Virginal revolution? College group rallies for chastity
// EDUCATION: Cal State Fullerton students endure
taunts as they challenge `safe' sex.
DATE 11/13/93
NEWSPAPER THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
SECTION NEWS
EDITION MORNING
PAGE a01
STORY LENGTH 39 INCHES
HEADLINE Virginal revolution? College group rallies for chastity
// EDUCATION: Cal State Fullerton students endure
taunts as they challenge `safe sex.'
BYLINE/CREDIT DAN FROOMKIN: The Orange County Register
SUBJECT TERMS COLLEGES:STUDENTS:SEX:SAFETY:MARRIAGE
It hasn't been easy for the Cal State Fullerton virgins who hand
out pro-chastity leaflets at lunchtime.
They get a lot of funny looks. People snicker. And taunt. And
argue.
But the way they figure, it's always tough on the cutting edge.
"I would like to see a chastity revolution in this country,"
said Kathy Bates, the exuberant leader of the new Life Choices
student group. "And I would like to see it starting on college
campuses."
Bates, a 27-year-old born-again Christian, says she is waiting
until she gets married to have sex.
And as a virgin, she sees herself as part of a new breed of
student radicals -- students rebelling against the sexual
permissiveness that sprang from the last student revolution.
Instead of "Make love, not war," their slogan is "Condoms leak."
Bates said nothing short of abstinence can save young people
from diseases such as AIDS.
"It's time to go back to what works. We're sick of `safe sex.'
It's devastated a whole generation."
More than 70 percent of high school seniors have lost their
virginity, according to one federal survey.
Given those kinds of numbers, Bates' outspokenness about her
virginity is startling to many students, some of whom call her the
"Chastity Queen" of California State University, Fullerton.
But her group is particularly controversial because the heart of
its message is the assertion that using condoms is not a reliable
way to avoid contracting AIDS.
Bates said she is horrified at how many of her fellow students
think that if they use a condom they are safe -- from disease, from
pregnancy, from regret.
"They've bought the safe-sex lie that the administrations of
this college and other public institutions have promoted with
taxpayer money and with our student fees," she said.
According to the federal Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention, properly used condoms are extremely effective in
preventing the transmission of the AIDS virus. An intact latex
condom leaks neither sperm nor the AIDS virus, so infection during
sex is only possible when condoms are not used, or are not used
properly, said CDC spokesman Kent Taylor.
Nevertheless, everyone agrees that nothing is as safe as
abstinence.
So the Life Choices students have chosen to stress the dangers.
"Don't trust your life to a balloon," says a sign on the table
they regularly set up at the confluence of student pathways near
the university library.
Megan Giles, the group's 21-year-old vice president, said many
passers-by are skeptical.
"They think it's unrealistic," she said. "But we're saying the
opposite is true: that it's unrealistic to count on latex to save
your life."
Some students are clearly sympathetic. Senior Ken Weir, for
instance, stopped by to say he supports abstinence.
"I think it's a good alternative for college-age students,
especially considering there's so much pressure going the other
way," he said.
Some of the group's 50 members -- and many of its supporters --
are not virgins, Bates said. Rather, they are "secondary virgins":
young people who have had sex but have decided to give it up until
marriage.
Weir, for instance, said he stopped having sex two years ago at
age 21.
"I saw a lot of the other side," he said. "But that was before I
became a Christian. It's fun, but the price you pay for it is not
worth it."
Overall, however, the students who pass by the Life Choices
table on their way to lunch are a parade of contempt.
"Oh puh-leeze," said Melissa Leaker, 25, arching her eyebrows at
the Life Choices leaflet. "Humans are going to be humans. What are
you going to do?"
And the strongest reaction to the Life Choices students comes
from people who are infuriated by their tactics.
"No one's going to listen to you and practice abstinence,"
Stefanie Fightlin, 22, told Giles during a heated argument.
Fightlin said she fears that the real effect of the Life Choices
message will be to discourage people from using condoms.
"I do think that people should abstain a lot more than they do,"
Fightlin said. "I'm not against abstinence and of course it's the
best way. But I don't think it's a valuable message to say that
condoms don't work."
For Bates, however, the message is critically important because
she finds the pro-condom propaganda so omnipresent -- and personally
offensive.
"It's assumed that people are just copulating animals who can't
control themselves," she said.
"I'm the type of girl, I always have a boyfriend. I like dating.
I have just as many hormones as the next person, and perhaps even
more," she said.
But she decided not to have sex because of the consequences.
"If I can do it, anyone can," she said.
And while Bates accuses the university of not putting enough
institutional emphasis on abstinence, school officials note that
several fliers available in bathrooms and at the health center do
mention that abstinence is "the only way to be certain" of not
contracting the AIDS virus sexually.
"We are not excluding information on abstinence," said
university associate vice president Charles W. Buck. "We may not be
pushing it as much as some people would like -- and maybe we should
-- but certainly we're not against it."
In some ways, the basic Life Choices message is similar to that
of many other evangelical Christian campus organizations.
Giles said that abortion is a major concern of the group's
membership. But, she said, "We feel the pro-life thing has already
been done. This is a more original approach."
And Bates has an uncompromising view of pre-marital sex, even
when it is between monogamous healthy lovers who use elaborate
birth control.
That's because disease is only one of the the risks, she said.
There can also be spiritual and emotional damage.
"No one can escape the bad consequences of having pre-marital
sex," she said. Will that kind of hard-line attitude toward sex
win over today's youth?
A lot of students at Cal-State Fullerton say no.
As he walked toward lunch the other day, Justin Thomas, 20,
threw away the Life Choices leaflet that was handed to him.
"I just don't agree. I'm an advocate of safe sex," he said.
"It's not so much a risk," he said, "it's more an attitude about
life."