Everybody’s Doing It
Questions about students’ sexual habits revealed that Harvard students are less sexually active than their peers at other institutions, though that is definitely not the perception of students on campus.
According to the survey, 49.3 percent Harvard students have never had vaginal sex. But Harvard undergraduates have a much higher estimate of the amount of sex their fellow students are having.
For example, 61.4 percent of Harvard students said they believed the typical Harvard student had had vaginal sex with 2 or more partners over the course of the last year. But only 22.8 percent of students reported having vaginal sex with
that number of partners. In fact, 41.8 percent of the survey respondents said that they had not had vaginal sex with any partner during the previous year.
But those Harvard students who are engaging in sexual activity are much more likely to use some form of contraception than the typical American college student. Roughly 60 percent of those students who had engaged in vaginal intercourse reported mostly or always using a condom. That’s up three percent from 2000 and significantly higher than the national average, which in recent years has been about 45 percent.
Kadison, however, says that level of contraception use is still below where it should be.
Another interesting finding of the survey is that Harvard students are roughly twice as likely as their peers to use emergency contraception. Use of the morning after pill up to 14.2 percent this year from 13 percent in 2000. The national average in 2000 was just 6.7 percent.
Other Interesting Findings
The survey had several other important findings not directly related to sexual health.
For instance, 40.4 percent (23 percent men and 54 percent of women) reported that they were actively trying to lose weight.
UHS has also seen an increase in students seeking treatment for acute alcohol intoxication. “There have been at least two incidents that might have led to the death of a student if they hadn’t been brought in when they were,” Kadison wrote. Furthermore, 9.8 percent of students reported having unprotected sex as a result of drinking, which was a large jump from the 7 percent who reported such actions in the 2000 survey.
—Staff writer Ebonie D. Hazle can be reached at hazle@fas.harvard.edu.