Torturing Over Sex LivesVirginity is not "failure"

The Brown Daily Herald’s latest poll, conducted back in November, attempted to summarize many things about Brown students, from our drug habits to our cars, and from our level of sexual activity to whom we want in the White House. The question on the poll that asked how many sexual partners we each have had this past semester was shown in the original poll results (published November 13th), and an article titled “Brown students have as much sex as nationwide peers” was run on December 3rd to further examine the findings.

The poll found that out of 621 undergraduates polled, 44.8 percent said they had one to two partners this fall, 3.7 percent said they had three to four sexual partners, 0.5 percent had five to six, and 0.8 percent had seven or more. The poll also found that 43.3 percent of students said they had zero sexual partners the past semester, while 6.9 percent chose the response “don’t know/no answer.”

I have heard mixed reactions to the poll and the article. A few of my friends are surprised that Brown students as a whole are not more sexually active than their peers in the rest of the country. Some others remarked that seven is rather high for a number of sexual partners. Still more expressed their hope that the “don’t know/no answer” choice on that particular poll item was made up mostly of “no answer,” as they felt one should know how many sexual partners one has had.

One friend, however, made the most insightful comment I have heard so far. She was commenting on the actual number of partners each student reported, and she said, “There’s a big difference between zero and one on that poll, and between one and two.” She was not commenting on the percentage points between the two numbers; she was talking about the different lifestyle choices that lead one to have a single sexual partner, multiple partners, or no partners. And she is completely right. If any specific breakdown of those numbers could be made, it would be between future monogamists (who are chaste until marriage), and everyone else.

Unfortunately, the way the poll was conducted gave no information as to how these sexual encounters are occurring. The way that the second article described a “sexual partner,” a student could be in a relationship for the whole semester and not have a sexual partner. Another could be celebrating a two-year anniversary and still not have had a sexual partner. And of course, yet another could also have never been in a “relationship” and have had seven sexual partners. The numbers presented by themselves allowed very little room for commentary.

Commentary, however, was conveniently provided by the article that ran on December 3rd. Many of the students that commented stated that the results felt “about right,” and that the numbers surprised them very little, if at all. Several were expecting the numbers to be higher than they were, and referred to underclassmen’s “relative chastity.” One student stated as a fact, “As you get older, you have more sex,” following a statement provided by the writer that sex comes naturally with age. Another student said, “When you’re a first year, it’s probably more about getting a feel for the campus,” followed by, “As you become older, you probably become more comfortable in these situations.” My favorite comment, however, had to be the student who said “there’s half of everyone who isn’t doing anything – the pre-meds or whatever,” in reference to those who answered “zero.”

Apparently I missed something. I was taught that sex comes naturally with marriage, not age. I didn’t think that fewer than half of Brown students are still virgins. I would not say that just because our poll numbers are similar to the national average that they are “not surprising.” I would not say that you are ready for sex after you have gotten “a feel for the campus.” And I honestly did not think that Brown students were of the opinion that once you know your way around campus, you can have sex, and if you are not having it, it is because you spend all your time in the library.

I have no idea if anyone else feels the same way, but I do not find these poll numbers comforting at all. Whether or not we would like to admit it, many of us are still children, and barely, if at all, into adulthood. Most of us live at home when we are not at Brown, and are reliant on our parents’ money. We need multiple advisors to tell us what to do with our academic and professional lives. We miss early classes because we cannot drag ourselves out of bed. We cannot be trusted to do our own laundry consistently. So how can the majority of us be “ready” to have sex and have enough maturity required to treat sex with the amount of seriousness and care that it naturally requires?

I guess I just do not understand why Brown students seem to think that once one gets to college and feels comfortable here, one should have sex, and one is excused only if one lives in the library and has no social life. Does that imply that if one does not live at the library and still is not having sex, that one is socially inept or hideous? Can we not, as Brown students, be virgins by choice and not circumstance? I think it would have been worthwhile for the December article to have pointed out this fact to the Brown community: it takes just as much maturity, sometimes more, to wait, as it does to have sex. “Virgin” is not synonymous with “failure.”