The Problem With ‘Friends With Benefits’
Is having “friends with benefits” a bad idea for college students? This week’s guest columnist thinks so — and suggests campus counseling centers aren’t doing enough to address the problem.
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Heather was troubled. A normally upbeat 19-year-old college student, Heather had started having crying spells seemingly for no reason. Her grades were good, friends and family supportive. Still…
Miriam Grossman, MD, a psychiatrist at UCLA who began counseling Heather, investigated a little more. She found out, eventually, that Heather had a “friend with benefits” who never wanted to go out to dinner or the movies, things the girl wanted to do. He just wanted, well, what he wanted. “I’m confused,” Heather said, “because it seems like I don’t get the ‘friend’ part, but he gets the ‘benefits.’”
Heather probably doesn’t realize just how lucky she was to have gotten Grossman as a counselor. Grossman knows, and documents in her book, Unprotected, that most of the guidance given college students at campus counseling centers is so locked into a liberal, politically correct mindset that it’s probably useless, and possibly harmful.
Grossman reports on a psychological no man’s land strewn with the bruised psyches of today’s young adults. They are victims of a campus culture in which the dogmas of secular humanism reign. It had never even occurred to Heather that her relationship with the boy might have been harming her. It probably wouldn’t have occurred to most college counselors, either. As Grossman puts it: “Central is the dogma that desires are ‘needs,’ to be acted upon and satisfied; that behaviors that are considered aberrant by society and medicine are natural, while self-restraint is not; that regular sexual behavior – with or without a committed relationship – is necessary and healthy; and that any and all these activities can be free of consequences, as long as they’re ‘protected.’ But believing doesn’t make it so.”
Unprotected focuses primarily on women, because 70 percent of the students who seek help are females trapped in a culture that refuses to acknowledge the inherent differences between the sexes. “Lawrence Summers, ex-president of Harvard, suggested that the minds of men and women may be different,” Grossman writes. “That’s how he became ex-president.”
She knew that her thesis bucked the politically correct sensibilities of campus tenured radicals. She feared professional reprisal so much that the book was printed listing the author as “Anonymous, M.D.” Grossman later decided to reveal her identity on Dr. Laura Schlessinger’s radio program.
She packs a lot into 151 pages (not counting pages of footnotes). She offers case studies of students who don’t realize that their casual hook-ups and spiritual deprivation might – just might – be the reasons for self-mutilation and eating disorders. For any counselor to suggest, for instance, that practicing religion has proven to be a deterrent to depression means bucking the hippie-dippie, loosey-goosey, I’m-OK-you’re-OK-let’s-fornicate culture that counselors too easily capitulate to. Instead of saying that perhaps it might not be healthy to have multiple sexual encounters, the party line is “safe sex.”
However, just making sure that a hook-up won’t lead to pregnancy or venereal disease isn’t enough because it’s becoming clear that, as Grossman puts it, “there is no condom for the heart.”
Grossman cites recent studies about oxytocin, a female hormone that acts as a messenger from the brain to the uterus and breasts “to induce labor and let down milk.” It creates a need to bond that is released during sexual activity and might be the reason women often fall hard for their “friends.” Yet, counseling services do not warn female students that they may be more emotionally vulnerable than their male partners.
“I submit that the notion of being designed to bond is to some an unwelcome finding,” writes Grossman. “It implies that sexual activity, especially in women, might be more complex than, say, working out. . . . Psychology is strongly biased toward liberal views; do the actions of oxytocin threaten the feminist agenda? I can think of no other explanation for the failure of this research to make headlines.”
Another area where campus counselors fail students is the push for HIV prevention. Or HIV hype, rather. Grossman tells the story of Sophia, a film student who finds that her husband cheated on her. Sophia is hysterical, frightened to death that she contracted AIDs because of Ken’s infidelity.
Grossman does the math, starting with the possibility that Ken had sex with an HIV infected woman. It’s remote. She goes further, breaking down all the possibilities to conclude that Sophia’s “chances of being HIV-positive are about 1 in 500 million. And yes, that is less than the risk of her being hit by lightning. What a waste of a nervous breakdown. Poor Sophia is a wreck – and for what? This week from hell happened only because everywhere my patient turns, she’s fed distortions.”
That is, everywhere Sophia turns on campus she sees posters warning that, “anyone can get HIV.” That, says Grossman, may be “technically correct, but profoundly misleading, because all the ‘anybodies’ have widely varying risks of getting it, probably a million-fold differences.”
That some lifestyle choices greatly increase the risk is deemed too politically incorrect to mention. Brian, a gay student who has had multiple partners, isn’t as worried as he should be.
“Brian has told me about his dangerous behavior,” Grossman writes. “As we speak, he may be highly infectious, with a virus level that’s through the roof.” Yet, because of a fear of offending sensibilities, Grossman’s treatment options are limited. She urges him to get tested, or at least tell the man he lives with that he has had other partners. Brian says that he’ll get around to it – someday.
Contrast that with how a foreign exchange student at risk for tuberculosis is handled. “If Tom recently lived with an infected relative and was never screened, I am expected to give him a tuberculin skin test. It it’s positive, he gets a chest X-ray. This is standard medical care. If the skin test and X-ray lead me to suspect that Tom may have tuberculosis, I am obligated by law to report him to the Department of Health, and I have one working day to do so.”
Can you say “double standard?”
