From Saturday night party games involving a Frisbee and hallucinogenic research chemicals to dorm room doors equipped with homemade fingerprint detectors, even Alpha Theta's Dartcon can't hold a candle to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's nerd-dom. But what stood out most during my short visit there this Thanksgiving break was what I least expected: every student bathroom had a box filled with a cornucopia of condoms -- and not just Trojans, either. These safe sex boxes were bountifully overflowing with every size and style imaginable.
Despite a lack of any empirical data to back me up, I'm willing to confidently conjecture that Dartmouth students get it on more than our calculator-crazed Cambridge brethren. So my question should be obvious: where are our free rubbers?
Well, they're out there -- but not very easy to find. Health Resources at Dick's House hands out free condoms, although you'll have to trudge to the far reaches of campus during regular business hours to snag one. Interested student groups can purchase a case of condoms at half-price, thanks to a subsidy from Health Services -- though I've yet to find a non-Sexpert event that took advantage of the deal for its attendees.
There is a persistent rumor on campus that Undergraduate Advisors keep condoms in their room for students in need, but this isn't the case. While UGAs can take the initiative to spend their budget on condoms -- and receive the half-off deal from Health Service -- it's entirely up to them whether they want to distribute free condoms or not.
Instead of permitting a disparity between floors with easy access to free condoms and those without (which probably leads to pilfered prophylactics), Dartmouth should require every UGA to affix a box of condoms to their door. After all, at a school that reaffirmed its commitment to promoting positive, healthy sexuality at yesterday's Sex Festival in Collis, this relative scarcity of free condoms is a huge contradiction.
What does the average student do after bringing home a hot date from frat row at two in the morning without change for the vending machine downstairs? The more obstacles there are to getting protection in the moment, the less likely students are to use it. Providing free condoms to all students could potentially save a student's college career. Not only would it help prevent students from making poor sexual decisions when things get hot, but the constant sight of free condoms and safe sex literature might sway students who wouldn't normally use protection.
Concerns about "condom vandalism" (apparently some administrators fear that a prankster would poke holes in unused condoms) are completely unfounded. MIT's condom-laden bathrooms aren't unique; in colleges throughout the country, free condoms are distributed without incident. What would make Dartmouth a particularly vulnerable target for contraceptive terrorism?
Furthermore, while the cost of condoms over four years is significant to a collegiate penny-pincher, condoms bought in bulk certainly wouldn't shrink the College's impressive endowment.
MIT's student culture may be dissimilar to ours, but they make it clear that even computer scientists get a little action. Let's show them that the Big Green can perform.
