“I was just over guys… so over guys.”
Now after a year of celibacy, she’s ready to jump back into the game.
Sarah Hill (not her real name) was tired of the same-ol’ casual, drunken sex she encountered during the weekends out on the town in Dunedin.
A fourth year student, Hill has had her fair share of dating, long-term relationships, and casual sex. She and her friends capture what sex is like for the typical Scarfie and they learn over time that safe sex is better sex.
Most often, Hill meets her suitors through mutual friends. Her friends, however, have a more modern approach. While Hill does use social media apps, such as Tinder, to meet new people and chat to others she already knows, she has never arranged to meet anyone off the site. Aside from Tinder, her friends often use other apps like Snapchat and Instagram to arrange casual sex with people they know.
According to Otago lecturer Dr Rosemary Overell, social media users will create a profile which brands and commodifies themselves. Everything is carefully curated and performed to a particular identity. In order to attract a desired match, self-branding is very important.
When Hill’s friends do arrange to meet someone from social media, they will often invite the person to a bar along with other friends. Hill describes this as a trial period. They will decide whether they like the person, with the safety net of friends around for support. If the guy passes the test, Hill’s friend will take them home. If not, the group of friends will often move on to another bar.
Hill's flatmates have quite "diverse" sex lives, she said. Out of the five, most are sexually active, one isn't and another "doesn't mind sleeping around." The latter flatmate also has an array of toys delivered to the flat every so often. Hill said she has "crazy, wild sex" with one, familiar partner.
“Sex is better in a relationship," Hill insisted. "It's better with somebody that cares for you and that you're comfortable with. It's something more than just having fun."
Developmental Psychologist Jesse Bering doesn’t necessarily agree. He said that while sex can be more comfortable with a familiar sex partner, casual sex with someone who you don’t know as well can be exciting. "I think in terms of pure lust and arousal, casual sex can be much stronger in that sense. In terms of just that visceral, animalistic sort of pleasure,” Bering said. He said this could be because you don't have a sense of who that person is, they are just a body.
“Over the course of a relationship, you get to know more intimately the psychology of the person. Who they are as an individual, what's happening in their mind as you're having sex with them,” Bering said.
Bering is an Associate Professor at the University of Otago and currently studies religion, but he has studied sex a great deal in the past. He’s the author of popular science articles for Scientific American and Slate. In 2013, he published a book, Perv, about sexual deviancy.
Bering said if he could design a sexual education programme for students before coming to university he would emphasize more comprehensive education about sex in an evolutionary framework.
Where he is from in the U.S. the education is all about instilling fear, and warning people of the dangers of sex. While that is important, Bering said, there is no theoretical context around it. He would rather see things explained more deeply.
In his essays for Scientific American, Bering has written on subjects like female ejaculation and the function of an orgasm. These are things he said he wish he would have known before going to university. “I think if I knew then what I know now, my life would have been very different,” he said. “I would have been operating with a lot less fear, anxiety and concern and worrying if I’m different.”
Sexual education at high school can be quite lacking, which Bering believes can lead to an increase in unsafe sexual activity and unintended pregnancies. “My sense is that abstinence-only education would prompt, ironically, riskier sexual decision making and actually lead to the outcomes that they’re explicitly designed to prevent” Bering said. According to Bering, when you leave questions about sex unanswered, and when it’s presented as sacred, it has the potential to make young people more attracted to sex.
One of Hill's friends had a pregnancy scare sometime last year. She was worried sick that her and her boyfriend’s unprotected sex had resulted in an undesired pregnancy. She took a pregnancy test and the result came back negative. Though she was relieved, she felt her boyfriend was in need of a scare too. So she told him she was pregnant anyway.
As far as contraception goes, many female students, according to Hill, take a birth control pill. “I think everyone in my flat is on the pill,” Hill said. Though she’s aware of other methods, she gets her birth control pill prescription at Student Health and she also uses condoms to help prevent any STIs.
Student Health Services confirmed the combined oral contraceptive pill as the most common method of contraception for female students. Katherine Martin, a Practice Nurse at Student Health, says there are other contraceptive options available for students, including progesterone only contraceptive pill, Depo-Provera injections, IUDs and condom prescription.
