Whitman doesn’t flaunt its sex life. In general, the campus is fairly modest about its sexual activity: but that does not mean it doesn’t exist; Whitman students are still sexually active.

There are condom cups in the bathrooms of all dormitories. The RAs of every section are required to pick up a large bag at the beginning of the year, and keep the cup replenished all year long. In fact, the Whitman health center has to re-order condoms to refill these cups.

Whitman’s liberal sex policy allows students to make their own decisions about sex: there are no curfews or rules about where you can or cannot sleep. The Health Center is the sex resource center on campus, with everything from condoms to HPV vaccines available. They make these resources are readily available to students so that students can take extra precautions and make smart decisions about sex.

The Health Center also disperses the morning after pill to anyone who seeks it, with no prescription needed. Ellen Collette, Advanced Registered Nurse Practitioner and the Health Center Director, said, “…here at the health center we have a protocol under which the nurses can dispense the morning after pill” without questions asked.

The Health Center also offers free pap smears and birth control prescriptions.
Collette said their main goal is to “encourage Whitman to have safe sex. And to think before they have sex. We try to keep people healthy and happy.”

However, despite how many preventative measures are at the disposal of Whitman students, safe sex isn’t simply guaranteed. Even with such a small student body, sexually transmitted diseases are by no means unusual or infrequent.

In the last three years, the most common STDs on campus were HPV, herpes and chlamydia. Fortunately, the least likely cases are gonorrhea, syphilis and HIV/AIDS.

Collette said that it wasn’t even uncommon to see students find out they are pregnant. If they decide to have an abortion, the Health Center will arrange it with Planned Parenthood. “We have driven a student up there when there wasn’t any means for transportation. It was hard because we lost an employee for a day, but the student didn’t have any other way to get there.” The Health Center makes sure each student is made to feel comfortable and taken care of.

However, despite very open and available sex policy at Whitman, the sexual maladies on this campus are similar to every other college campus across the nation. Where there is college, there is freedom, there is alcohol and there is sex. Needless to say, this is sometimes a dangerous equation. “I think the thing I have been most shocked about is every single case I have seen where there has been sexual misconduct or rape, there has been alcohol involved. There hasn’t been one that I have seen that hasn’t involved alcohol. It’s sad,” said Collette.