Desperate Coeds
By Regis Nicoll
9/1/2006

The Confusion of Campus Romance

On a recent to visit Rhodes College in Memphis, Tennessee, I picked up a copy of the student newspaper and read with interest an op-ed by Michelle Hope, “Is Rhodes too sexually conservative?” What prompted Michelle’s article was a conference she attended the previous weekend for college editors. The topic? Sex and relationships on college campuses. The host? Trojan, the condom manufacturer.

Little surprise, then, at Michelle’s embarrassment to learn that her small liberal arts school in the buckle of the Bible Belt was the only college (among Princeton, UNC, Harvard, Duke, Rutgers, and others) without condom machines in the dorms. Rhodes also had the distinction of being one of only two schools without a sex column in their student publications.

Upon reflection, Michelle felt this explained the “shallow culture” in which many of her peers found it “hard to meet new friends” and had difficulty reaching “closure on failed relationships.” “Huh?” you twitch. More in a moment. the rest