Spring Break
Sex, STIs and responsibility
Caitlin Myers, Contributing Writer, cmyers@smu.edu
Issue date: 4/16/08 Section: News
Students at other colleges learn such lessons through the institution they pay to educate them. Take the University of Texas at Austin. Its student health site contains a page dedicated solely to sexual health with categories including women's health, men's health, sex tips and birth control methods.
"Our site is great because it allows students to get reliable and credible sexual health information whenever and wherever they are," Sandi Cleveland, manager of UT's Health Promotion Resource Center said in a telephone interview.
Cleveland says after the university updated its Web site to include a wider range of educational resources, visitors jumped from 20,000 per month to the current 60,000 to 70,000.
"One of the most searched topics on our site is the 'squeeze technique,'" Cleveland said. "It's used by men to delay an orgasm. Also, genital piercing is a commonly searched subject."
Head a mere 200 miles north, and such candor isn't the norm. With a religious foundation, SMU does not speak as liberally about matters like sexual climaxes and penile rings.
"I was on the phone with another school's health educator the other day and he was telling me they do courses on how to increase your sexual pleasure," health educator Knapp said. "Could you see that going over here at SMU? No. We do have a conservative campus and as a result I think sexual education does get a little hidden."
Knapp, who started working for the university last summer, says she plans on developing a health site based on peer education where students can request specific sexual health information at their convenience. She says the department has been thinking of updating the Web site for some time but "just hasn't gotten around to it."
Making up for the lack of information on the university's Web site is the controversial gossip site JuicyCampus.com. It provides students with the anonymity they desire when speaking about sexual relations.
One presumably male contributor, calling himself "The Wondering SMU Gigolo," spoke his mind in the following excerpt from his Feb. 24 post entitled "Sex Without a Condom":
"Our site is great because it allows students to get reliable and credible sexual health information whenever and wherever they are," Sandi Cleveland, manager of UT's Health Promotion Resource Center said in a telephone interview.
Cleveland says after the university updated its Web site to include a wider range of educational resources, visitors jumped from 20,000 per month to the current 60,000 to 70,000.
"One of the most searched topics on our site is the 'squeeze technique,'" Cleveland said. "It's used by men to delay an orgasm. Also, genital piercing is a commonly searched subject."
Head a mere 200 miles north, and such candor isn't the norm. With a religious foundation, SMU does not speak as liberally about matters like sexual climaxes and penile rings.
"I was on the phone with another school's health educator the other day and he was telling me they do courses on how to increase your sexual pleasure," health educator Knapp said. "Could you see that going over here at SMU? No. We do have a conservative campus and as a result I think sexual education does get a little hidden."
Knapp, who started working for the university last summer, says she plans on developing a health site based on peer education where students can request specific sexual health information at their convenience. She says the department has been thinking of updating the Web site for some time but "just hasn't gotten around to it."
Making up for the lack of information on the university's Web site is the controversial gossip site JuicyCampus.com. It provides students with the anonymity they desire when speaking about sexual relations.
One presumably male contributor, calling himself "The Wondering SMU Gigolo," spoke his mind in the following excerpt from his Feb. 24 post entitled "Sex Without a Condom":
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