Students would benefit from class on sexual education

To the editor:

I am writing in response to the article about sexual health. I feel that we are a sexually active and healthy campus. I hope married couples talk about sex, pornography, and what love means to them.

I may have been raised LDS, but I didn’t know the first thing about marriage. I did know how to be in a healthy relationship. Our marriage is just a continuation of that relationship. We have made stronger commitments and bigger sacrifices than before. But I did benefit from outside sources of sexual education other than my church and family.

I was an active-duty Marine for 5 years. We had tons of classes on rape, sexual assault and equal opportunity. But they did miss the idea of how to form healthy relationships. We should ask ourselves, when do I feel sex is appropriate? Does my partner feel the same? Am I moving this relationship into intimacy before my partner wants to? Where do I place my level of sexual intimacy with other things in a relationship? And most importantly, does my partner know this?

I choose to remain a virgin until I was married. When I felt we were getting close to being married, I talked about it. I had previously been engaged, but even then I didn’t talk about it. Talking about sex for me was saying I’m really committed. To others it may not. Some might even choose to wait till they have been married to bring it up. But whenever we want to talk about it, it would be helpful to know what questions to ask and what answers mean.

Women should know that when a man says, “If you love me, you’ll have sex with me,” that guy is a real jerk. Pepper spray his face and find a new man because he’s got one too many cars on his crazy train to hell.

And we should really talk more openly about the resources for people who have been assaulted or know someone who has. I don’t think we don’t want to talk about it. But like the Marines, it’s a small but powerful issue. Just because we don’t talk about the blessed Corps doesn’t mean we don’t love America.

We aren’t against talking about rape, but what do we talk about? Rape is bad. Now what? Who do we go see? What kind of support is there?

My answers might not be acceptable to someone else. We should have a mandatory common hour class the first and last months of each semester. This would help identify resources and help for both sexual assault and sexual health.

— Brian Welch