Lately, posters and advertisements about STD testing have been popping up around campus. While these efforts are a collection of individual programs, similar efforts have picked up around the country as “Sex Weeks” — a week out of the college calendar devoted to promoting sexual health and
sexuality.

We at the Tribune have noticed Marquette’s efforts to get students talking about sexual health, healthy relationships and sexuality, and we encourage these programs.

We have one caveat: One of the most recent and prominent efforts on campus has been signs to promote getting tested for chlamydia, similar to other STD tests offered by the university. This specific promotion offers discounted testing for the month of April.

While we agree that promoting students’ sexual health by offering STD tests with reduced prices is worthwhile, with this kind of promotion, sexual health really isn’t the focus. It’s the deal.

The university should be promoting sexual health year-round, not just one month out of the year. We can’t expect all students to run in and get tested in the month of April just because there’s a “sale” on tests. It’s student health, not Subway.

We also do not agree with charging for tests related to sexual health, such as STD and pregnancy tests, at all, or at least not at a rate where $25 for an STD test is a “reduced price.” We’re striving to have a “sex-positive” campus, but right now the only positive is in Student Health’s bank accounts. We acknowledge that there are costs to these tests, but subsidizing them would go a long way.

Despite some obvious flaws in marketing, we do commend the university for its recent efforts to promote sexual health and STD testing. Handing out flyers on the sidewalk, hosting speakers to discuss healthy relationships and putting up posters in the residence halls are all a start to truly promoting a sexually healthy campus.

Promoting health on campus is the goal of any college health service, but at a Jesuit and Catholic institution like Marquette, it can often seem as though promoting sexual health and expressing sexuality are out of line with that mission. We at the Tribune think it’s worth noting that the Catholic Church does not ignore sexuality; it just has certain policies concerning it.

Sexuality is part of the “whole person” we are meant to strive for at Marquette, and if we really want to uphold the Jesuit ideal of cura personalis, sexuality is
involved, too.

We cannot ignore that college students do have sex and struggle with issues of sexuality, and the university must initiate conversations accordingly. Whether you agree with that or not, it is going to happen.

Not everyone is sexually active (and thus concerned with STD testing), and no one should feel obligated to be. But we do need to have conversations about sex and sexuality outside of the one awkward conversation we got in sixth grade with our
health teacher.

Here at Marquette we already have events like “Sex @ 7” and even the annual production of the “Vagina Monologues,” which both talk about sexual health and sexuality issues, and several student and university organizations on campus are devoted to promoting sexual health and sexuality awareness.

People do go to these events and sign up for courses like Psychology of Human Sexuality, then open up and ask questions when given the chance to. Everyone is going to have questions about sex, sexual health or sexuality. We think it’s wisest to allow students to talk about these topics openly.

Ignoring sexual health or poorly promoting it doesn’t stop students from having sex, so it shouldn’t stop us from talking about it. It’s worth fostering more discussion about on campus in addition to the good programs we already have. It’s time to take that “next step” in sexual health awareness and get the
conversation going.