Condoms and Collegians

From the mid-Seventies through the Eighties, I kept hearing talk that today's college students resemble those of the Eisenhower era. It never rang true of the students I knew. Yes, many of them have given up protest marches and philosophy majors to grind away in libraries, preparing themselves for business school entrance exams. Yes, today's students have rejected the ideas that we stood for in the Sixties. But they've also kept the hot sexual climate that we created. The social revolution died, but the sexual revolution lives on. My students aren't about to throw the baby out with the bath water.

What I have observed is consistent with more systematically gathered data from other colleges: The kids are out there doing it, with more partners, in more positions, with little guilt and with virtually no concern for sexually transmitted diseases (S.T.D.s, formerly called V.D.). It's not that the students don't know about AIDS and how it's transmitted; they do quite well on tests of knowledge about the deadly disease. But they don't think of AIDS as their problem. Few report being worried or feeling at risk. Sex-education programs that give accurate knowledge are not enough to change sexual behavior. Why? Quite simply, because young people believe they are immortal.

College students give lip service to the need to be more cautious in their sexuality, but the changes they make are in attitude, not behavior. The single biggest attitude shift has to do with the desirability of a sexually experienced partner. When I started collecting these informal surveys in 1974, one third of my male students claimed to be looking for a virgin; the rest preferred a partner "with a little experience." College women, on the other hand, wanted a man who would know what he was doing. Over the years, the men finally figured out that it might be fun for them to have a partner who knew what to do, too. By 1985, at UCLA, 50 percent of my students of both sexes preferred experienced partners. Yet, by 1987, only 20 percent of the women and five percent of the men made that choice. Most preferred lovers who'd had just a few previous partners, while 11 percent of the men preferred virgins again. For the first time in my classes, 11 percent of the women wanted virgins, too.

Had anyone seen a virgin lately? Twenty-one of the 96 women in that 1987 class, mostly sophomores and juniors, said they were virgins; none of the men made that claim. Most of my students reported being sexually active. In my most recent course for upperclassmen, 25 percent of the women and 53 percent of the men had already had five or more sex partners, compared with 17 percent of female and 27 percent of male underclassmen. These students claimed to want inexperienced partners; at the same time, they endorsed casual sex, apparently not recognizing any conflict. Forty percent of the women and 61 percent of the men said that they would engage in "recreational sex," while 57 percent of the women and 39 percent of the men said that they would have to be in love before they had sex(the remaining three percent of women believed that sex must await marriage).

The death knell is sounding for the double standard: Women used to have to be in love, while men used to indulge for the sake of physical release. In last year's class, more men than ever before said they must be in love, while women's interest in recreational sex--having increased over the years--leveled off. Campus norms now regard indiscriminate sexual activity as irresponsible or reckless.

Yet that concern clearly does not translate into abstention. Students laugh out loud when "Just say no" is the suggested basis of campaigns for AIDS prevention. What about the second line of defense? Students are aware that the U.S. Surgeon General has endorsed condoms as the only protective measure against AIDS for sexually active people. Are they using them? Sales in condom vending machines on campus have been disappointing, in spiteof the bargain prices. According to one recent large-scale university study, only 13 percent of the men routinely used condoms and 66 percent never used them, while the rest used them sporadically. Again, the failure of education was apparent: Those who had taken the excellent campus course on human sexuality were no more likely to be cautious in their sexual behavior.

Brochures on AIDS and safer-sex techniques litter the UCLA campus; and last winter, when a biology professor offered a class titled AIDS: The Modern Plague, more than 2000 students tried to enroll. When I lecture on the subject, you can hear the proverbial pin drop, which is far from the case for my other lectures. No matter how much students may already know, they are eager to learn more about the mysterious killer disease. Yet despite that fascination, AIDS seems to have had little impact on the sexual behavior of straight men and women. Students also underestimate the crossover among straights, gays and I.V.-drug users.

The reason is not all that surprising. If the AIDS virus is spreading among universities, it is cutting a nearly invisible path. According to Dr. Richard Keeling, chairman of the task force on AIDS of the American College Health Association, there were only 280reported cases of AIDS among college students nationwide as of May 1988.

