Many students find their sexual identities at college

Concern, confusion and internal conflict about sexual identity -- including sexual orientation and preferences -- are a common part of the maturation process. And rarely are these emotions more apparent than during the college years. According to Robert Schoenberg, coordinator of the Program for the Lesbian, Gay and Bisexual Community at Penn, the start of most students' college careers marks the first time they are away from home for an extended period. And the freedom inherent in the college atmosphere results in students feeling they can engage in sexual exploration which might not have been comfortable at home, he added. The findings of a 60-question social life and sexual attitudes poll, conducted by The Daily Pennsylvanian, confirm Schoenberg's belief. The poll, which was given to 405 students earlier this month, indicates that while about 39 percent of freshmen have never had sex, only about 9 percent of seniors are virgins. The poll also reveals that many students have experimented in their search for their sexual identity. According to the poll, 67 percent of students have had oral sex, and five percent have had anal sex. Twenty-five percent said they have had sex in a public place. And three percent of students who said they were heterosexual also said they had had a homosexual experience. For students puzzled by their feelings for members of their own or the opposite sex, the prospect of contemplating their sexual orientation and its implications -- what Schoenberg calls "questioning" -- can be daunting. "We're all brought up in a homophobic society," Schoenberg said. "We learn the negative attitudes [toward homosexuals] before we discover we may be gay." "Reconciliation" of these stereotypes and negative attitudes about homosexuals with the realities people see occurs after they move through the stages of sexual "exploration and comparison [to others]," he added. According to Visiting Sociology Professor Paul Root Wolpe, "sexual identity is far more than just your sexual orientation, although, of course, that is a large part of it. "Sexual identity is really about someone's self-conception of their sexuality," he added. "It has to do with how a person thinks and conceives of themselves sexually." These personal sexual likes and dislikes are discovered through the experimentation common to the college years, said Wolpe, who is teaching a course entitled the "Sociology of Sex" this semester at the University. "This whole series of sexual behaviors which used to be unacceptable are now commonplace, usual, normative," Wolpe added. He explained that attitudes about sexual behavior and practices have remained "fairly constant, except for the spectre of AIDS," since the sexual revolution of the 1960s. The 1960s revolution changed sexual ethics and encouraged people to focus on "self-actualization -- what's right for me, what feels good to me," he said. "The problem with that is using one's self as a barometer of what's acceptable and unacceptable ignores community," Wolpe added. "We make our decisions selfishly, we don't tend to think on a community level anymore, [and] part of what we see as the breakdown in community is attributable to that." In his view, a decreased emphasis on personal accountability for sexual actions has accompanied the declining influence of morals on society. "When you ask people how they make sexual decisions, few appeal to larger systems [like religion]," Wolpe said. "Yet Christianity and Judaism have a lot to say about what is proper and improper. People don't look at that anymore." While Wolpe said attitudes toward many sexual practices have changed over the past couple of decades, laws governing sexual expression and practices such as sodomy or "any sex act involving the sex organs of one person and the mouth or anus of another," whether homosexual or heterosexual, remain on the books in many states. In fact, by legal definition, anyone who commits oral or anal sex in Washington, D.C. is a "sexual psychopath," and sex between two unmarried people, or "fornication," is illegal in some states including Idaho, Utah, Massachusetts, Rhode Island and North and South Carolina. Pennsylvania and most bordering states, such as New York, New Jersey, Delaware, West Virginia and Ohio do not have laws against oral sex, however. Wolpe said the prevalence of anti-sodomy laws corresponds roughly to regional differences evident in sexual attitudes. Attitudes on the coasts of the United States are much more liberal than those found in the Southern Bible belt, the Western Mormon states and the Northeastern states with Puritan heritages. But tradition is not the only factor which impacts sexual decision-making. A personal sexual code of ethics results from the synthesis of religion, background, beliefs, advice of parents and peers and generalized culture, Wolpe said. "Sexual messages are constant, from the media, in advertisements and the movies, and on television," he said. "Sex is portrayed as a fun clean act without consequences. If you see that often enough, it percolates down to the culture. "It's almost as if we have an extreme psychosis about sex in this society," Wolpe added. "We end up being completely contradictory and confused, because the U.S. has never been able to integrate sexuality into its larger cultural vision." Sexologist Ted McIlvenna, president of the Institute for the Advanced Study of Human Sexuality, an independent graduate school located in San Francisco, Calif., echoed Wolpe's sentiments. "We still have a hangover of nonsense about sex, because sensationalization of sex sells," he said in a phone interview. McIlvenna said he is presently involved in research and work related to the issues sexual self-determination and sexual rights as human rights. "It is important to have sexual health care not based on judgements, but on functioning as who you want to be," he said. "Your sexuality belongs to you, and so much [current] sexual health care is based on well-intentioned misinformation." McIlvenna agreed with Wolpe, adding "Generally, most problems our society faces are related to our negative attitudes toward sex, which are politically and religiously reinforced."

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