Sex and the University: Celebrity, Controversy, and a Student Journalism Revolution

8. My College Paper Was Not Like That! The Journalistic Legacy of the Student Sex Column

That some of this information . . . makes some of our readers uneasy is absolutely no justification for censoring or limiting it. Quite the contrary, if the language and subject matter are causing a stir among readers, it may mean that we are stretching beyond the bounds of the mundane and truly reaching an unexplored but powerful issue. STAFF EDITORIAL “Free Speech . . . And Sex,” Flat Hat, February 24, 2006 McLean Robbins wanted student readers to know one thing during the two years she wrote the “She Said” sex column for the Old Gold & Black at Wake Forest University: She had no interest in their genital warts, venereal diseases (VD), or erectile dysfunction (ED). “There was this whole vibe out there that I was supposed to be an expert, a sexpert of some sort,” she said. “You know, that I could identify on sight every type of VD in the book and spout out cures for ED from memory or, like, be able to tell students what’s up with their genital warts.” Her reaction: “I don’t know what’s up with your genital warts! My father’s a physician, so if I wanted to know what was up with genital warts, I’d ask him, or I’d call an ob-gyn. . . . I’m not an expert. I don’t want to be one. It was like, ‘Sorry, I’m just a college student.’” The start of Erin Kaplan’s first Michigan Daily sex column began with a similar apology. “I regret to inform you,” the piece stated. “I must preface this first column by saying that you should not, under any circumChapter Title Chapter Subtitle 160 8 My College Paper Was Not Like That! The Journalistic Legacy of the Student Sex Column stance, listen to me. I know nothing. I have had one short-lived and not very fulfilling relationship and a few not-so-romantic one-night stands. I know little about sex and even less about love or relationships. I have no idea what the hell I’m doing.”1 A small number of columnists do back up their sexpert status with a traditional set of qualifications. For example, Kathy Greaves began writing “Ask Dr. Sex” for the Daily Barometer while a doctoral student and instructor in human sexuality at Oregon State University, continuing after she earned her degree. On the East Coast, Yvonne Fulbright wrote “Sexpert Tells All” for New York University’s Washington Square News while a doctoral candidate in international community health education. It built on her master’s degree in human sexuality education and special recognition she received from the U.S. surgeon general. Meanwhile, in her first “Sex and Balances” column for the Cavalier Daily at the University of Virginia, Lisa Hermann joked that as a fourth-year medical student she had become used to serving as a source of “free medical advice” to family, friends, and hospital patients. Other columnists tout relevant experience as peer health educators and through academic concentrations in human sexuality, sexual health, medicine, and gender studies.2 In general, however, according to the Associated Collegiate Press, “most of the sex columns are written by student journalists or columnists who don’t have, other than their own dating experience, any clinical training in sex education.” This admittedly deficient knowledge base is at the crux of everything columnists champion as right and critics decry as wrong with sex column content. In the latter camp, the disapproval focuses on the potentially harmful ramifications of inexpert students providing misinformation , relying on outdated stereotypes, and, as a press report noted, “playing loose with the facts and not doing their homework.” Critics call columnists “non-professional novices,” “baby pundits,” and “undergraduate imitators” of sex and health experts such as Dr. Ruth and established social advice mavens like Dan Savage and Candace Bushnell. “An important difference, though, separates Dr. Ruth and Bushnell,” the Atlantic Monthly reported. “The writer of a college column usually has little experience and no special knowledge. . . . And that’s where the columnists come in—putting up a brave front, pretending to knowledge and experience that they don’t necessarily have.”3 JOURNALISTIC LEGACY OF THE SEX COLUMN 161 162 SEX AND THE UNIVERSITY Students’ main counter to the criticism: There is no fronting of any kind. As embodied by Kaplan’s column confession and Robbins’s anti-genital declaration, most student writers passionately flee...