That should not, however, because for complacency. There are no data, for instance, to indicate the rate of the AIDS virus (HIV) infection among collegians. The Centers for Disease Control are just now preparing to test blood samples at 20 campuses. Because of experimentation with both sex and drugs, and because of their frequently high rates of other S.T.D.s, students are a subpopulation with potentially high transmission behavior. In other words, the handful of cases of diagnosed AIDS should give little comfort. With most students' losing virginity at the age of 16 or 17, and with an incubation period ofas much as five or ten years before symptoms appear, infected collegians may well imagine themselves as healthy and go on to infect others.

How do students react when they do know someone with AIDS? One of my female students told me a tragic story about a girlfriend from a local Cal State campus who was a virgin until her 22nd year, then got AIDS from her first lover. He claimed he'd been infected by his previous girlfriend, who was a closet I.V.-drug user and is now dead. He was unaware of his own infection when he passed it on. Experts would agree that this transmission route is very rare, but it is likely to be increasing as the pool of infected heterosexuals grows.

The student who told me the story also said that she now rarely has sex, and when she does, she uses a condom. She broke off with her boyfriend, whom she described as "too good-looking," a model and aspiring actor, figuring that young men can be wooed onto Hollywood's casting couches, too. Her roommate, on the other hand, continues to have indiscriminate sex with guys she meets at happy hours, even though she, too, knows the girlfriend with AIDS. My student posed the question that I still cannot answer: "What does it take to make people change?"

Most students don't see any reason to change. As one UCLA student said, "That has nothing to do with me. I don't know anybody with AIDS."

If fear of AIDS doesn't motivate routine condom use, there are plenty of other S.T.D.s that should provide sufficient incentive. There are more than two dozen microorganisms that are spread by sexual contact, many with serious long-term consequences. Those in the age group of 15--24 are at greatest risk. Chlamydia is the most prevalent S.T.D. in the country, affecting as many as 4,000,000 men and women each year. UCLA's Student Health Service confirms that it's the number-one S.T.D. on campus, and it routinely tests for chlamydia and gonorrhea with every Pap smear. Asymptomatic in as many as 80 percent of women, chlamydia infection is often undetected until it has spread to the uterus and Fallopian tubes and has developed into pelvic inflammatory disease--which can lead to infertility. Females often pay a higher price in terms of the severity of S.T.D.s, but both men and women should be aware that a personal history of S.T.D.s increases the risk of HIV infection.

Venereal warts and other afflictions are also spreading through college campuses. Risk of infection is proportional to the prevalence of the microbe in the population and the frequency of encounters with different sexual partners. Surveys show that high school teens and collegians continue to have multiple partners, because they just don't believe that S.T.D.s will strike them. They are wrong. The Journal of the American Medical Association reported on a study of students at the University of Texas at Austin, most of whom were first-time blood donors. Of the students with three or more sexual partners in the previous four months, 14 percent were found to be infected with sexually transmitted hepatitis-B virus (H.B.V.), compared with only 1.5 percent of those with fewer than three partners, after excluding all students with risk factors for the disease other than their heterosexual activity.

Bisexuality may also pose a significant risk of H.B.V. or HIV infection, particularly in Los Angeles County, which ranks second in the number of AIDS cases (concluded on page 154)Condoms(continued from page 80) reported. But that fact seems to have limited impact among my students. I asked the women whether they now inquire if potential male partners have ever had sex with other men. Almost one quarter of the upper-class students claim that they do ask, while the rest are confident that men attracted to them must be straight and that bisexual men are recognizable and can be avoided. Can they be recognized? On the sexual-orientation question, one student in that class identified himself as bisexual, and I would have bet my coveted faculty parking space that his classmates couldn't agree on his identity. Students, like everyone else, trust their ability to judge people. Stylishly dressed, clean-cut collegians don't appear to use drugs or visit prostitutes. Why insult your date by asking?

What is clear from the patterns of answers, and from talking with students, is that fear of pregnancy--far more than fear of AIDS or S.T.D.s--governs their sexual choices. My women students have always ranked the pill as their favorite birth-control method, and the diaphragm is consistently number two. Condoms are ranked fourth, after with drawal, but higher than nothing but a prayer, rhythm, foam and I.U.D.s, in that order.

Indeed, many students make trade-offs that minimize the risk of pregnancy but increase the rise of S.T.D.s. Unmarried, their education at stake and wanting to avoid the trauma and expense of abortion, many college women opt for the pill, because they believe it provides safer contraception.

