Sex (how about love?) on Catholic campuses

...I'm never too sure what that phrase means...

...Often from rather conservative and protected backgrounds, nurtured in loving, often deeply traditional families, many of our women students are opened to new possibilities by our classes, by the example of our talented women faculty, campus ministers and staff, and by one another...

...Some good woman would put us first, care for home and children, follow our lead...

...The college's proclamations of dedication to social justice normally include references to sexism...

...Only top administrative posts remain a male preserve and gradually women faculty and staff are chipping away at the remnants of discrimination...

...Our young women, I fear, confront too many either/ors...

...A few years ago Phyllis Schlafly debated prochoice lawyer Sarah Weddington at Holy Cross...

...Men's athletic events are well attended, while women's are not...

...I recall how moved many students were a few years ago when a professor who had lost his wife to cancer told his students what marriage had been for them...

...Of course, I am familiar with the national statistics...

...Of course, there are some young women at the end of their senior year who will say that they, plan to work and mark time until they marry, and a few others who have all but given up on men...

...In my experience social scientists who deal with such matters tread carefully...

...Few men any longer make sexist comments in class...

...They are convinced-and who was ever not-that when Mr...

...For men, it sometimes seems, the major byproduct of the women's movement has been a reassertion of claims to dominance ranging from evangelical talk of "headship" to ever more sophisticated forms of pornography, adult "sex stereotypes" if you will...

...I admit I know very little about the sex lives of students...

...What can be done...

...Yes, love is still supremely important, but it requires constant renewal under conditions that demand greater patience, sacrifice, endurance, and commitment than anything our parents experienced...

...For that claim to be credible, we men will have to acknowledge finally that we have a stake in the women's movement, that we can be part of the solution, not simply the heart of the problem...

...Faced with choices between church and world, nature and supemature, even sex and love, Catholicism has usually tried to say both/and, not either/or...

...Apparently I am not alone...

...Gradually they shed their shyness in class and begin to challenge the very vocal male students...

...I recall the shocked hush that fell over our faculty assembly the day an older professor asked whether love might have a place in our tenure procedures...

...In my opinion the discipline itself is locked into an individualism that makes relationships seem like contracts...

...It may also involve more subtle forms of male dominance, such as failure to confront in any public way men's assumptions about how relationships are to be initiated and conducted...

...But as a faculty member what is most troubling to me is that, despite the removal of structural barriers, there remains a continuing chasm between men and women on concrete issues of relation-ship and career...

...According to a recent report to Notre Dame's president by a task force on "Marriage, Family, and Other Life Commitments," "human sexuality...

...No wonder social life remains male dominated...

...For a growing number of women, to surrender their aspira-tipn&to independence, work, and service would require denial of their deepest feelings about themselves...

...But those same students, male and female, lament the dating patterns at the college...

...Or will they even seek out such relationships if they risk loss of the very meaning of their personal, and therefore sexual, identity...

...No setting like this can be complacent where justice for women is concerned...

...Fourth, all of us who talk a lot about the new responsibilities of lay people in the church and in its social mission need to remember that people have to earn a living, that marriage and the raising of children require enormous investments of time and energy, and that there is not always time for ministry in the church or the community...

...Yet the threat of such surrender is implicit in that male-dominated social life...

...ON CATHOLIC CAMPUSES A PROVOCATION WITH FIVE RESPONSES when I arrived at Holy Cross almost twenty years ago, the college had just decided after a long, somewhat heated debate, to "go co-ed...

...Now we know better...

...I recall more than one occasion when a woman in junior or senior year fell in love, and could not decide whether her happiness was justified or likely to last as long as the young man did not understand her newfound ambition or appreciate her hard-won independence...

...Among our recent graduates and our faculty there are some simply remarkable young couples building strong marriages while helping, not hindering, each other in their work...

...the pervasive drinking, common here as elsewhere...

...It is strongly identified with its Jesuit tradition and a large majority of its students are Catholics...

...Few people are comfortable talking about love, especially married love...

