Why Valentine's Day Shouldn't Be All About Sex (Week)

It’s so obvious. Why can’t liberals be more creative? Why do they have to peg their ridiculous “Sex Week” agendas to Valentine’s Day on college campuses?

College students get condoms instead of flowers. Abortion giant Planned Parenthood used an ad of a condom instead of a diamond ring inside an engagement ring box. The effects of this kind of sex-obsessed hook-up culture on college campuses go far beyond the vulgar and ridiculous – it can be truly harmful to students and their relationships with each other and distract them from a fruitful college experience.

[sharequote align="center"]The effects of this kind of sex-obsessed hook-up culture goes far beyond the vulgar and ridiculous[/sharequote]

The University of Utah, just a couple miles from the main temple in Salt Lake City, is co-sponsoring Sex Week from February 9-15, and highlighting the joys of non-committal sex with a workshop entitled, “Dirty Talk: Fun, Sexy Communications.”

But they don’t stop there. One “lucky” winner is going to win a year of free carcinogenic hormonal birth control, 365 condoms, a dangerous intra-uterine device, a diaphragm, or even a vasectomy.

Shouldn’t college students be focusing on, I don’t know, maybe honing their skill set, networking, interning, and learning how to get a job in probably one the worst economies of their short lifetimes? But according to the University of Utah, Valentine’s Day week is the best time to learn those particular bedroom communication skills. Why not learn how to effectively communicate with your partner first, without the help of Facebook and text messaging? That would be a useful skill.

Sadly, the University of Utah’s Sex Week is tame compared to others.

At the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque, which hosted their first ever Sex Week last semester, really ramped up the vulgarity for their students, sponsoring such lectures such as “How to Negotiate a Successful Threesome” and promoting an “epic event” which entailed learning about perfecting blowjobs. Seriously.

"Our university should be promoting higher education and values -- not sex and the objectification of women,” said Sade Patterson, the vice president of the Students for Life club.

That’s the heart of it really.

Credit: AP IMAGES FOR AIDS HEALTHCARE FOUNDATION 

These Sex Weeks, especially those timed to coincide with the holiday most associated with romance, Valentine’s Day, strikes at the heart of the objectification of both sexes as solely usable goods to use for pleasure and then ditch in the morning.

And these Sex Weeks fail to address a key aspect of campus life: sexual assault and violence. Stories abound of the high rate of sexual assault and rapes on college campuses yet these Sex Weeks do nothing to educate or stop them. Almost one in five of all U.S. women have been raped in their lifetime and one in three college males reported they would force a woman into sex if they knew they wouldn’t get caught.

“If Sex Week is supposed to be an educational event, why are sexual assault and sexual responsibility not the primary focuses? Sex week gives horny students an opportunity to become even hornier yet it does not offer any condolences to victims nor aid for future victims,” said Lauren Keeling, president of the Right to Life club at the University of Utah.

Valentine’s Day need not be all about Sex Week. They are degrading, harmful, useless, and, in some cases, plain ridiculous. If colleges are anxious to teach their students about sex, teach them about fruitful relationships and how to effectively communicate, hold self-defense classes, or engage students in thoughtful conversations rather than teaching them the intricacies of dirty talk and threesomes. The whole college experience – and Valentine’s Day – will be better off.

Kristan Hawkins is president of Students for Life of America.

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