thursday, april 15, 2004
the university daily kansan 3A
news
3A
Psychology student helps friends with relationships
By Samia Khan skhan@kansan.com Kansan staff writer
Every face in the crowd and every name in the phone book has a story behind it. Every week, Kansan staff writer Samia Khan tells the story of a randomly selected KU student.
Sex and relationships have been on Jessi Crowder's mind for as long as she can remember. She remembers having her first crush in kindergarten. It was at that age when she called boys at all hours of the day, asking them to come out and play just so she could spend some time with them and maybe sneak a kiss.
The Overland Park freshman is studying psychology at the University of Kansas with the intention of becoming a sex and relationships therapist. Crowder has been giving relationship advice to friends and acquaintances for years. She said she has always interested in and open about sexuality, partly because of her own curiosity and partly because of her upbringing.
Crowder's roommate, Andrea Bridges, said that up to five peo-
"I've always been obsessed with seeing how boys and girls interacted," she said.
pie come into their dorm room every week to ask Crowder for relationship advice. Bridges, Lenexa freshman, said Crowder is a good listener and always tries to understand the relationship. Faces in the Crowd
In her close group of high school friends, Crowder known as sexually knowledgeable and as a good therapist.
After continually advising her friends how to be open and honest in their relationships, she realized that giving such advice was what she wanted to do with her life. She said she still believes that almost every relationship can be worked out.
Bridges to buy porn for her.
"I was so embarrassed," Bridges said. "She would go up to the clerks and say 'Do you have Playgirl? We need Playgirl.'"
Although her sexual nature was known to her friends, she said the rest of her peers thought she was a good girl who always got straight As.
Annie Barnethv/Kansan
Jessi Crowder, Overland Park freshman, wants to be a sex therapist. Crowder said she was obsessed with understanding relationships, especially the sexual aspect.
Bridges, who went to the same high school as Crowder, didn't get to know Crowder until the end of their senior year. She said until that point she always thought Crowder was the average smart and friendly high school student. It wasn't until the first time the two really hung out that Bridges knew how open Crowder was. Crowder was 17 and Bridges was 18. That night Crowder asked
The good girl is an image that Crowder still wants, and she doesn't think it's contradictory to her sexual curiosity. She said she limits sex to monogamous relationships.
Crowder said her sexuality could be attributed to a healthy and open upbringing. Crowder is used to using words such as "clitoris" and "penis" with her parents, a habit that often catches her friends off guard.
Her father, Ed Crowder, said that once Jessi and her siblings were old enough, he and his wife were not afraid to talk honestly about sex.
"We wanted them to understand everything, so we talked to them like they were people," her father said.
He said he and his wife set goals and limitations, but wanted their children to be free spirits. Both of Crowder's parents support her mission to be a sex therapist. It is that combination of structure and freedom to which Crowder credits her success in life, school and her enjoyment of sex.
Although Crowder has no dif
ficulty being in tune with other people's relationships, she said she sometimes has trouble with her own. She has trouble breaking up with boyfriends and tends to force them to break up with her by behaving erratically.
Sex is an important foundation for every relationship, she said.
Crowder worries about couples who save sex for marriage, but understands their decision.
The promiscuous college attitude toward sex especially concerns Crowder. She said she worries about the number of one-night stands and STDs at the University as much as she worries
about abstinence.
Both abstinent and promiscuous relationships have the potential for problems, Crowder said.
"I see it and think, maybe I'll see you all down the road in my office someday," she said.
— Edited by Robert Perkins
Modern 'Darwin' to give lecture tonight at Lied Center
By Jesse Truesdale
jtruesdale@kansan.com
Kansan staff writer
gists and philosophers.
Edward O. Wilson, renowned environmentalist and biologist, will speak tonight at the Lied Center. Wilson's speech, "The Future of Life," takes its name from his most recent book, which describes the Earth's deteriorating environmental situation and what can be done about it.
Leonard Kristalka, director of the University of Kansas Natural History Museum, said that it was important for students to hear Wilson because he is one of the country's most eminent biolo-
"Some have called him this generation's Darwin," Krishtalka said.
Chris Michener, professor emeritus of entomology, said Wilson was "a talented writer and excellent speaker," and that Wilson was responsible for major contributions to thought and theory in evolutionary science.
Wilson
Krishtalka echoed similar sentiments about Wilson's contributions to his field.
"I think his writings and lectures are extremely powerful and provocative, and if anyone can turn people on to the importance of protecting the environment, Wilson can do that," he said.
Two of Wilson's books, Sociobiology and On Human Nature, published in the '70s, formed the basis for two new branches of science, sociobiology and evolutionary psychology, Krishtalka said.
When it first came out, Sociobiology inspired controversy in the scientific community for its central idea, that biology influences culture and behavior.
What fueled the controversy was a distorted exaggeration of Wilson's theory, Kristalalka said, which sprang from the political motives of Wilson's Marxist colleagues. Other scientists such as late fellow Harvard professor Stephen Jay Gould claimed that Wilson's theory said biology was responsible for all of human behavior.
Such an outlook leads to eugenics and Nazism, they said. In 1978, at the height of the controversy, an angry colleague dumped a pitcher of ice water over Wilson's head at an academic conference. Since then, Wilson's ideas have been vindicated through research.
Wilson's appearance is part of the Hall Center for Humanities 2003-
Wilson won two Pulitzer prizes; one for On Human Nature in 1978, and another, shared with co-author Bert Holldobler, for The Ants, in 1991.
Victor Bailey, director of the Hall Center for the Humanities, said one of Wilson's lasting intellectual contributions was his 1998 book Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge. In it, Wilson argued that humanities and science should not be thought of as two wholly different domains, because they share the same fundamental concern—the human condition.
WILSON'S EVENTS
Edward O. Wilson, Pulitzer Prize winning writer, environmentalist and biologist.
Lecture, "The Future of Life" 7 tonight at the Lied Center Colloquium
Wilson on his book Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge
10 a.m. tomorrow at the Summerfield Room in the Adams Alumni Center
2004 Humanities Lectures Series.
—Edited by Paul Kramer