...Society at large imposes these choices, but perhaps in our effort to affirm women and demand equality, we may do more of the same...

...But, in the real world in which they live, these women are continually told that they may eventually have to choose...

...First and most important, we will all have to recognize that, avoided as it so often is, sexuality is not our most taboo topic...

...Some even overcome the tough obstacles confronting women in the sciences...

...Now the student body is a little more than 50 percent female and an ever growing number of women faculty have played a major role in upgrading faculty standards...

...Submission...

...and such stereotypes cause mistrust between some women and men...

...I suspect they do -not understand, given the long history of discrimination against women, just how really remarkable are their four years at Holy Cross and their great ambitions...

...Women's stories, many of them, speak of emancipation from the constraints of such relationships...

...In that same real world, most men these women know think that kind of choice is a woman's problem, not theirs...

...When they do, will they be able to understand each other's feelings and needs...

...And no wonder that, as the Notre Dame report concludes, "some [students] have problems in developing healthy relationships with mem-bers of the opposite sex...

...They know there is a problem in having a career and a family, but they do not think, nor should they, that this is a matter of selfishly wanting "to have it all...

...The men students I know endorse the aspirations of their women friends...

...When we seek to define our respon-sibilities for Christian service, it is important to think of our-selves as couples and families...

...And they do so more systematically and with greater determination and savvy than most of their male counterparts...

...The best among them expect to share housework and child rearing, but few understand what that involves, especial ly at a time when business and professional life is more competitive and demand-ing than ever...

...But I admit that, confronted with the argument for public discussion of love, I pull back, as uneasy as we all felt that day when love intruded into discussion of tenure decisions...

...Most young men and women have yet to experi-ence the demands of a committed, faithful relationship...

...There are too few such moments...

...In the process marriage and family are devalued and concrete conditions and commitments needed for sexual intimacy are ignored...

...Role models, at Holy Cross as elsewhere, are business and professional people, not husbands and wives, though they may also be that...

...Much of this sounds familiar to those of us with our own combat stories to tell of the experience of women's liberation...

...Schlafly had the advantage with our overwhelmingly anti-abortion students, but when she argued that young women should stay home with their children and demand the husband's financial support, the students atfirst laughed uneasily and then peppered her with hostile questions...

...But the fact is, I am now in my twentieth year at Holy Cross and can recall only one or two serious conversations about sex with a Holy Cross student...

...Emasculation...

...I have a hunch that what is at stake in the uneasiness of women and the persistence of chauvinist attitudes among men is their own sense of integrity...

...For the men, in most cases, the image of how things will "work out" is not much different from what we males at Holy Cross and Notre Dame expected a generation ago...

...The universal popularity of Spuds Mackenzie is only one of a thousand indications of repressed fears that women will not adore, perhaps not even respect men as they are...

...Wanting the intimacy that can grow in marriage, and wanting children as the fruit of love, is more than one option among many...

...The transition went rela-tively smoothly...

...love is...

...Encouraged by their fathers (I am struck by how often women students speak first and most enthusiasti-cally of their dads) they expect to pursue careers...

...And alumni complaints ceased as they realized the benefits of sending their daughters as well as their sons to Holy Cross...

...The usual response to all I have described is: "women have a problem...

...Second, men can begin to speak a bit more openly about their experience...

...Even the still common courses on sexual ethics are often abstract and draw their experience quotient from polling data rather than real people...

...Loneliness...

...Not about the women-but the men, the men students and, beyond them all of us males trying to deal with the consequences of the awakening of women...

...Women have yet to communicate to the campus a popular alternative: one hears little of co-educational sharing groups on weekend eve-nings...

...Party" (the verb) apparently finds its fitting symbol in Spuds Mackenzie surrounded by adoring females...

...Both schools have made the strenuous effort to adapt to co-education, oddly enough, without discussing sex...

...I hear all the rumors about dormitory orgies and, more credibly, unwanted pregnancies...

...Sex education, as normally defined, is not the answer...

