Medical expert “Dr. Drew” Pinsky(corrected from Pensky on 7-26-07–ed.) is renowned across America as a leader in addressing issues affecting today’s youth. One such issue contains an artificial reality that has been constructed on campuses nationwide with the institutionalizing of “hooking-up.” Since the sexual revolution of the 60’s and the advent of contraception and “safe sex,” the mainstream youth have consistently clamored for more individual freedom while at the same time confronting the medical industry to tell the truth about the medical consequences of promiscuous behavior.
“Dr. Drew” appeared at the Rayburn House Office Building to shoot straight with an audience of college students at the annual “Campus Sex and Dating Conference,” hosted by the Independent Women’s Forum. Pinsky openly questioned students on the situation of campus promiscuity today, particularly how college females are affected.
Since 1983, public knowledge of the situation has made headway, Dr. Drew acknowledged, because the topics of STDs and “safe sex” were only whispers 25 years ago. Pinsky then attacked the organized hook-up college culture of today. “If it’s so cool,” he continued, “why load up before hand?” as he criticized the fact that most hook-up relationships in college happen during intoxication. The man, he added, gets intoxicated because the alcohol suppresses his anxiety, while the woman intoxicates herself to provide deniability of rationality for her actions. Such rash acts might make her vulnerable to be shunned by her girl friends. In both cases, Pinsky argues, the person abandons his or her core self, and thus there is no attachment between persons in the relationship. Not only is this “relationship” cheap, but it is harmful because it involves such degrading of individual integrity.
Rather, Pinsky maintained that the “date” is a much healthier choice for a relationship. In asking female members of the audience what they preferred in a relationship, the conclusion was that intimate dialogue and dates were much preferred to a purely physical relationship and the “unnatural intensity” of drug abuse and hooking up.
Disregarding moral dialogue, Pinsky decided to expose the entire issue and the medical facts surrounding it, and then have the youth find the solution to the problem. However, Dr. Drew did acknowledge that casual sex may be beneficial sometimes as a healthy release, just not as an organized event. Also, he did not address the psychology of promiscuity in “dating” relationships, whether a promiscuous relationship had a lesser chance of lasting than a relationship of abstinence.
Dr. Drew maintained some very effective points against the promiscuous culture on campuses today, but did not succeed in telling the entire story including some valuable statistics, leaving the moral decision up to the youth struggling against a formidable opponent. He also never did acknowledge the one 100% guarantee against STDs and unwanted pregnancies—
abstinence.
Matt Hadro is an intern at the American Journalism Center, a training program run by Accuracy in Media and Accuracy in Academia.
