Sex on Campus

Nonconsensual sex on campus has been a persistent topic of public conversation over the last few years. The current academic year has included a first-person account of rape published in the Amherst College student paper and a subsequent oversight-committee report, student protests that led the administration at Dartmouth College to cancel classes for a day, and claims that the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill retaliated against a student who HAD spoken publicly about the institution's lack of response to her claims of sexual assault. And in what seems like an annual event, a high-profile athletic team was investigated for sexual assault; this year it was the University of Montana football team.
Nonetheless, sexuality is discussed all over the typical campus: Residential-life and student-affairs offices offer programs like "Take Back the Night," undergraduates lead organizations that educate students about sex, and women's- and gender-studies centers and LGBTQ organizations provide information and guidance. Faculty members teach courses on human sexuality, housed in a broad variety of departments. Student health centers deal with reproductive health, particularly with information on sexually transmitted infections and pregnancy prevention. The counseling center often helps survivors cope with trauma. Sexual assault is prohibited under conduct and honor codes, described in student-policy handbooks and enforced by institutional judicial processes and the campus police.

In some ways, the issue of student sexual behavior parallels several decades of concerns about alcohol on campus. In the past, campuses took a piecemeal and often reactionary position that encouraged students not to drink; penalties were applied intermittently and inconsistently. In response to cultural changes in the 1980s, like the increase in the minimum drinking age to 21 in all states and the enacting of stricter drunk-driving laws, colleges looked critically at their campus cultures, including the systems and programs that facilitated alcohol consumption, and made changes. As a result, undergraduates experience a different campus alcohol environment today than they did 20 years ago. Alcohol is not so easily available on campuses; many Greek systems work with administrations to deal with alcohol concerns; and treatment programs are more readily accessible, among other interventions.
Campus sexual cultures are composed of far more than the sexual assaults and traumas that make news, more than the contraception-and-prophylaxis pamphlets found in many campus health-center waiting rooms. Campus sexual cultures also include the many ways students meet, mingle, and become sexual with each other. "Sexual health" is more than the absence of sexual victimization, sexually transmitted infections, and unwanted pregnancies; it includes the emotional, physical, mental, ethical, and even spiritual aspects of well-being. Sexual health and well-being includes understanding individual desires, respecting self and others, and developing a sexual self that has boundaries, openness, and pleasure.
Understanding campus sexual culture means examining institutional structures that can facilitate sexual health, broadly speaking, as well as structures that respond to sexual misconduct, to determine what they're doing well and where they can improve. That also means developing comprehensive strategies that identify goals and promote coordination across a broad spectrum of the college: campus-life professionals; legal-affairs units; mental- and physical-health staff; student leaders; the campus police; and faculty, among others. It means examining the ways in which institutional structures respond to the heady mix of alcohol, drugs, and sex that are foundational to many campus sexual climates.
Understanding campus sexual culture also means talking with many students, undergraduate and graduate, about their sex lives and their perceptions of sexuality and the campus climate, both functional and dysfunctional. There are certainly methodological challenges in obtaining accurate information about these topics, as sexuality researchers know. In many cases, institutions are likely to hear about their failings, some of which may be dramatic. But these narratives and voices are necessary to create effective change.
One thing is clear: There is increasing pressure from students, the legal system, and public organizations to make campuses sexually safer and, ideally, healthier. So let's get started.
Culled from the Chronicles of Higher Education
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