...I suspect that most people at Holy Cross would agree...

...For the overwhelming majority of male students, staying home with the kids while their wife works is unimaginable and, in some distant future, it probably would be unacceptable...

...If newer, more mature images of marriage are avail-able, they are usually sentimental and unrealistic, saying little of the concrete problems, and real possibilities, of more egali-tarian relationships...

...Indeed many women may be more comfortable when social life is focused on men...

...It is less natural but equally a fact that marriage and family are not particularly notable subjects for research and teaching on Catholic campuses...

...But I am worried...

...I suspect (on the basis of reports from other campuses) that it includes sexual harassment more widespread than anyone admits...

...Few are telling young men about the costs of love, even fewer about the rewards...

...Young men, and to a lesser degree women, remain incurable romantics...

...But the best stories from our generation are told by women, not men, and few of those stories celebrate the creation and growth of marriage and family...

...By the end of senior year they talk quite easily of their plans for medical and law school, careers in business, government or social service, or a stint with the Jesuit Volunteer Corps in an innercity neighborhood...

...Makers of sexist jokes and sexual innuen-does can expect a rebuke in most settings where both sexes are present...

...Third, students could have more dialogue with couples, especially younger couples close enough in age to avoid confu-sion with their own parents...

...There are sex stereotypes that seem to be passed from one generation of students to the next...

...And, as a parent, I doubt the wisdom of co-educational and relatively unsupervised dormitories...

...It is natural enough that professionals display their professional competence, not their personal experiences...

...On the other hand, Holy Cross is a Catholic college in more than name...

...As freshmen they needed to be convinced that they could take on anything the college could offer...

...But most women want both to work and to marry and have children...

...For women that means a kind of sharing that is truly new...

...At Holy Cross as elsewhere, male acceptance of female equality often seems a bit superficial...

...Students need to see, and to know, such couples...

...is largely a taboo topic for serious conversation at Notre Dame...

...They have picked up code words about "quality day care," of course, but I get the impression that such talk is a way of avoiding the issues that must eventually be negotiated...

...Every year at graduation time I am moved by a number of impressive women graduates-women who have changed dramatically during their four years at Holy Cross...

...We have worked hard to assist our women students with class and career, but we have left relationships to take care of themselves...

...A relatively bright picture...

...To the extent any of us have succeeded, we have done so because of that lost item of the discussion, love...

...It is also important to avoid suggesting to our young people that marriage and family life and commitment to the poor and to peace are mutually exclu-sive...

...Nothing puzzles me more than how seldom love or its ab-sence-central issues in the lives of people I know-is a topic of serious adult conversation...

...I am not alone in experiencing particular delight during the last twenty years in watching the dramatic awakening of so many women students to their own capacities and competence...

...and they repeat the somewhat hazy charge that social life remains "male dominated...

...So do our men, though they don't know it yet...

...Official policies encourage use of inclusive language and exploration of women's issues in classes...

...But some of us also know that, to the degree we can pull it off, love can be even more fruitful, life-giving, and rewarding...

...Admissions officials were pleased to have a larger pool of students to draw on...

...But most of all I think "male dominated" has to do with sex...

...In fact, relationships, especially thostf that1 are permanent and faithful, are rarely discussed...

...Finally,-we at Catholic institutions have to draw a bit on our tradition...

...Some similar sense of male identity and integrity is at stake in the too familiar refusal of men to place their need for intimacy in the context of mutuality, negotiation, and equality...

...Right comes along, it will all work out for the best...

...Yet, in fact, many of us have worked hard to have both love and career and to meet our commitments to another person and to a family and to vocations that demand the best that is in us...

...We must find ways to allow our students to believe that such desires are as legitimate, and as capable of fulfillment, as their aspirations toward work and public service...

...And too few experiences of students talking with men and women who juggle marriage, career, and respon-sible citizenship and remain not only sane but relatively happy...

...And, if they won't, what is the alternative...

...To me it is the height of foolish-ness to think we can discuss sex and ignore love...