A recent Public Safety report revealed the following behavior on the Pepperdine campus:
1/13/02 01:47 Misc. Conduct Violation
Location: George Page Residential C
Summary: Report of male and female engaged in a sexual act in front of an open window.
With Valentine’s Day at hand, the Graphic wants to remind students to practice educated sexual responsibility.
Even within the bubble of our Christian university, it is evident that sexuality is imprinted on the psyche of our culture. Christians should know what everyone should know: We are sexual beings.
Sexual ethic has everything to do with your being. It is something God placed within our nature because it is the most powerful way we will express love to another human.
The concept of safe sex is about covenants as much as it has to do with condoms. Sex in the Bible is regarded as something that is best experienced within a relationship, when the chances of the other person leaving you and disrespecting you are slim to none. This idea applies to the context of marriage when you can reach “maximum sex,” according to Church of Christ Minister, Ken Durham, who helped to lead a discussion hosted by the Student Health Advisory Board on Tuesday.
The church in general is often grim and naïve regarding sex. The quintessential line regarding sexual attitudes in the church is: “Sex is dirty, make sure you do it with someone you love.”
Yet, it is refreshing when someone like Ken Durham can openly and frankly talk about sex with students. It’s good for us. And it’s good for this university.
“The same God who invented orchids invented orgasms,” Durham said.
“The idea that ‘sex is just something we do’” is wrong,” Durham said. “It’s what we are.”
How we live out our sexuality and how we treat one another has everything to do with everything.
The grace of God is an amazing thing that is not to be taken advantage of.
Outside of the basic scriptural references to sexual misconduct such as adultery, the Bible leaves Christians with the moral dilemma of balancing free will with raging hormonal surges. What often results in compromising this delicate balance is “Outercourse,” a concept, which was defined in Tuesday’s discussion as “sex play, any form of sexual activity besides actual intercourse.”
For the church to draw a line on what the specifics of a Christian sex life should include or exclude, is wrong. We are all too familiar with such ambiguously coined phrases as “sexually compromising positions,” which fall into the muddled grayness that lies between abstinence and nymphomania.
Does the Church of Christ oppose birth control? The short answer is ‘no,’ although the Student Health Center recently discontinued offering contraceptives, such as condoms, to students as a service provided by the university. When students have asked about the removal of these types of services from the Student Health Center, a curious answer is delivered: administration told us not to.
“Medically, it’s called for, but we have to abide by our supervisors,” a staff member at the Health Center said.
The Student Health Center continues to offer yearly pap exams to female students, although the lengthy two-hour process, including three videos, is not likely to entice the average Pepperdine female.
Also, as a part of Sexual Responsibility Week, students can stop in Friday at the Tyler Campus Center room 107 between classes to get the inside of their cheek swabbed for a free anonymous HIV testing.
If you’re concerned, not only about yourself but for others, the Student Health Advisory Board will meet the Wednesday, March 6, and board members encourage students to raise any concerns during that time.
So ring out the bells, talk to your friends and voice your opinion on these matters. As sexual beings we need to acknowledge these powerful instincts as natural functions.
Whether that should include abstaining until marriage or engaging in a sexual act in front of your window on a campus that prohibits “sexually compromising positions” altogether … Well, you can figure that out for yourself.
We can’t afford to be silly and naïve. Rather, as Durham said, “we should be innocent as doves and shrewd as snakes.”
February 14, 2002