I am curious what do college parents suggest in regards to how to manage expectations of your students regarding college & sex. I have had a good discussion pre-college senior about safe sex and sexual consent / assault but as he prepares for college life what else do you suggest?
Curious if anyone has advice or insights on how to deal with this topic with our adult children.
This is what I found - from College Parents of America. - which suggests a book and data that students are actually having less sex than 25 years ago…the article cites two sources. A book - American Hookup Culture and data from an organization called. American College Health Association (ACHA).
Here is the conclusion:
'Despite the growth in social media and “hook-up” applications like Tinder a careful review of data from 2005 – 2015, indicates that college students report a decreased number of sexual partners. In fact, the reported celibacy rate of students increased: with male celibacy increasing two times the rate of females.
In fact, the 2015 data reports that 33.5% of college students report having no sexual partners which are up from 27.5% reported in 2005.
And for students that report being sexually active, a remarkably consistent number of students report being monogamous or having one sexual partner in the past 12 months. Despite media reports of a non-stop Hookup Culture – the data also reveals that consistently just less than 9% of college students surveyed report having four or more sexual partners in the last 12 months.’
Would welcome an open discussion about other parents experiences?
Where are you going with this? My own student’s expectations about my role in his sex life is that I stay out of it. I know this because he told me. You can say whatever it is you want to say, but don’t think you have any real control or influence. These days, most students are getting multiple lectures in school about “consent” and the like.
We’ve been openly talking about sex, contraception, and our own family values all along. I’m fortunate that dd is very open with me and she feels like no topic is off limits.
In our family, we’ve had way more conversation about campus safety than anything else. There have been three reported rapes on her campus, one the very first week of school and the latest a few weeks ago, one block from her dorm. Last week there was a rape on the college campus blocks from where I live. All seem to involve alcohol. That makes me crazy so we are alway talking about staying in a group, being responsible for each other, and trying to be in at a reasonable hour. (IMO, nothing good happens after midnight).
We took a self defense class together before she left for school and she took another on campus with her roommates. We’ve had lots of conversation about not being an easy target (thankfully she’s tall which the police said is a deterrent on it’s own), not drinking to excess, never walking home alone no matter how close by, etc…
Frankly, I’m not worried about when she chooses to have consensual sex. That will be her choice and decision.
Judging from the fact that most of the students on my campus seem to spend their time staring at their cell phones, it doesn’t surprise me that they are having less sex. Their actual human interaction consists of bumping into someone while walking because they are too busy staring at their phone to pay attention to where they are going.
My children are both married now – well past the campus sex stage, and into the “where are the grandchildren?” stage. But my wife was so upset by the Atlantic Magazine article about 6 months ago about the decline of sex among millennials that she insisted on raising it with our kids. Our son told me, “I am so traumatized! I got through 30 years of life without ever having to discuss oral sex with my mom, but she made me talk about it in all kinds of detail! Can you get her interested in something else?”
I did not discuss sex and college with my kids. The expectation was always that in all likelyhood they would have sexual lives in college (and probably before.) The focus was on health and safety and discussed in terms of general wellbeing. Long before they went off to college, I might add. By then it’s a little late.
College kids seem to use Tinder to meet friends, date and do a lot more than hook up. The app appears to have evolved beyond what it was known for initially, at least with this age group.
I think the biggest concern is sex assault and date rape. The best advice for that is to never be too drunk to take care of yourself. Also, to use the buddy system, like a designated driver, somebody who stays sober and watches over their friends, doesn’t let them leave the party/event with a stranger or by themselves…
Both H and I are physicians, our take on things was to warn son about the possibility of transmitted diseases. Of course we expected him to treat women well regarding the consent business- never felt the need to discuss and son would have left the room. By the time a kid is off to college there is no way they want to discuss sex with parents. I agree that it is none of my business.
My suggestion is to BACK OFF!
Addenda- trends do not matter. College life is presumably beyond HS peer pressure as well.
