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Editorial: Steps toward sexual health applauded, more needed

By Gaveliers, The Gavel Media Team, on October 26, 2009 10:05 PM

The abstinence-only approach to sexual education is akin to putting kids in a backyard with a pool on a sizzling day. Command them to avoid the tantalizingly cool, blue water, refusing to instruct them how to swim, and eventually, when some get hot and go for a dip, their ignorance of safe practices leaves them vulnerable to drown.

When school policy restricts the critical health resources to which our on-campus health authorities can allow us access — STI testing, hormone birth control, barrier-meth­od contraception — students are diving into the sexual pool without swim lessons or float­ies.

Boston College Students for Sexual Health (BCSSH) is playing an important role in pro­moting sexual safety and awareness within the BC community. By distributing condoms ev­ery week on College Road, BCSSH is increas­ing the likelihood that people will make safe decisions in their personal lives and that this subject will become less taboo. BCSSH does not have the capacity to singlehandedly tackle the issue of student sexual health; BC should also provide students with the necessary in­formation and resources to make educated decisions. It is important for BC students to consider why a basic sexual health necessity may only be distributed off-campus.

Recently, critics have unfairly reduced the image of BCSSH to that of condom dispens­ers. With the programming they have done and are planning to do, they are also stimulat­ing dialogue within the BC community. Even though BC is an educational institution, there has been little effort to educate about sexual health, despite its importance as part of a holistic education. No sexual health resource center exists at BC, and the infirmary is not authorized to offer forms of birth control, even if it is requested by students.

BCSSH is striving for what is a much-needed change in policy on this campus. Last semester, in a UGBC referendum, over 3,600 students — 89.47 percent of those who voted — support these three items:

- Affordable testing for sexually transmit­ted infections (STI)

- Prescription of birth control at Health Services

- Availability of condoms on campus

We applaud the administration’s prelimi­nary steps in pursuing the goals that students have clearly stated are necessary for the Uni­versity, but they must proactively continue their efforts.

However, rather than face the reality of students’ sexuality, BC has turned a blind eye. We are forced to assume that the University does not want to admit that some students are sexually active. If BC were more proactive, the University would act in the best interests of the student body and want to do as much as possible to make sure that the pregnan­cies — which they advertise amply to help us through — do not occur, and that men and women with STIs don’t spread them at an epidemic rate. Sexual health lies in a realm with a great dichotomy between campus real­ity and the Catholic Church’s ideals. This fact has been ignored for far too long.

Catholic values, as manifested in BC poli­cies, may be deemed at odds with the reality of collegiate-age sexuality and some of the elements of sexual health. But when services are denied to students on the basis of religion, it is the student body that suffers.

Of course, every student who attends BC is aware that he or she attends a Catholic col­lege. However, this holds no more relevance in students’ personal lives than they allow it to. Why not openly discuss what is reality at BC? Offering condoms does not increase the amount of sexual activity on campus. Rather, it encourages students to make safer, better-informed choices by beginning to familiarize them with real-world options and potential consequences of their behaviors.

More and more people are asking how we can reconcile BC’s traditional Catholic val­ues with its students’ needs. It has become increasingly clear that students are no longer willing to overlook sexual health. There is still a long way to go to create the kind of open forums of discussion that exists at other uni­versities — including other Jesuit institutions. The time has come that BC must proactively address the valid health concerns of its stu­dents.