2008 Woodie Awards
Is sex safe at Mac?
By: Rachel Harlos
Issue date: 4/28/06 Section: Opinion
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As April is winding down, I'd like to reflect on this National Month for Safer Sex. Macalester celebrates it own Safer Sex Week, which often goes by unnoticed, during the week of Valentine's Day. It is sponsored by Winton Health Services to promote safe sex issues on campus. As important as we here at Winton think safe sex is, some of the feedback from students suggests the opposite.
Attendance at the Valentine week's events was low, and when surveyed as to why they did not attend (granted this was not a statistically significant survey) students responded that they didn't think safe sex is a relevant issue on campus. If this consensus is widely shared that safe sex is a non-issue at Macalester, we are juxtaposed between our perceptions and our realities regarding sexual activity among students.
Beginning in 1998, and continuing every odd year, the American College Health Association administers a survey on healthy behaviors. The result is the National College Health Assessment, 58 questions that ask 1,000 randomly selected students about everything from alcohol, tobacco and other drug use, to impediments to academic performance. The survey also includes questions on sexual activity. The response rate for 2005 was 48 percent at Macalester, so we can trust that the numbers reported are statistically relevant.
The responses concerning safe sex use at Macalester are interesting and perhaps alarming, considering the apathy towards this topic. When asked if they used a condom the last time they had oral sex, 4 percent responded yes. Responses were considerably higher for vaginal sex (56 percent) and anal (33 percent). One might interpret that these low numbers (I consider these numbers low since they do not or barely exceed a majority) represent a dominance of monogamous relationships at Macalester, whose partners have mutually decided to stop using condoms. However, Macalester's rates vary little with those of all colleges surveyed (54,111 surveyed in all colleges). The rates for oral sex are the same (4 percent), and a bit lower for vaginal (53 percent) and anal (28 percent). Therefore, we aren't any different from any other campus where students are in a variety of relationships in which we'd expect a more frequent use of protection.
Attendance at the Valentine week's events was low, and when surveyed as to why they did not attend (granted this was not a statistically significant survey) students responded that they didn't think safe sex is a relevant issue on campus. If this consensus is widely shared that safe sex is a non-issue at Macalester, we are juxtaposed between our perceptions and our realities regarding sexual activity among students.
Beginning in 1998, and continuing every odd year, the American College Health Association administers a survey on healthy behaviors. The result is the National College Health Assessment, 58 questions that ask 1,000 randomly selected students about everything from alcohol, tobacco and other drug use, to impediments to academic performance. The survey also includes questions on sexual activity. The response rate for 2005 was 48 percent at Macalester, so we can trust that the numbers reported are statistically relevant.
The responses concerning safe sex use at Macalester are interesting and perhaps alarming, considering the apathy towards this topic. When asked if they used a condom the last time they had oral sex, 4 percent responded yes. Responses were considerably higher for vaginal sex (56 percent) and anal (33 percent). One might interpret that these low numbers (I consider these numbers low since they do not or barely exceed a majority) represent a dominance of monogamous relationships at Macalester, whose partners have mutually decided to stop using condoms. However, Macalester's rates vary little with those of all colleges surveyed (54,111 surveyed in all colleges). The rates for oral sex are the same (4 percent), and a bit lower for vaginal (53 percent) and anal (28 percent). Therefore, we aren't any different from any other campus where students are in a variety of relationships in which we'd expect a more frequent use of protection.
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