Sutherland, Brittany: Sexual Health

            Sexual culture is a highly touchy subject, especially among adolescents whose families would rather not believe their children are engaging in such behavior. More often than not, nowadays, people have had past sexual experiences prior to marriage. But, I don’t believe that today’s college students are having more sex than before, especially when it comes to “hook-up” type encounters.

            From my point of view, adolescents are not having sex more often than previous generations. To me, sex should be between couples that truly love each other. There are still many that believe that sex should only be between a married man and woman, but I wouldn’t go so far. My beliefs and everyone else’s, of course, aren’t the same.  Some are much more lenient and others far more strict.

            There are still students who sleep around often, and perhaps as time has gone on sexual culture has changed and such behavior is less frowned upon in our generation. In my life however, sexual relationships are still treated as taboo. Not all of my friends share these ideas though, one of my very best friends had the mentality of partying and sleeping around and she had a child from one of her “hook-ups”.

            The phrase “dating is dead” is very untrue around Magnolia. In our southern locale, everyone I know has dated at least once before entering college, though dating has changed. Past generations used dating to find a partner to spend life with, now it is just another way to get with someone sexually.

            With more education available today about pregnancy and STDs students, from my perspective, have been having less casual sex. While college students have always been wildly experimental, sleeping around constantly is becoming less a part of their experimentation.