No sex, please...We're Harvard! on Yahoo! Health

Recently, a group of students on Harvard campus banded together to protest their college's "hook-up" environment. These students, who call their club True Love Revolution, state that Harvard encourages causal sex by handing out condoms, lubrication, and supporting a free-love environment.

In my mind, Harvard does not encourage freshmen to "hook-up" by making condoms and dental dams available to them. Why not promote healthy, safe sexual decision-making and provide the means to do so? However, True Love Revolution may have a point. Have young people become too open in their sexual behaviors? Is the hook-up culture hurting their chances at finding love, and being loved in return?

While I encourage everyone -- men and women alike -- to be in touch with their sexuality, a college campus is a tough training ground. Drugs and alcohol -- which are so rampant on college campuses -- impair judgment. This means that students may not be clear enough to choose the right partner and are less likely and less able to practice safe sex.

Women are especially vulnerable in these situations, for multiple reasons. First, one in three women will be raped on college campuses. This statistic is horrifying, and while women are never to be blamed for being victimized, the partying happening on college campuses can often lead to situations of date rape (or stranger rape). I can remember rescuing quite a few inebriated girlfriends who were in danger of being taken advantage of by frat guys. (Not to disparage frat guys -- they are not more prone to rape than any other type of man).

In addition, sex -- whether it be a one-night stand, a booty call, or "friends with benefits" -- takes a different toll on women than it does on men. When we reach orgasm our brain becomes flooded with Oxytocin, the chemical of attachment, leading to feelings of intimacy and affection. Men have higher levels of testosterone in their brains which may help to counteract this chemical, but women are not so lucky. Thus, no matter how much women may wish they could "have sex like a man," we are not physically programmed to do so.

And why should we want to be? After all, what is so great about the drunken groping that follows a night of Jell-O shots? Women deserve the sex that comes from honest intimacy and equal exchanges of affection, not to mention cogent decision-making about who we have sex with and how we protect ourselves when we do it.

So maybe the true love revolution should be about banishing underage drinking and drug use rather than banishing sex. And maybe these smart Harvard kids can indeed learn that even though women are as good as men, they are still very different when it comes to sex, love and relationships.