Grossman not only asks tough questions throughout, she attempts to answer them. For instance, she devotes a chapter on why college counseling services do not even acknowledge that women and men might feel traumatized after an abortion. This has nothing to do with whether someone is pro- or anti-abortion. It is simply addressing a need.
“Will someone please explain to me, why does psychology, in its quest to identify and counsel every victim of possible child abuse, sexual harassment, or hurricanes, leave no stone unturned, and then go berserk at the suggestion that maybe, maybe, some – not all, but some – women and men hurt for a long, long time after abortion, and they too need our help?”
This is great stuff.
Frank Diamond is a freelance writer in Langhorne, PA.
Professors cry: ‘We get no respect’
Are today’s professors apathetic clock-watching lounge lizards? Or are they dedicated professionals who feel progressively undervalued with each passing year?
Take a look at what this week’s guest columnist – a professor – has to say.
Do you have a view you’d like to express on a Higher Ed topic? We’d like to hear your opinion. Click here for submission guidelines.
Are today’s professors apathetic clock-watching lounge lizards? Or are they dedicated professionals who feel progressively undervalued with each passing year?
Take a look at what this week’s guest columnist – a professor – has to say.
Read the rest of this entry »
The views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect the views of HigherEdMorning.com
Wendy Shalit got a strange greeting when she visited Swarthmore College earlier this month. Ms. Shalit is the author of Girls Gone Mild, a call to modesty that bucks the ideal of the supposedly “liberated women” celebrated on college campuses.
“As I was walking in for my speech I heard ‘OK, go — do it!’” Ms. Shalit recalled in an e-mail exchange. “I turned around and two girls near me looked at me pointedly and then started to make out, apparently to try to shock me since the rumor on campus was that I was ‘homophobic’ (by virtue of favoring modesty). I’m just curious if the Swarthmore student body typically welcomes gay speakers by choreographing heterosexuals to make out right under the speaker’s nose. My guess is probably not, since that would be considered ‘offensive.’”
The subtitle of Ms. Shalit’s book, Young Women Reclaim Self-Respect and Find It’s Not Bad to be Good, is also the theme, and apparently is enough to get you branded all sorts of nasty names at Swarthmore. Ms. Shalit was frequently interrupted, booed, and ridiculed.
Suggest that the hyper-sexual behavior that young women are goaded into these days might not, actually, be physically, emotionally, or spiritually healthy for them, and you’re automatically a target. However, what Ms. Shalit has discovered in speaking across the country is that many girls, in secret, welcome her message.
“There are so many young women who long for a dating scene and simply the right to get to know someone before jumping into bed, and they literally think there is something wrong with them,” says Ms. Shalit. “It’s pretty sad. However, the best part of my book coming out is that one of them started a Facebook group and now the girls who have higher standards can form alliances and know that they’re not alone. There was a girl who was actually considering overdosing on pills because her friends were making fun of her so much when she decided to leave the hookup/party scene — and she started to believe some of the things they were saying about her — but instead she joined our Facebook group and now she has some new friends.”
Any parent of a teenage girl knows what that child faces. The dirty old men who control our television, movie, and music industries continually pummel young women with a hedonistic message. If you choose to not participate in the “I’m OK, you’re OK, let’s fornicate” scene, then there must be something wrong with you.
“There are so many young people out there who value modesty and dignity — but these students tend to be intimidated by a vocal minority who is always on the attack,” says Ms. Shalit. “I think it’s really key to remember that just because people are outspoken and loud, they don’t speak for everyone — not even the majority necessarily. We tend to forget this in an exhibitionist-driven society.”
Sure enough, a day or two after Ms. Shalit’s speech, the e-mails from Swarthmore students began arriving.
One young woman wrote: “I am not a crazy partier and I consider myself a very strong woman, but I guess I still really needed to know that I am not alone in wanting to be authentic and claim my boundaries. I went out to a party last night and for the first time in a long time I felt like it was okay for me to get dressed up the way that felt good to ME and not because of how other people might think I looked. THAT is what it is to be a truly liberated woman!”
Another said that, “it was really nice to hear you say some things that I identify with, especially the fact that if someone is modest or is waiting for the right guy, it doesn’t mean that they’re uncomfortable with their body or sexuality, a prude, or repressed. That’s something I hear a lot, even if it’s not personally directed to me.”
Another young woman said that she was appalled and ashamed by the rude behavior of her fellow students. “I think that your ideas and the points that you made were so interesting, and this has honestly been the first time I’ve actually heard anyone speak of modesty in such a positive light…. It was really comforting to … learn that there are others dealing with this issue as well.”
Yes, and I’m one of them. As the father of a 15-year-old girl, the perfect ending would be that I bought Girls Gone Mild and my child began reading it. I have ordered the book, but it hasn’t arrived. My sneaky plan has yet to be tested.
However, there’s evidence that it could work. The other night, I picked my daughter up from a friend’s house.
“What did you do?” I asked.
“Watched an old movie.”
“Such as?”
“Breakfast at Tiffany’s.”
The star, Audrey Hepburn, had made a deep impression on my daughter. The actress was beautiful, elegant, graceful.
“And modest?” I suggested.
No response, but no matter. The seed had been planted.
Frank Diamond is a freelance writer in Langhorne, PA.
I’m OK, you’re OK – let’s fornicate
Many female college students today feel there’s something wrong with them if they’re unwilling to casually jump into bed with someone. Has the concept of the ‘liberated woman’ gone too far?
This week’s guest columnist thinks it has – and agrees with those who say it’s time for a renewed call to modesty.
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