Student Health has doctors, nurses, counsellors, a psychiatrist, and a health educator available to students. In 2015, Student Health had 528 total visits for sexual health related appointments. However, Martin believes this number may be skewed by patients who attend for other health concerns, and also receive sexual health care while they are there.
Student Health offers testing for sexually transmitted infections, cervical screening for women, and pregnancy tests. The most common screening test, provided that the patient is not engaging in risky sex and is not showing any symptoms, is for chlamydia and gonorrhoea. The tests are very simple and easy, according to Martin.
If a patient does show symptoms or has a high-risk sexual history, further testing is available. This includes screening for other STIs such as syphilis or herpes, and viruses like HIV.
Martin insists that to ensure students have safe sex they should use condoms, and be tested regularly for STIs.
Martin believes that some students tend to avoid Student Health because of misinformation or incorrect preconceived ideas. “They don’t realise that a routine STI screen is as easy as just passing a little bit of urine in a pot (for males) and a self-swab (for females),” Martin said. She does believe the culture is changing around sexual health and is becoming less stigmatised.
Hill said she and her flatmates do get tested regularly at Student Health. She considers it an important part of being sexually active.
Bering emphasised that, along with condoms and other forms of contraception, communication is an integral part of safe sex. Being open and honest with your partner regarding your sexual history and any sexual health issues is important for their health and safety.
Bering offers the same advice for students wanting the most pleasurable sex. “If you can find someone you're comfortable with, someone you can laugh about sex with I think that's a good sign of compatibility,” Bering said.
To be able to discuss openly with your partner about what turns you on, and what doesn’t is important for a healthy sexual relationship. "If you’re constantly worried about that person leaving you or judging you if you share what you're really into that's probably an indication that you're not with the right person,” Bering said.
For students who are struggling with relationship issues, counsellors who are trained in sexual health and sexuality are available through Student Health. Martin said those problems are not uncommon at university. The counsellors can help students with anything from family problems to issues of mental health. Counsellors also work with international students to clarify any cultural differences they may have when it comes to sex and relationships.
Each year the health educator from Student Health provides training to RAs in the Otago residential colleges. The health educator also gives an orientation talk to the first-year students at many colleges. Topics covered include sexual consent and responsible drinking at university.
A 2012 study in the New Zealand Medical Journal looked at the sexual behaviors of New Zealand university students. The study was motivated by a lack of information on tertiary students and their sexual health and a growing concern for the impact of their common risky drinking. “Adverse sexual experiences associated with drinking are fairly common on university campuses,” according to the New Zealand Medical Journal.
Risky sex was defined as having a high number of sexual partners and negative outcomes of sexual experiences and behaviors, such as STIs and unintended pregnancies and terminations. The prevalence of risky sex was also associated with the chaotic lifestyle at university with heavier drinking.
New Zealand has a high rate of chlamydia and STIs compared to other developed countries. This is likely associated with a failure to use condoms. Condoms are easily accessible in New Zealand, being highly subsidised and available free at family planning clinics or by prescription. It could be that alcohol use is a contributing factor to people not using proper protection.
Of the students studied, New Zealand Medical Journal found that most male students made their “sexual debut” at age 16, and age 17 for female students. Only 54 percent of students used condoms the last time they had sex, and the older students are, the less likely they are to use condoms. 32 percent of those studied said they were also drinking during their most recent sexual encounter.
The researchers also found in a previous study that New Zealand students drink more heavily compared to their peers who are not at university. The study cited a 2005 survey which found “New Zealand students frequently attributed unsafe, unhappy, and unwanted sexual experiences from drinking.”
This same experience was part of the reason Hill decided give up sex for a year of celibacy. During this time, she found that she wasn’t hopping into bed with just anyone. She realised that a lot of guys she would have slept with the year before were only wanting a physical relationship when she wanted something more serious.
Though she’s enjoyed her year-long break and she’s learned a lot about herself, she’s excited to be back in the dating world and to be having sex again. She plans to meet up with someone she’s been chatting to on Tinder soon for the first time.