ASU State Press on Fall '06 Event

Students start 'revolution' to promote abstinence

Group hopes to open campus dialogue about sexual culture.

 by Annalyn Censky
 published on Wednesday, November 1, 2006

A new student club is starting a rebellion - against premarital sex that is.

The New Sexual Revolution, founded by Rosa Camou, is promoting abstinence until marriage and a revolt against cultural messages that separate emotional value from sexual relations.

About eight students showed up to the first meeting Tuesday at Union Stage in the Memorial Union.

The group's goal is to open up a dialogue about sexual culture and individual decision-making, said Camou, a computer information systems senior.

It doesn't stem from any political ideology or religious doctrine, she added.

"I don't want people to miss what we're saying by stereotyping us into that," she said.

The first meeting included a presentation by Melanie Welsch, education director for Life ED Corp. and an ASU alumna, about the emotional, physiological and physical consequences of sex before marriage.

"I think we can all agree there's something wrong with sex in our culture now," she said.

Welsch listed pornography, mass media and societal messages about sexual freedom as misleading and damaging to people's relationships.

She said high divorce rates, sexually transmitted diseases and individual unhappiness are often the effects of a premarital sex culture.

"There are a lot of dead people walking around in life," she said. "Why are people falling into these lifestyles?"

In her opinion, Welsch said, having multiple sexual relationships over time diminishes people's ability to create long-term, intimate relationships with others.

She compared relationships to scotch tape. During sex your body releases chemicals that cause an emotional attachment, she said. That emotional bond is like tape.

If you keep taking the same piece of tape and applying and reapplying it to different people over and over again, it eventually loses its stickiness.

In the same way, the strength of the bond you experience through sex is diminished each time you have another partner, Welsch said.

The best way to develop a long-lasting relationship and a marriage, she said, is to transition first from a friendship to a dating relationship, then to marriage and sexuality.

"Sex is great. Sex is good," she said. "But guidelines will make it better."

Jeffrey Malkoon, a global studies sophomore, attended the group's first meeting with friends.

"It offers a different point of view - a different ideology," Malkoon said. "I don't hear this anywhere else. It was pretty intense."

Camou said she expected a small turnout Tuesday, but hopes to garner more student interest as the club holds more events throughout the year.

She says the group isn't just about abstinence or virginity, but about leading a healthy and happy sexual lifestyle.

"We can't make people's choices," Welsch said. "We're just trying to empower people with knowledge."