On a college campus, one might think that sex is the main meal of the day.
In fact, one might think that it’s the dessert and the appetizer too.
However I feel like the sex that we “consume,” isn’t necessarily always best for us. Or the most important.
Sex these days is seen as a symbol of liberation, its glamorized in popular culture through every form of media possible.
In our personal lives, we focus on how to please our partners, and how to ensure our own fulfilment in the field, we never take the time to look deeper, into the darker interior of sex and the consequences.
This isn’t an article condemning the number of pregnant teenage girls, or the prevalence of STDs on our college campus (even though that is an issue that seriously needs to be addressed).
This is an article about the attitudes that young people seem to have about AIDS.
Being from Africa, I often can’t escape the issue of AIDS (since Western media has decided to make it the focus of its coverage of Africa, that and war, of course).
AIDS is deeply prevalent in Africa, I’m not about to dispute that.
According to cabsa.org there are 33.3 million people in the world today living with AIDS.
Statistics from avert.com state that 22.5 million of those people reside in Sub-Saharan Africa.
The highest numbers being in countries like Lesotho, Botswana, Swaziland, Nigeria, Zambia and my homeland, Zimbabwe. It’s not like I’m trying argue with these statistics.
I am trying to address the stereotype that states that AIDS is an African problem, and that we as youth in America don’t need to be concerned with such a foreign issue.
We, as students, are all aware of the levels of promiscuity in this school.
I often ask myself if people here are not aware of the devastating effects of their actions.
And I have often heard that because there is easy access to medication here in the States, youth are not so concerned with STDs or HIV.
I wonder if most people are aware that more than a million people are infected with the disease in the States, a fifth of whom are unaware of their infection, and thus more likely to transmit it to others.
In 2009 alone, Avert statistics estimated that a person was infected here every nine and a half minutes.
These numbers are all still growing.
With those sorts of figures, I really wish that people would take more care in their choice of sex partners and the frequency of their exploits.
It may not distress (or surprise) people so much to find out that New York has the highest rates, along with Los Angeles, Baton Rouge and New Orleans.
We can still pretend that AIDS is something that affects people outside of our own immediate vicinity, until we find out that the fifth city on that list is Miami.
Yes, Miami.
AIDS is right outside our doorstep.
We need to take a moment to do some self-reflection and think about the attitudes that we have toward the disease, and towards sex in college.
I think that we can all contribute to the curbing (and eventual elimination) of this disease in our world.
Some ways to do so are to realize, and truly comprehend the severity of the issue in our own individual lives.
Get tested with each sexual partner, read up on STDs and their symptoms, use contraceptives, and most importantly, remain faithful to your sexual partner.
The Hook-up Culture that we have created as a generation has to stop.
Today.
There is too much at stake for us to continue engaging in such promiscuity.
AIDS is not just an African problem, its a global problem, and an American problem.
If we don’t take the time to combat it as young men and women in college, it will destroy our lives and communities when we leave.
In Africa, most of the 22.5 million people infected with AIDS don’t have access to good education.
We do.
We have no excuse for the levels of STDs and AIDS that we have on college campuses.
At some point the “fun” has to stop, and the responsibility has to begin.
Philippa Hatendi can be reached at phatendi@spartans.ut.edu.