Section B·Page 6
The University Daily Kansan
Wednesday, November 10, 1999
Entertainment
Religion, threat of regret lead some to abstain
By Jessie Meyer
Special to the Kansan
There are some people who see the best sex as no sex at all — at least for right now.
In a time when teenagers experiment with sexual behavior, it hurts Amanda McMillion, Albuquerque, N.M., sophomore, to encounter women who are having sex before they are married.
"I don't understand why they feel they have to," McMillion said.
Most students who have chosen to abstain from sex until marriage do so because of strong religious beliefs or because they view sexual activity as something precious
People who abstain define sex as more than just sexual intercourse. They see it as a bond, both spiritually and emotionally.
that it should be shared only with a person they truly love.
and enchantment.
"I love God, and God wants me to wait," Iwoan Sadu,神父。
Mead's girlFriend, K.C. Nodgaard, Wichita,
senior, agrees.
Neither intends to have sex until after they are married because of their religious beliefs and the feelings they have for each other.
"We want to keep each other pure," Mead said.
Kristin Field, Bedford, Texas, senior, said
it was Dennis Dalley's class on human sexuality that made her feelings on premarital abstinence stronger. She said she walked away from his class knowing that it would be hard to find someone she could share something as special as sex with. Field said during the class she became more aware of her sexuality, and her views on sex changed a lot.
"I believed what I was taught, that you shouldn't have sex before marriage," Field said. "But it's my decision now."
And making this decision doesn't mean that it's an easy resolution to keep. Those who choose abstinence experience the same urges that everyone else feels.
"It's a difficult thing." Mead said. "Gou gave us passions."
Beside passion and desires associated with relationships, there are other more powerful societal pressures to pair off, hook up and hop into bed. But, Mead and Gearheart both said that sticking to their decisions was much easier when the person other person in the relationship thought the same way.
This decision is not right for everyone, and some say that those who abstain remain minorities in today's society.
"God loves you, whether you abstain or don't abstain." Mead said.
McMillion said that she knew people who
abstained and many who didn't, but they all tried to support everyone's decisions. That doesn't keep her from worrying, though.
"They just do it because they do, and they have regrets," McMillion said. "They feel used or they feel dirty."
Avoiding feelings of regret and shame is part of the reason that McMillion said she has chosen to wait. That, along with a strong belief in her religion, has led her and others to save this kind of intimacy for marriage.
"Just because I am adamant about sexual abstinence doesn't mean that I am against sex," McMillion said. "I just think it's an awesome gift, and it needs to be at the right time."
Culture and media shape foreign views of sex in the United States
By Katie Nelson and Hiroshi Takehara Special to the Kanan
While attending school in the United States, international students get new perspectives on American culture. Americans' views on sex can be difficult for some foreign students to understand.
"The image of America, as portrayed by the media, is that there are people that are very slutty, but the majority aren't," said Monique Melara, Brazil freshman.
She said it was perplexing seeing movies and television shows in Brazil that portrayed life in the United States. Melara thought they were exaggerations. However, once she started attending the University of Kansas, she found that was not necessarily true.
"It seems whatever the media wants, eventually becomes culture here," she said.
Melara said Brazilians were not as conservative as those in the United States, and people in Brazil were a lot more open about sex.
However, openness about sex has a major connection with religion in other countries, said Asma Reman, who recently spent six months in her native country, Pakistan.
Reman said that in the United States and at the University, people's views about sex are more open because of a lack of religious influence.
"With morality issues there isn't that much of a difference between culture and religion," she said. "Modesty is a big issue, and it's not considered modest to talk about sex in the open. Islam is not just a religion, it is a way of life."
"America isn't a religious country," Reman said.
"When you think of America you don't think of Christians. It's a melting pot where one is not required to follow the rules of religion."
Faisal Mirza, Pakistan senior, agreed that openness about sex in U.S. culture was the biggest difference.
"Americans are open-minded, but Pakistani are conservative about having, and talking about, sex," he said.
Pakistan senior
"Modesty is a big issue, and it's not considered modest to talk about sex in the open. Islam is not just a religion, it is a way of life."
Asma Reman
His view on sex comes from his Muslim background, not his own opinion.
Mirza said the seriousness dealing with sexual practices was related to virginity.
But he said religious control on sex was too strict in his country because it oppressed free expression.
"If you want a good marriage, you have to be a virgin," he said.
"I prefer American openness about sex because America is an open society and not based on religion," Mirza said.
He said sex should not be a secret issue.
Although he learned about sex in Pakistan, his visual image of sex came mostly from America and Western countries. He said pornography was not allowed to be aired on television or be sold at bookstores in Pakistan. However, some Pakistani got pornography from underground.
"We should be allowed to express our ideas freely, and sex is one of them," he said.
Junya Naganuma, Tokyo Applied English Center student, sees some differences between the American view and the Japanese view on sex. He said Japanese were more conservative in their view of sex than Americans.
"My culture affects my thinking on sex," he said. Naganuma has been in America for two years. He said he was surprised to see publicity of sexual nature. He said he found sexually-related words and crimes in the American newspapers almost everyday.
"It is hard to read the American newspapers with
out finding sex and rape," he said. "I am not sure of the difference in the number of sexual crimes between America and Japan, but in Japan publishing sexual crimes in the newspaper is very uncommon. And it is hard to find rape in the Japanese newspaper."
He said the amount of sex-crime articles published in the United States were different from the amount published in Japan, so Japanese readers would react differently to the articles.
He said even a small, sexual misconduct would receive nation-wide publicity because Japanese were less accustomed to sexual crimes than Americans.
"If I find an article on a sexual crime in the Japanese newspaper my eyes widen in surprise," he said.
He said although sex was a private issue and Japanese tended to keep sexual issues secret, pornography and videotapes were more accessible in Japan than in America. He said that the Japanese regulation on airing pornography was less strict than American regulation.
"Some Japanese broadcasting stations a nude woman not only at midnight but also during the daytime," he said.
When it comes to the business of sex,he said strip clubs and underground prostitution were more abundant in Japan than America.
"Morality prevents Japanese from conducting sexual misconduct, but business mentality overrides morality," he said.
—Edited by Kelly Harvey
Illustration by Jason Williams / KANSAN
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