To one out of two Yale men, sex is nothing but a three-letter word.

What's more, two out of three Elis don't seem to care whether the girl they marry is a virgin or not.

These fabulous facts, long taken for granted among Harvard men, were brought to light in a recent poll conducted by The Banner, the Yale yearbook. More than 1,200 Yalies participated.

Poll Not Strictly for Sex

Contrary to popular reports, the poll was not primarily a sex sampler. The questionnaire that each Yale filled out asked 33 questions concerning campus life, and only four were devoted to the undergraduate's favorite indoor sport. But the results are interesting anyhow.

To the question "Have you had sexual torcourse?" 49 percent of the Elis replied yes and 51 percent said no. No one answered he didn't know.

Next came the query, "Would you marry a girl who you knew was not a virgin?" A staunch 65 per cent said yes, only eight percent said no while 27 percent were on the fence.

Of the 49 percent whose knowledge of sex was more empirical than a priori, only 40 percent, or 19.6 percent of the total, admitted indulging more than once or twice. The remaining 60 percent agreed it wasn't habit-forming.

Pre-Marital Intercourse

The final sex question was, "Would you prefer to marry a girl with whom you have had sexual intercourse experimentation?" That produced the greatest variance of opinion, with 22 percent saying yes, 45 percent no and 33 percent hedging.

Interestingly enough, the questions dealing with sex were sandwiched between the queries "How did you spend most of your summer?" and "How much time per week do you spend working at extra-curricular activities?"

Acting as a combination Mr. Gallup and Dr. Kinsey in administering the poll was Banner editor Larom Munson, a junior. Munson vouches for the poll's authenticity.

"We asked the students to give us honest and well thought out answers. There was no personal interviewing; the poll was conducted entirely by questionnaire," Munson pointed out. "And of course," he added, "nobody signed his name."

Other points of interest include the fact that only one out of four Yalies has a car at New Haven, although more than half come from families having incomes over $10,000 a year.

Fifty percent of the Yale students polled were opposed to athletic scholarships in any form while 38 percent would sanction them "if other Ivy League schools gave them."