Every year, I have to ask myself two basic questions about why Student Life chooses Valentine’s Day to publish a sex issue. The first is: Why does Student Life publish a sex issue? The second is, assuming publishing a sex issue makes sense, why are we publishing it on Valentine’s Day? I believe taking a holiday about love and collapsing it with sex is a mistake. But, as a Forum editor, I have an obligation to write a column for this issue. Still, as a philosophy student, I have an obligation to question the foundations of my obligations. Ergo the following absurd sex issue column.
I have to ask why a newspaper staff feels the need to use its pages to publish an issue about sex. We are far from experts on sexuality, we’re a group that students are supposed to be trusted to report and analyze newsworthy issues. Sure, sex makes for an issue that’s flashy, fun and far more interesting than the latest decision made by the Washington University administration. But are we selling out in the same way papers did when they devoted story after story to covering the more “interesting” Anna Nicole Smith situation? Is it right for a paper to put out an edition that has such little news value? Using the same heading and name it uses for its regular editions?
There are arguments to be made for having a sex issue. You could argue that putting sex out there is important for recognizing sex as a natural part of human existence, and that this is an important step our society needs to take. You could argue that we’re a college newspaper so we should be allowed to have issues that are not focused on newsworthy stories. You could argue that stories about sex do contain important and relevant news for college students.
I still disagree with it. But, assuming we are going to run a sex issue, why are we running it on Valentine’s Day?
Valentine’s Day is supposed to be about love, and particularly in college I think we collapse sex and love far too often. Maybe it’s because right now we’re at a time in our lives where we can’t fully make sense of love. Maybe we’re at the point where we can make sense of sex though. You can see the cause and at least some of the effects right away. Maybe sex is easier, less complicated. The act of sex has obvious stages that can be classified in textbooks. The act of sex has an obvious end. The act of hooking up is finite; we can analyze it. The questions leftover from the notorious “morning after” are rarely questions about sex itself; they’re the more complex questions about love and security.
In so many ways, sex is an answer while love is a question. The act of sex is biology. The act of love is a bunch of questions-it’s philosophy. It’s not a static comfortable space in the world. Love is a question that has to be answered everyday and over time, but primarily everyday. You can’t put together a checklist and know you’ve found love. You find out each morning as you balance your classes, homework, doctors’ appointments, checkbook, hopes, dreams, emotional swings and the needs of the people you love. You answer the question each morning as they do the same.
It’s adding up the way we answer the question of love on a daily basis that defines our relationships with the people we love. It makes an impossible news story. It doesn’t make for good gossip. It does make a satisfying life.
I propose that on the day of the year that is supposed to be devoted to love, we actually think about love. About our family, our friends and also our romantic interests. Let’s pick another day and possibly another venue to analyze sex.
Jill is a junior in Arts & Sciences and a Forum Editor. She can be reached via e-mail at [email protected].