To spread awareness of my call for campus-wide abstinence, I will be wearing a chastity belt on my head until further notice. Graphic by Edleen Guiao.
Unless you’ve lived a life of ignorance and bliss, at some point you found out about the birds and the bees. Whether it’s the most awkward conversation you’ll ever have with your parents or a health presentation full of laughter at every word, sex is a fact of life. Dread it, run from it — sex arrives all the same.
I don’t think it should. You see, I am of the mindset that sex causes many issues, especially at such a formative time for so many young adults who are making their way through the college experience.
Some colleges, including UAA, attempt to mitigate the negative aspects of sex by providing educational materials as well as protection in student bathrooms. To me, all this does is plant the seed in a student's mind that sex is good.
I am here to end this awful narrative. Sex is a detestable sin, and no one should be doing it.
A study conducted by Sesame shows that not only do STIs typically run rampant through college campuses, but also that students have a tendency to get around. The survey of college students found that about 25% of college students have an STI, with a significant amount being asymptomatic.
Of the students surveyed, 57% said they had never been tested for an STI. Of those surveyed who did have an STI, 14% admitted they had lied about having one for various reasons.
Beyond just the danger of contracting STIs, this survey was also enlightening as to the frequency that college students appear to be doing the deed.
Of those surveyed, 70% said they expected to have as much or more sex than the prior year. Since this survey was conducted in 2022, I can only imagine this percentage has jumped to an even more staggering figure.
Not only are students expecting to have more sex, but 28% of students had at least 10 sexual encounters per month, and 9% indicated they have at least five different partners per month.
All of this data demonstrates that college students are not only spreading STIs like crazy, but they cannot be trusted to keep it in their pants. It points to the fact that students should not be having sex, and making that major change starts with marketing an alternative.
The initial alternative that will come to many people’s minds is soaking. This because the act of soaking has been viewed by those outside the LDS church to be not only ridiculous, but also not sexual in nature.
However, in a hearing to determine the ex-communication of an apostle back in 1885, Joseph F. Smith — nephew of LDS founder Joseph Smith — determined an act similar to soaking was a transgression, subsequently excommunicating the apostle as a result.
So if soaking isn’t on the table — and toys aren’t either — what is?
The real answer lies in abstinence. For starters, you can’t get an STI if you abstain from doing the devil’s tango — plain and simple.
There are so many more benefits than just not being disease-ridden that come from avoiding sex. Here’s a rundown of some of the major benefits:
Students who abstain from intercourse will get better grades. It’s way easier to get A’s in all your classes if you’re actually doing the work instead of your partner. The stereotype of those with 4.0 GPAs getting no play, while students with lower GPAs are busy wearing out their campus-provided mattresses exists for a reason.
If all students abstain from sex, UAA will be the first campus to have an entire graduating class of students achieving the distinction of Summa Cum Laude by 2028.
Another major benefit of abstinence is improved sleep. It’s hard for students to find time between class, homework, extracurriculars, family life, self-care and other important commitments to bone. This often results in students choosing to forgo a good night of sleep to instead get laid.
This practice is the main contributor to students being sleep-deprived, and will not only keep the pair that are smashing awake, but also roommates or upstairs and downstairs neighbors they might have. If students on campus no longer engage in the act, all students will get a full and healthy 10 hours of sleep every night of the week.
Many college students are looked up to by younger siblings or other peers around them because of the seemingly spotless model they set for living good lives.
However, if they are filling themselves or their partners instead of spending time on school — as many college students do — they are setting a bad example for those who look up to them. Abstinence takes the pressure of choosing between being a good example or being wrong out of the hands of the student and empowers them to be a confident, sex-free role model.
Abstinence will also lead to students being generally less sexually driven. If it wasn’t obvious by the popular adult website OnlyFans generating $6.3 billion in 2024, many people — a significant amount of whom are most definitely college students — are addicted to sex and everything surrounding it.
So many college students having sex so frequently and being addicted to things surrounding sex has led to superficial relationships and is a major reason students are so dopamine-deprived. Abstinence will not only put an end to all the evil adult websites, but it will also put good personalities back at the forefront of relationships — and smiles back on students' faces.
Now, despite all the positive benefits an abstinence-forward campus would have, some people are of the mindset that forced abstinence goes too far in the wrong direction and will cause more harm than good. To that, I say, look at the state of most college students, and notice that they’re typically degenerates and they’re able to have sex. If sex is taken out of that equation, college students will finally get their act together and be ready to be productive members of our great capitalist machine when they graduate instead of being an eight-year super senior more interested in coitus than class.
Sex is bad. It’s icky, it’s everywhere and it’s overstayed its welcome. I, for one, am not only a proponent of abstinence being enforced on college campuses but worldwide. If clergy in the Catholic Church are able to be celibate and have no issues, I don’t see why that can’t extend to the rest of the world.