A woman walks into a drugstore and asks the pharmacist if he sells size extra large condoms. He replies, “Yes we do. Would you like to buy some?” She responds, “No sir, but do you mind if I wait around here until someone does?”

February is often known for Black History Month and Valentine’s Day. It’s a lot more fun than that my friends. It’s also Sexual Awareness Month. Sex – fantastic, disappointing, casual, committed, willing, forced, kinky, conservative. Let’s talk about it a little bit.

Sex sounds pretty specific, but it’s a rather broad category that happens in the most diverse of situations. Some can be life changing and others life-threatening. In college, sex in the random sense is much more frequent than in any other stage of life. Sex is an issue that affects young men and women of Simpson quite specifically. There are three broad categories of sex: random, committed and forced (and in between you can insert any adjectives you find relative).

Why is random sex more common in college? Stress overload. Inebriation that can start on Thursdays and lasts until Sunday afternoon. The built-in social advantage of campus life that they don’t advertise on the Web site called shacking. Last but not least, it comes down to hormones.

Casual sex is a socially promoted, fleeting experience of pleasure that can last a matter of minutes. Although the pleasure stops after a few minutes, the consequences can show their ugly faces for the rest of your life. First there are the spiritual consequences. Unless we are totally void of soul, we are affected. No one is that tough all the time. For those that insist there are no spiritual consequences for them – fine, be that way, but there’s no getting around the physical consequences of random sex. They didn’t create the idea of STDs, AIDS and unwanted pregnancy as a marketing tool to deter young people from having unprotected, casual sex.

These terms exist because they happen to real people. My bet is that anyone who has ever been the victim of one of these tragedies didn’t have in mind, “Hmmm, I think I’ll go home with this fine thing and get syphilis, oh yeah.” No one plans for it and no one thinks it will happen to them.

That brings up the topic of forced sex, which we think will never happen to us, but in actuality happens to nearly one-third of women. So many ignorant people respond to that statistic that in nicer areas like Indianola the statistics are significantly less. Okay, I’ll give you that. Let’s be generous and say that it’s probably only as common as one in 10 here in our sweet little community. That’s still not comforting to one-tenth of that population. It still happens and too often.

I’m not trying to convince anyone to change his or her lifestyle. That would take a lot more than one article. I’m just trying to make you aware for a day or less about sex and how it affects each person who engages in it.