We are Unitarian, and both our kids went through OWL “Our Whole Lives” - fantastic program on making good choices about sex, taking into account your needs (emotional/health/physical) and all the needs of the other person. Highly, highly recommend. Also, this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pZwvrxVavnQ
Our children were very well prepared to make good choices for themselves. Our son helped take care of all his friends in college (he watched out for girl friends at parties, to make sure they were ok). Our daughter is making us very proud with how she navigates her first relationship emotionally as well as physically. We do not have physical details, nor do we want them, but it is very clear that she is respected and respectful.
I tackled it by harping on preventing unwanted pregnancies…but that was an ongoing conversation that started years before college. By the time #2 was in college we talked about being cautious about hooking up if alcohol was involved. All 3 survived thankfully without unwanted pregnancies or lawsuits to my great relief.
You can just give him the facts and let him decide:
There is no such thing as safe sex. Condoms don’t work, and don’t even protect against herpes. And I needn’t go into the details of how they can fail mechanically. ?
Also, alcohol is nothing but trouble, including with sex.
People with more than one partner much more likely to divorce later in life.
I made sure to share all the news stories about sex at college with my kids - mattress girl case, the guy at CSU-Pueblo who thought he was having consensual sex (as did the girl) until others told them it wasn’t…
My husband and I never set expectations for this very personal aspect of our kids’ lives. We did talk a lot about sex when the kids were younger, but by the time they went to college, it seemed a little late for that sort of thing.
And somehow, there were never any unplanned pregnancies or horrible experiences or wild and crazy anything for either of them (at least as far as I know). And now, at 29 and 33, one is married to a very nice and responsible person and the other one is in a long-term relationship with a very nice and responsible person.
This is a topic discussing in our home from the time all 3 kids were little and had the Where Did I Come From book. We did our best to make it an open topic.
That being said with all 3 they know our feelings and hopes for them however D and I are not stupid we know what kids do.
Both my boys were sent to college with the biggest box of condoms I could buy. I’ve always offered to buy them and frankly we are not ready for grand babies.
My D who will be going to UCLA in the fall, we have had many conversations regarding drinking, saying no, going to parties with friends etc. she is in a 2 yr relationship with her boyfriend and neither are sexually active which I’m thankful for. She knows she can go on the pill anytime no questions asked. I will do the same for her as I did for her brothers and send her off with a huge box of condoms because boys don’t always have them and I’d prefer she had them just in case.
Our parental preferences don’t matter once they turn 18 and I’d prefer our kids be safe if they choose to have sex. The condoms are not an invitation just an investment in their futures.
“People with more than one partner much more likely to divorce later in life.”
I’d put that, if true, in the correlation not causation camp.
“Condoms don’t work, and don’t even protect against herpes”
Condoms do work with very high rates of success when used properly and they do reduce the risk of contracting herpes.
Like others, we started the conversations about sexuality, healthy relationships, consent, etc. way, way before college. My kids are quite open with me about their sex life and seem to have no qualms about asking questions/discussing things with me. I’ve gotten very good at pretending not to find it a little uncomfortable at times but I’m happy they feel comfortable doing so. My parents never talked about it at all with my siblings and me despite being open-minded and I definitely did not want to repeat that pattern.
In retrospect, I might have talked about sexiling, but if it ever came up, I never heard about it. We talked about safe sex. And that as boys they did not have a choice if birth control failed, the woman gets to decide whether to carry a child to term or not. I don’t believe you need to be married to have sex, but I do feel that you should be in a committed relationship. I also talked about how, it’s easy to think it’s just sex, but really you end up feeling emotionally bonded, and that I think more women are wired to feel that way than men. For a while I thought I might have scared them off sex more than I meant to, though at the time, I felt like they were putting their fingers in their ears and saying “la, la, la”. The younger kid eventually found a girl friend that we think is terrific.
I had a couple of partners before my current husband. We’ve been together since 1979, married since 1984.
By the time they’re in college, I would assume they know about condoms, birth control, and stds. For a boy, I would explain not only the importance of obtaining consent but the importance of obtaining documentation consent took place.