Together with Trojan Condoms, Dr. Drew Pinsky addressed a group of 12 college journalists on issues of sexual health across college campuses and among today's youth at the Trojan College Media Roundtable in Boston's The Living Room restaurant this past Friday.
Along with the Daily, the forum featured writers and editors from campuses including Harvard, the University of Pennsylvania, Duke, the University of Virginia, and Princeton. Sex columnists and freelance writers for AM Pop, Cosmopolitan and Co-Ed Magazine were also in attendance.
Pinsky, more popularly known as Dr. Drew, is a physician and the host of former-MTV-show-turned-nationally-syndicated-radio program "Loveline." With a strong interest in sexual health, Pinksy began facilitating open peer-to-peer sexual dialogues as a medical student in 1983.
"I still wish I could make a movie about that period of time," said Pinksy, reminiscing about his early days. "At the time, KROQ, which is now one the biggest radio stations in Los Angeles, was located literally behind where I lived. There were a few guys who obsessed about relationships and proposed the idea of a sex and dating talk show to KROQ. They really wanted me to be a part of it [to discuss things from a medical standpoint], since I was already in med school."
The more Pinsky appeared on the show, the more he realized how little a role sexual knowledge played within pop culture.
"Sex was shrouded in mystery - it was covert," Pinsky said. "I was amazed that there was all this material hidden from young people."
But the emergence of AIDS soon after the debut of "Loveline" proved the importance of sexual health and awareness, according to Pinksy.
"I suddenly became someone doing something that should be mandated," Pinsky said. "My ultimate goal has always been about health. It's important to be honest about it, and our culture makes it hard to be so open."
The forum's chief aim was to uncover the current state of sex amongst young adults and to discuss how health and safety can be incorporated into their sex lives. Each student was asked to share how his or her respective university handles sexuality, and how receptive the student body was - or was not - to open dialogue about sex.
Pinsky began with questions about the "hook-up" culture - ubiquitous on many college campuses - wherein two people engage in sexual activity without any emotional attachments.
"Women's Health has found that young women are unhappy with their social lives and perceive that their only options are to hook-up, be attached at the hip or be friends with benefits," said Pinsky. "And a vast majority of the time, both parties are intoxicated."
According to several of the students present at the forum, the biggest issue on college campuses is that alcohol serves as a "social lubricant" - often resulting in sexual harassment or assault.
Students also raised the issue that society stigmatizes sexually active women as "sluts," whereas sexually active men are oftentimes praised and labeled "players."
"It's definitely a double standard predominantly perpetuated by women," Pinsky said. "Women judge each other so much. Men make note of what women do, too, but they tend to be more forgiving about their behavior."
Pinsky and representatives from Trojan were curious as to how each student's campus media and campus in general views sex. Students from more left-leaning campuses such as Harvard, Princeton, Duke and the University of Pennsylvania said there was a general acceptance of sex in their campus media, as indicated by sex columns, condom distribution, theme parties and the popularity of courses on human sexuality and behavior.
"We have a 'sexpert,' unaffiliated with our university's health services, who answers students' sex questions in a Dear-Abby type of format," said Isabel Wilkinson of Princeton University. "All the answers are fact-checked by health services. We always try to present a variety of viewpoints - we always have one question cater to the sexually active and one cater to the abstinent."
Students from southern schools such as Rhodes and North Carolina State, however, shared much different experiences, revealing stories of backlash from the administration or the community at large over sexual topics on campus.
"The majority of my school is made up of male conservatives," said Tanner Kroeger of North Carolina State University. "Sex columns have never gone over that well. No one wants to hear about it."
Trojan representatives then asked students about condom usage and distribution at their schools and what could be done to promote safe, healthy sexual lifestyles.
"You should be able to say, 'I'm using a condom, and I'm proud,'" said Jeanie Greeley, a Boston-area journalist covering the event.
While some students talked of condoms taped to incoming freshmen's doors or left in baskets in dorm bathrooms, they all agreed that there is still an overall sense of unwillingness to discuss condom use.
"We definitely need to take the veil off the issue," Pinsky said.
Last year, Trojan ran a campaign titled "Make A Difference" that highlighted statistics about sexually transmitted diseases and unwanted pregnancies among college students.
"Adolescence is marked with this thought that 'it can't happen to me,' Pinsky said. "Since you don't see diseases as much at that age, it's shocking when you finally see them happen."
In an effort to promote condom usage and prevent such trauma in sexually active college age students, Trojan has launched several new marketing efforts to make condoms more compatible with youth culture. New products such as Elexa - condoms and lubricants suited to enhance feminine pleasure and packaged in blue and pink wrappers - as well as Twisted Pleasure, Shared Pleasure and Mint Tingle condoms together in a "Pleasure Pack" have recently been promoted and sold in stores.
The novelty and variety of colors and flavors, however, still do not seem to be enough. Trojan representatives at the event asked students for suggestions on how to better distribute and reinforce the importance of condoms across campuses.
"Perhaps do what Red Bull or Amp have done and have a truck driving through campuses toting their product," suggested David Roisen of the University of Virginia. "You could even have the Trojan Horse trotting through passing out condoms!"
At the end of the event, Pinsky and Trojan representatives presented Trojan's definition of sexual health to the students and asked them for their thoughts and opinions.
"Sexual health," the definition read, "is the experience of enjoying our sexuality - both emotionally and physically - throughout our lives. Being sexually healthy contributes to an overall healthy life ... sexual health is best realized through personal awareness, communication and access to accurate information and services." Many of the students present agreed that the definition underscored the importance of health and responsibility while still enjoying natural human desires, but that it wasn't perfect.
"There should be more of a tagline to it - something catchy," said Lena Chen of Harvard University.
"This is a statement about boundaries, which a lot of people have such a problem with," Pinsky said. "My top concern, as is Trojan's, has always been health. That's why I'm so intent on reiterating this definition. That word - health - is so important."
