex-dry” campus so sex-wild? Because it’s college, that’s why.
College students need certain avenues to vent various emotions,
be it anger, stress, sadness and, yes, even love. The invocation of
the sacred alcohol rites on the college campus tends to open up the
doors of expression and emotional freedom. Through alcohol, many
college students find that they are capable of venting their
emotions without being held in check by such silly things as
inhibitions. And with the lack of inhibitions and the freedom of
pure alcohol-induced love and lust, a college student finds it hard
to remember why premarital sex is such a bad thing.
Sex on a college campus is a widely growing and always popular
trend. It’s fun, it’s a renewable resource of guilt-free pleasure,
it’s cheap, and by golly, it’s a great stress reducer! Shoot, if
someone were to charge a fee for sex, why, they’d have no problem
marketing it. This could be why “adult” videos consist of as much
as 80 percent of America’s film production. Sex is an idea that is
sold to those students who want to sell out.
Being able to have bragging rights about having sex with
numerous partners is nothing to be proud of, and, in fact, is quite
disgusting. Having multiple sexual partners is depriving
intercourse of its emotional value. A partner becomes an object–a
thing of lust and desire, not a person with emotions and feelings.
The act of having sex loses its meaning and becomes just an act of
pagan body worshiping.
Yes, it’s very true, that often a guy is more comfortable with
having premarital sex, but it is also true that men have a penis
and a brain, but not enough blood to run both–a beautiful insight
observed by Robin Williams. If men aren’t thinking about sex, then
they’re probably having sex. It takes a strong breed of guy to be
able to walk away from a girl who is ready to have sex before
marriage. The “honorable” guy image seems to have taken the back
burner in favor of the “look at me, I can have sex whenever I want”
image, and the morals of the campus will soon begin to suffer.
The instillation of morals and values into the mind of a student
can’t be accomplished when the student is in college. By the time
college rolls around the students have already made up their mind
on morally diversified issues.
The average student has either already had sex, or knows whether
he or she is willing to have sex before marriage. The decision to
abstain before marriage is honorable and, from the religious
standpoint, the only right thing to do. But what about all of the
“non-honorables” out there? Are they doomed to fiery damnation or
purgatory? ?
The bottom line when it comes to having sex is that the decision
should be a strictly moral decision. Religion and your upbringing
have a profound impact on your morals and what you place a high
value on. Having sex for the right reasons–aka, love–does not
make it right, that’s just a way to try and justify something that
should have waited until marriage.
Sex can wait, and if your significant other really cares for
you, so can he or she. There is no standard book of necessary
college behavior that says all relationships in college must have
some sort of sexual intercourse. The only pressure comes from the
students’ own minds or from a student’s peers. It is the pressure
to fit in, the pressure to feel accepted, loved and cared for–even
if just for a night–that seduces a student into believing that sex
before marriage is ok. The fact is, you cannot have a physical
relationship without having some sort of emotional relationship.
The emotional should always come before the physical. Being
attracted to a person physically is seductive, but an emotional
attraction is rewarding.
Sex is the byproduct of many things: stress, booze, peer
pressure, social stigmatisms, validation and acceptance, among
other things. Sex is not, however, something that students should
feel forced to “give in to.” A student that’s had sex is not going
to perform better on his midterm.
Sex is a battle that might never have to be fought by every
student, but it is certainly invading campuses without respite.
Having sex or not having sex is purely a moral question, and one
that can only be answered by one person: you.
Andrew Emmerich is a freshman studying English.