In fact, used with spermicidal jelly or foam, the condom is just as effective. And condoms and diaphragms, of course, provide more protection against S.T.D.s. Yet women who are dating around--the ones at higher risk--are more likely than those with steady partners to choose the pill over barrier methods. There need be no awkward discussion about the pill, whereas using condoms and diaphragms requires the partner's cooperation and good will. College-age women, it seems, are more likely to face the conversation and paraphernalia with someone they know very well.

The stubborn avoidance of condoms can reach alarming proportions. In a disquieting study of teenagers in San Francisco, a city with a high prevalence of AIDS and intensive media and school campaigns to publicize the value of condoms in preventing S.T.D.s, only two percent of the girls and eight percent of the boys reported using condoms every time they had sex. The boys believed that their partners wanted them to use condoms and said they were willing to do so. Most girls would not require their partners to use condoms and were not sure if their partners were willing to do so in the first place. What's clear is that partners rely on assumptions rather than frank talk, and that responsibility for birth control, if any, is still left to females.

If those San Francisco boys had voiced their willingness to wear condoms, their partners might have regarded them as chivalrous and might happily have agreed. But I'm not sure. I've heard both male students and men in their 30s complain that the women they date don't want them to use condoms. In my student surveys, women are as likely as men to say that they significantly reduce their sexual pleasure.

Darlene Mininni, the AIDS education coordinator at UCLA, lists the following as the students' most common reasons for not using a condom: "It cuts down on sensitivity"; "It spoils spontaneity"; "It's embarrassing to talk about"; "He'll assume we'll have sex if I take one on a date"; "She'll think I think she's sleeping around if I offer to use one"; "If you really trust your partner, you don't ask." A freshman in a UCLA English-composition course wrote, "Sex should be free and unrestrained." Another declared, "If you love somebody, you want to share everything with him, even disease--even death."

Obviously, it's essential that partners talk about the risk of infection and condoms. That very talk may lead to a more relaxed mood--and better sex. Besides, sex with acondom is likely to last longer. There are also several ways to preserve sexual pleasure while using one (see box). There are also ways to increase their reliability. The Food and Drug Administration estimates that only four to 20 of every 1000 condoms fail due to manufacturer defects. Leakage and breakage are most often due to improper use.

More than anything else, condoms fail because people aren't using them. It's great that campus groups are staging dramatizations to help students learn how to talk about using condoms. Some demonstrate how to fit condoms into sexual rituals to keep erotic spontaneity alive. But it still boils down to getting people to accept condoms as second nature, no talk or fancy tricks needed. If you're not in a known risk group for AIDS, or sleeping with someone who is, your probability of coming into contact with the HIV virus is slim. Now is the time to ensure that you won't be among the grim casualties of the Nineties. The bottom line is, Be responsible for yourself. The bonus is showing that you care about your partner, too.

given today's uncertain sexual climate, why are undergraduates going out without their rubbers?

"One student declared, 'If you love somebody, you want to share everything with him--even death.'"

condoms IOI

practice and applications

Men

1. Buy a reputable brand of condom. This is no time to be cheap. 2. Buy condoms prelubricated with nonoxynol-9, a spermicide that also kills the AIDS virus. 3. Buy enough to be prepared, but keep your supply fresh. Store away from heat and light (don't carry them in your glove compartment or wallet). 4. Read the instructions in the package. 5. Have a dress rehearsal. While not sized, condoms come in a variety of lengths and widths. Figure out which one fits you best. 6. Place a dab of lubricant inside the tip of the condom to increase sensitivity. 7. If you buy the receptacle-tip variety, squeeze out the air; if you prefer the plain end, leave half an inch at the tip to catch the force of the ejaculate. 8. Withdraw while still erect, holding on to the base of the condom.

Women

1. Be prepared with your own stash of condoms. 2. Etiquette of the Eighties dictates that if he is gentlemanly enough to provide the condom, you buy the always-necessary additional lubricant. 3.Don't use an oil-based lubricant (petroleum jelly, baby oil, face cream). These attack rubber and account for a large proportion of condom breakage. 4. Do use a water-soluble lubricant; several brands are readily available over the counter at the drugstore. Dryness causes irritation and greatly increases risk of condom breakage. 5. If you meet with the line "Baby, I don't want to use one of those things, 'cause I won't feel as much," you may want to answer, "Honey, if you don't use one of these, you won't feel anything at all."