According to the Until There’s a Cure Foundation, it is estimated that 1 million people in the United States have HIV and 40,000 more are added to that number every year. We currently face a national public health crisis.
At Washington University, free condoms are distributed around campus. Through their Residential Colleges, a large number of freshmen attend “Sex in the Dark,” a program that teaches about sexual practice in college, contraception, STIs and other sexual health issues. Each year around Valentine’s Day, the University and the Student Health Advisory Committee put on “Sex Week,” an event paralleled at a number of other universities around the country, which features “condom rose” distribution and talks by nationally-noted sex experts.
Wash. U. has the right idea: open engagement and dialogue about sex, easily accessible and affordable birth control, support for non-normative, non-heterosexual sexuality and a recognition of the gravity of national health crises.
“X” Magazine, a student group publication, distributes a semesterly magazine with new and varied approaches to sexuality depicted visually and through writing. Wash. U. is host to four LGBT-oriented student groups—Pride Alliance, Safe Zones, the Alternative Lifestyle Association and Keshet.
Student Health Services (SHS) provides “Plan B” emergency contraception at-cost, a price as much as $40 lower than what off-campus vendors offer. SHS also provides Gardasil, the HPV vaccine, at a cost lower than market price. The vaccine is encouraged on campus for men as well as women as a measure to decrease carriers of the virus. This measure is progressive and is not yet endorsed by the FDA.
Under the direction of Professor Bradley Stoner, the Wash. U. Anthropology Department recently started offering a minor in Public Health. This move is a response to the rising importance of addressing public health issues nationally by giving current undergraduates the tools to address the crisis.
The Bush administration, on the other hand, promotes abstinence-only education. In an article, “Study: Abstinence pledges may trigger risky sexual behavior” (March 18, 2005), USA Today reported on a Yale/Columbia study which found that “adolescents who pledge to remain virgins until marriage are more likely to substitute high-risk sexual behaviors that increase the likelihood of transmitting sexually transmitted diseases.” Importantly, adolescents with abstinence-only education are less likely to use preventative techniques, which make the high-risk sexual behaviors even riskier.
The President’s Emergency Plan For Aids Relief (PEPFAR) has provided some AIDS relief to African countries suffering from the epidemic. However, the Bush policy for AIDS prevention focuses on teaching abstinence and marital fidelity—a policy that is not helpful for many, including women whose husbands are unfaithful and who lack the ability to say no to marital sex in those situations. In Africa, the majority of new AIDS victims are women, and marriage is considered a risk factor (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18677026). Access to condoms is necessary to protect these women.
The nation’s attitude toward public health, however, needs to change. We need to provide realistic sex education—the kind that will make a difference in STI and pregnancy rates. And we need to provide no-strings-attached funding abroad for HIV/AIDS clinics, rather than trying to regulate their techniques to accord with our own beliefs.
The nation—its people and its administration—needs to change its attitude toward sex and toward public health. We need to adopt and implement a realistic approach to these issues—one that is open, supportive, accessible and active.
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