Dear Editor:
I just read your Editor’s Note, “Let’s Talk About Sex” (see Black Issues, Jan. 31) and wanted to let you know my thoughts on some of your assertions.
Our nation’s puritan roots are not tied to any national dysfunction regarding sex. Puritans loved sex; they had huge families. They were modest, God-fearing, God-honoring people who had a healthy sense of shame that is lacking from our vulgar, foul-mouthed mass media culture today. Unfortunately, this is the culture that dominates our college campuses. Sex is a private, personal thing, a beautiful gift from God. But the postmodernists who dominate our culture today have removed the innocence and the personalization of it today, introducing an unhealthy shame about sex. It is not something to be flaunted like Wilt Chamberlain bragging about his 20,000 in-flight conquests.
The most disturbing thing about your piece was the lack of mention of safe sex. I was glad to see mention of abstinence, but the whole idea of safe sex is a myth that causes many to suffer from STDs (sexually transmitted diseases) and in the extreme cases causes death. Unsafe sex with a person one is neither married nor committed to is a simple matter of math: The pores in a condom are so many microns in diameter and the strains/viruses of STDs are only so many microns in diameter. That means STD strains and viruses pass through the pores of condoms and infect people who ignorantly assumed they were having safe sex.
Finally, an MSNBC survey last year revealed that African Americans are THE most conservative demographic group in America when it comes to social issues. They don’t vote that way, but the survey revealed that African Americans are very conservative in their thinking. When it comes to sex, many African Americans do not buy the humanistic views of sexuality. To many Americans, MTV is blatantly satanic and promotes the inferior morality that people should be ruled by their feelings, emotions and sensations — at the expense of intellect, wisdom and sexual health.
You’re right that people come to campus clueless. And in the humanistic public universities, following up on the values clarification of K-12, students all too often are victims of harmful liberal bias and mentality from faculty and peers. Do it! That’s the prevailing thought. They hand out condoms on my campus, which is just a blatant statement of “do it.” Where is the university Wellness Department? They’re the ones who should be teaching healthy choice-making in the campus square.
It’s up to the leaders of the college campuses to destroy the myth of safe sex and to teach abstinence, not to mention promoting the need for students to make healthy lifestyle choices — which is what college is really about.
Best wishes,
Dennis Durband
Gilbert, Ariz.
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