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Commentary
GEN-X RISING: Sex on campus Andrew C. Thompson, Oct 29, 2007
Andrew C. Thompson
By Andrew C. Thompson Special Contributor
The moral poverty of contemporary campus culture was brought home to me recently when I opened this year’s first edition of The Chronicle, Duke University’s student newspaper.
In that Aug. 24 issue, senior Kristin Butler wrote a column, “Duke: a freshman’s guide.” She advised the incoming class: “You’ve probably heard that Duke students are required to complete five ‘graduation requirements.’ If not, memorize them now: (1) have sex in the library stacks; (2) have sex in the gardens; (3) explore the tunnels between East and/or West Campus; (4) scale the dome of Baldwin Auditorium; and (5) drive backwards around the West Campus circle.
“To be totally honest,” she continued, “I’ve never heard of anyone tackling the last two. Save your energy for the first three, and pursue them with abandon.”
As the student body’s official newspaper, The Chronicle is where Duke’s 17- and 18-year-old freshmen often take their social cues. After being a Duke graduate student for over a year, I can assure you that Ms. Butler neither made up the “five graduation requirements” nor does she paint an unfair picture of the moral context of undergraduate student life.
Nor do I suspect that Duke is unique among today’s colleges and universities.
Ms. Butler’s perspective is not the only one, however. In the Oct. 4 edition of The Chronicle, Duke junior Justin Noia penned a column questioning the very culture that Ms. Butler so ably represented.
Lamenting the “anything goes” standard on campuses, Mr. Noia wrote: “The only thing I don’t hear regarding lust is not to entertain it; the only thing I don’t hear regarding sex is not to indulge in it.... It’s always a blur of body parts and confused adolescent passions masquerading as ‘freedom’ or ‘love,’ as if the words themselves justify.”
He gave solid reasons why casual, premarital sex should be avoided, all of them centered on the high standard that authentic love requires, including how careless decisions have an impact on more permanent future relationships like marriage.
Sadly, the standard on most campuses is not Mr. Noia’s view, but Ms. Butler’s.
At the root of the problem is that there is no understanding on America’s campuses of the distinction between higher and lower goods. There is no concept that some goods are greater than others, that we are created for these higher goods and that in order for us to enjoy them we have to abstain from the lower goods.
Students have also lost the ability to distinguish between the harmless college prank (driving backwards around the West Campus circle) and the truly harmful (sex in the library stacks).
In the resulting moral vacuum, Bacchanalian revelry—with heavy substance abuse and frequent casual sex—has become the norm for student life.
Some will take a wink-and-nod attitude that such behavior is “just the college thing to do.” Others will express a moralistic horror at what dens of sin colleges have become.
The church should seek a different path, forming its own young people in healthy lifestyles early on so that they are prepared for the challenges that the college years present. As long as the church cares what happens to its young adults, such a commitment is crucial.
Courageous voices like Justin Noia’s are counter-cultural in a modern university. The day after his column appeared, Mr. Noia drew the wrath of two other Duke students who wrote letters to the editor. The letter writers never questioned whether they might be intended for something higher than slavish devotion to their animal passions.
One mocked Mr. Noia’s “Victorian sensibility” and found his suggestions preposterous in comparison to the enlightened college pursuit of “consensual, mutually desired sexual situations.”
The other letter unapologetically argued, “Binding ourselves to Scripture or to childish conceptions of sexuality is not a glorification of the human mind.... It’s just really boring.”
Our universities are supposed to be the places where our most creative thinking takes place. Sadly, the moral thinking among many students today often doesn’t measure up.
Andrew C. Thompson
