Sex on Campus: An Interview with Donna Freitas

April 13, 2010 by Timothy Dalrymple

Continued from Page 1

You also have a chapter entitled "Dividing Sex from the Soul: Why Religion Doesn't Matter When it Comes to Sex." Did this apply to both evangelical colleges as well?

No. The attitudes toward sexuality on evangelical campuses were remarkably different from everywhere else. Everyone is struggling with sex, but they do it in very different ways.

It's impossible on an evangelical campus to have a conversation about sex without also talking about faith. This is simply because, at evangelical campuses, the Christian tradition stands at the very center of who the students are. Every decision is made by consulting that core identity. They don't think about sex except in light of their faith. It's just who they are: they are Christians. For these students, you cannot even think about choosing your major without consulting your faith. This is empowering, in many ways. These students have a strong sense of who they are, and where to go for advice. Most of the time, this is really great. But with regard to sex, it can be exceedingly stressful.

The opposite is true of all the other campuses I visited for the study, and it holds true even for the forty-five or so other campuses I have visited since the book was published. Whereas evangelicals cannot think about their sex lives without religion, students at secular or Catholic institutions cannot think about their sex lives with religion. The notion that religion would have anything important or useful to say to them about sexual decision-making is almost impossible to take seriously.

At non-evangelical campuses, when I asked students what their faith tradition gave them to help them think about sex as they were growing up, the three don'ts I always heard were: "Don't do it," "Don't be gay," and -- if they were Catholic -- "Don't use condoms." That was what they were hearing -- and they found that ridiculous and not-helpful. They are alienated by the teaching regarding sex that they have received from their religious traditions.

The situation is strikingly different when it comes to spirituality. Students now think of spirituality as a different sphere, a more forgiving space, a space that is more inclusive of different identities, orientations and experiences. You might be able to have sex and still explore spirituality. So they had much more hope for spirituality and virtually no hope for religion.

You also talk about the "purity culture" amongst evangelicals. What, in your observation, is helpful and what is not helpful within that culture?

One of the qualities I found most commendable about evangelical youth culture is that there is a robust conversation about romantic relationships and sex. There is a cultural conversation centered on those issues -- and it's peers talking to peers. Catholic students joke about how they don't want a 75-year-old celibate man telling them how to enjoy sex. Yet there's a really robust conversation on evangelical campuses about healthy dating lives, courtships, and so on. Even if students don't feel like those conversations are open or liberal enough, there is a major effort, not only from students but from faculty and staff, to address the issue of sex on campus. On secular campuses, the conversation is usually about safety and STD's, sexual assault and crisis prevention. On evangelical campuses, the conversation is richer, going into the psychology of sexuality and finding meaning and developing deep and healthy relationships.

The other side of the coin, when it comes to purity culture, concerns where the boundaries are drawn between what is pure and what is not. Sometimes they can be pretty broad, and you can more or less live within those boundaries. But for the most part, students tend to get the sense that to be pure is a pretty extreme thing. For many students, it means that you can't have your first kiss until engagement, or until you're at the altar; or it means that you cannot even have a sexual thought about someone without cheating on the future spouse. Most students have a really hard time navigating those boundaries. (Then there are the gender biases that come with purity culture, about men having power and control and women being passive and receptive, but that's a different conversation.)

In a recent article with Christianity Today, you argued against making marriage the point. You urged not talking about waiting until marriage, since that sort of commitment seems impossible. Rather, encourage them to abstain for a week, a month, etc. That makes sense for college students already immersed in the hook-up culture you described in your book. But what about others? Should we encourage those who are still virgins to abstain from marriage?

I wrote that piece with non-evangelical college students in mind. It is meaningful to have conversations about waiting until marriage on evangelical campuses, because you have early marriage. The culture is a culture of marriage, and so marriage is a meaningful category and goal for students at evangelical colleges. I do feel that a loosening of the strong tie between a very extreme interpretation of purity and marriage would be helpful. I saw a strong desire for that amongst evangelical college students.

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4/13/2010 4:00:00 AM

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About Timothy Dalrymple

Timothy Dalrymple is the CEO and Chief Creative Officer of Polymath Innovations, a strategic storytelling agency that advances the good with visionary organizations and brands. He leads a unique team of communicators from around North America and across the creative spectrum, serving mission-driven businesses and nonprofits who need a partner to amplify their voice and good works. Once a world-class gymnast whose career ended with a broken neck, Tim channeled his passions for faith and storytelling into his role as VP of Business Development for Patheos, helping to launch and grow the network into the world's largest religion website. He holds a Ph.D. in Religion from Harvard's Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. Tim blogs at Philosophical Fragments.

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