Weekend nights spent playing beer pong at apartment parties, packed into fraternity houses or making the late, late-night scene at Kimmel often end with the same common fate: hooking up with that cute guy or girl across the room.

‘It’s gross to have sex with random people,’ said Kate Card, a senior biology major. ‘But I don’t think it’s abnormal.’

But such sexual behavior seems to be anything but the norm on the Syracuse University campus, according to a survey conducted through the health center last spring. Instead, after combing through the many hundreds of statistics, analysts learned that the results point to three major campus trends: more long-term relationships with frequent sex, no relationships at all with sexual abstinence, or the increasingly common friend-with-benefits frequent hook-up.

‘Some people here seem to have more than one friend-with-benefits,’ said Matt Lombardi, a junior finance major.

Out of the 1,700 students who were randomly selected and e-mailed the survey, 414 responded, which provides a valid representation of the group, said Dessa Bergen-Cico, associate dean of students. A university-wide task force on wellness led by the Rev. Tom Wolfe, dean of Hendricks Chapel, sponsored the survey created by the national organization Outside the Classroom.

About a fourth of the respondents consider themselves in a monogamous relationship that has lasted more than a year, and 57 percent are in no relationship at all. Some students, about 35 percent, have not had heterosexual vaginal intercourse at all in the past year, and 32 percent have not engaged in heterosexual oral sex. Same-sex interactions reflect similar trends on a smaller scale.

But much larger numbers of students have been having vaginal, oral, or anal sex more than once in the past year, at 57 percent, 62 percent and 7 percent, respectively. These statistics seem to imply that most students are in some sort of relationship with a frequent level of sexual activity, or they are single and having no sex of any kind, Bergen-Cico said.

None of the statistics indicated that a high number of students are having sex with random multiple partners, a fact which surprises some students.

‘There’s definitely this mentality that hooking-up is cool and that it’s all everybody does,’ said Vicki Rubino, a junior environmental studies major at the State University of New York College of Environmental Sciences and Forestry. ‘And that’s what I see most often.’

In a friends-with-benefits relationship, the two parties involved usually consider themselves good friends but do not wish to date seriously. These relationships may consist of making out to having sex with only each other, usually whenever they both feel the urge to do so. This sort of arrangement remains popular with many students.

‘No one wants to have an official relationship,’ said Ariba Chowdhury, a sophomore bioengineering major.

But the idea of what the role of sex is in a relationship could be very different for men than for women.

‘Sex is more intimate for girls than for guys, and see it as kind of a personal thing,’ Chowdhury said. ‘But guys think sex shouldn’t define a relationship. It’s just a physical thing to them.’

Until a man falls in love, sex is not a very special, albeit enjoyable, activity, said Jeffrey Delacruz, a junior marketing major. But in a casual relationship, love isn’t required for sex.

‘How many guys do you see who are like, ‘baby, I don’t want to spoil this moment, let’s wait,” Delacruz said.

The survey reflects types of relationships: love, or sex and affection, and sex as recreation, said Joseph Fanelli, professor of human sexuality. Friends-with-benefits is not a love relationship, but a like relationship.

‘Some people say, ‘I don’t need this affection stuff,” Fanelli said.

The rise of monogamous relationships on campus, either officially or within the friends-with-benefit arrangement, may help explain another statistic of the health center’s survey. About 45 percent of respondents reported that they used barrier protection, like condoms or dental dams, the last time they had sex, while 30 percent stated they always use this protection, according to the survey.

‘I’m really shocked,’ Bergen-Cico said. ‘I’m afraid that this generation somehow didn’t learn about the importance of protecting against (sexually-transmitted infections). I guess we forget there’s always a new generation to educate.’

‘I don’t think anyone cares about protection anymore, and they’re not concerned even though they hear about statistics and dangers,’ Cord said.

Those people in long-term relationships most likely feel comfortable without using a barrier protection, as well as those in friend-with-benefits relationships because they assume that their partner is ‘clean.’

‘(It) makes sense,’ Rubino said. ‘You’re obviously not going to be hooking up with somebody else at the same time.’

But while many students consider the friends-with-benefits relationship as the best type, it has the most potential for health risks. A person can still pass on STDs while in a casual, non-committal relationship because there’s nothing forcing you to only be with that one person, Bergen-Cico said.

Delacruz, however, said if students find themselves in friends-with-benefits relationships, or even one-night-stands, they most likely will use protection, because they probably do not know for sure that their partner has no STDs.

The reasons for the boost in student abstinence remain unclear. The nation’s recent push for abstinence-based sex education may be a catalyst, but pressure from the media throughout the past 18 years of students’ lives surely must shape norms somehow, Bergen-Cico said.

People who are not in a sexual relationship may simply be unlucky in love.

‘Those people not in a relationship just can’t find one,’ said Cordell Enniss, a sophomore entrepreneurship major.

The survey questioned respondents not only about sexual decisions and behavior, but also about alcohol use, feelings of depression and suicide, tobacco and drug use, eating-behaviors and safety. To truly understand what students involved in any one of these activities experience, researchers must analyze them all at once, Bergen-Cico said.

‘Once you start peeling the lid off then you see a whole new understanding,’ Bergen-Cico said.

A much larger percentage of women, or 83 percent, responded that they would try to stop someone else from pressuring a drunk person to have sex with him or her, compared to the 58 percent of men surveyed.

This statistic makes sense, as men would more likely have no problem having sex or hooking up with those who are drunk, Rubino said.

‘Girls are more aware of what they’re doing, and more likely to regret it in the morning,’ Rubino said. ‘A lot of times, guys won’t regret it.’

More women than men, about 55 percent compared to 50 percent, also responded that a person who is intoxicated is unable to give true consent to sexual activity, according to the survey.

‘Whoever says that is bullshitting,’ said Ogul Kargul, a sophomore industrial design major. ‘You can make your own decisions anytime you want.’

Another factor that can lead to the transmission of STDs is spontaneous sexual activity. If one partner suddenly decides to talk about what is and isn’t off-limits, that partner does not necessarily have very bad timing, according to one statistic. Only about 12 percent of women and 21 percent of men responded that it sexually destroys the romance of the moment.

Those partners who do not communicate with each other about how far they are willing to go until within the heat of the moment may be headed for trouble, Bergen-Cico said.

But despite the danger of pushing a partner too far, only about two percent of the respondents said they had had sex because their partner had pressured them.

‘I would be very disturbed and concerned if it were mostly people feeling pressured,’ Bergen-Cico said.

One question offered respondents 23 different reasons why they may have declined to participate in their preferred type of sexual activity. Some responses, including not being in love at about 27 percent, not feeling attracted to partner at 23 percent and feeling sick at 23 percent, did not surprise many students. But the number one reason, tied at 33 percent with not knowing the partner well enough, was being too tired. This reason must be reconsidered, some students said.

‘I’m sorry, but I always want to have sex,’ Enniss said.

Published on September 22, 2004 at 12:00 pm