The University of Missouri at Columbia will not put condoms in residence hall restrooms as had been reported last month, university officials said Tuesday.
Chancellor Brady Deaton has decided not to move forward with the initiative, a university spokeswoman said, so the university can hold public forums and decide how best to educate students about health issues.
"It is important to educate students about healthy decision-making, including the option of abstinence," a university statement said.
Here's what I've never understood: so it's impossible to "educate students" that abstinence is an option if there are condom machines in the bathroom? Like somebody will see that and think, "Guess that means I should be having sex...I wasn't going to, but since there are condom machines in the bathroom I don't have a choice"? Is it possible for us to think any less of our students? You want "healthy decision-making"? Then put a rack of abstinence brochures right next to the condoms. Have abstinence seminars at the Baptist Student Union...you can even serve pizza at the seminar. Problem solved.
Let's look at it this way. Okay, say you have 100 couples who are to the point where, if a condom were on hand, they'd be doing it right now. Conservatively, I'm going to say that 20 of those couples are going to do it anyway. It could be more or less, that sounds about right to me. Okay, out of those remaining 80, how many are going to say "I'll go to Wal Mart/Break Time tomorrow and get some condoms, and we'll do it then," and how many will say "You know, this is a sign that we shouldn't be doing it"? I'd say that it's probably 75/5. To be nice, I'll say 70/10. So you've got 20 couples doing it unprotected and 10 holding out. Whereas, with a condom machine in the dorm bathroom, probably 18-19 of those 20 unprotected couples would be protected.
Bottom line: if you've chosen abstinence, you've done so before you saw the machine in the bathroom. Then again, we know this isn't about "education", but "control." Whatever allows the chancellor to sleep better at night, I guess.
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