Student Council’s Building and Grounds Committee introduced a resolution last night encouraging the Housing Division and the Board of Visitors to charge students living on Grounds a flat fee for unlimited laundry services. The change is meant to allow low-income students to pay for laundry expenses through financial aid rather than out of pocket. That ability would likely be useful to many students, but there is a better way to accomplish it. Council should reject the current resolution and instead ask the University to offer an optional laundry fee to students living on Grounds that would be added to their Cavalier Advantage accounts.

For the proposed plan to work, the Housing Division would have to charge each student the average amount spent on laundry. Council is conducting a survey this week to determine that amount. As Council President Matt Schrimper admitted, some students who would otherwise spend less on laundry would be charged a higher fee to pay for other students who use the laundry facilities more often.

Students’ laundry needs vary widely. Some do laundry twice a week, while others make do with two loads a month. Some students who live on Grounds do not do laundry there at all, either by doing it at their parents’ on the weekends or by wearing the same hoodie all semester. Students should not be punished for being economical.

In fact, laundry fees should be set up in a way that encourages students to do fewer loads of laundry. Charging students money to do laundry forces them to take into account the costs of the water and electricity they are using and helps limit the University’s environmental impact. If students were charged a flat fee to do as much laundry as they wanted, they would no longer have any reason not to waste those resources to wash a single outfit.

Schrimper said Council’s environmental sustainability committee does not think this will be a problem, because new washing machines the University just installed are more environmentally friendly. Their use might mean the total resources used in laundry facilities will go down compared to last year, even if the new fee structure is implemented — but that does not mean the flat fee itself would not have an adverse affect on the environment. As anyone who has taken ECON 201 can tell you, reducing the cost of an additional load of laundry would increase the consumption of laundry services.

Allowing unlimited laundry use would also invite students to abuse it. Students with friends who live off-Grounds could swipe them in to the laundry facilities at no cost to either of them.

Instead of the current proposal, the Housing Department should keep the pay-as-you-go system and set up an optional laundry fee in addition to the normal housing fee. This would allow low-income students to pay for laundry through financial aid — the whole point of Council’s proposal. Rather than giving students who pay the fee unlimited access to laundry facilities, however, the Housing Division could simply deposit that fee in the students’ Cavalier Advantage accounts, or create a new account similar to Plus Dollars and Art$ Dollars that could be used only for laundry. This would give students an incentive to conserve resources — the fewer loads of laundry they do, the more late-night trips to The Crossroads they can afford. Because it would be optional, this system would avoid punishing students who do less laundry. Students who need to do more can simply pay for it themselves.

Schrimper readily admitted the unfairness inherent in a flat fee but said, “We think the sheer convenience and the socioeconomic advantage will make up for that.” By tweaking its proposal, Council could achieve those goals without the drawbacks of its current plan.

BY NOW we’ve all had time to comprehend how momentous it was for Virginia to change from red to blue in the 2008 presidential election. “Not since 1964 …” was how most reporters’ sentences began last Tuesday night. Seeing blue elicited cheers of hope and optimism from supporters of President-elect Barack Obama. Yet some areas of the state stubbornly stayed red. Lynchburg, my hometown and unfortunately the home of Liberty University as well, was one of those areas. If Liberty students have anything to say about future elections, it is likely that Lynchburg will remain red for years to come.

Yet despite the students’ newfound political voice, it is doubtful they will use their numbers to encourage other Lynchburg citizens to vote. Confined to their own conservative Christian bubble, Liberty students will continue to overlook obligations to the larger community. They will only use their numbers to further their own social and political views while they ignore the rest of their fellow citizens.

Growing up 15 minutes away from Liberty University was like being forced to share my toys with a large and pugnacious bully. He took what was mine, usually broke it, and then handed it back to me in a shattered mess. That’s how it felt every time the school’s ultra-conservative evangelical founder Jerry Falwell spouted off an ignorant and hateful comment about one population or another, and that’s how it felt in 2004 as the school heralded the return of George W. Bush to the White House for four more agonizing years. I tried in vain to disassociate my hometown from the hateful messages elicited from Liberty’s campus, messages that often made headlines and painted Lynchburg as a backwards haven of intolerance. I gave my wholehearted support to certain political candidates whose policies were antithetical to those that Liberty supported, only to watch as my efforts were crushed under the weight of the conservative masses led by the king of bullies himself, Papa Falwell.

During this year’s campaign, Liberty went above and beyond its usual political activities, unyieldingly pushing its students toward the polls in an effort to secure the presidency for Republican candidate John McCain. Chancellor Jerry Falwell, Jr. cancelled classes, provided buses to the polls, and espoused repeatedly the importance of voting on Election Day.

That’s all well and good, except for the fact that getting out the vote was all about ensuring a Republican victory and had nothing to do with exercising one’s right as a citizen, regardless of one’s political leanings. The City Council representative of Liberty’s ward even said in the Lynchburg’s newspaper, the News and Advance, “I would hope [Liberty students] would vote for limited government and greater freedom.” Falwell, Jr. himself vocally distinguished the campus from supporters of the Obama campaign, characterizing those who backed McCain as “our folks.”

Lynchburg eventually went for McCain, albeit barely — 51 percent of the votes went to the conservative candidate, and the 4,200 newly registered Liberty students no doubt helped him win. Once again, the big bully had come along and crushed my spirit. It wasn’t that McCain had carried my hometown that made me so upset as much as it was the fact that Liberty alone, the Evil Empire of the Hill City, had made the decision. Following the election, news story after news story focused on Liberty’s impact on the election, and more frighteningly, its potential impact on future elections. “I think without [Liberty students] Obama would have carried the city,” Falwell, Jr. told a news reporter Nov. 5. “And I think that’s a clear indication of how much influence these student voters will have in future elections.” His words still make me shudder.

With so many students expressing their electoral power, it is disheartening to see it go to little use. The most hopeful outcome of the entire election was the amazing increase in voter turnout, the fact that so many previously silent citizens decided to get out and voice their opinions. But Liberty had nothing to do with this increase. Their voter registration campaigns were restricted to Liberty students.

In the historically black neighborhoods of Lynchburg, according to the News and Advance, voter turnout reached 57 percent. Liberty’s turnout, however, was even higher, reaching 70 percent — the largest turnout percentage in the city.

Regardless of Liberty’s political leanings, what is most disheartening about all of this is the fact that students are not choosing to utilize their newly realized political power to generate higher voter turnout in the rest of the city. If expressing one’s political voice is truly so important, why not encourage others around the city to get out and vote as well? That is the moral choice. Instead, Liberty made the partisan choice. For them, influence means imparting their own hegemonic worldview on others rather than empowering those who lack a strong social and political voice. If you don’t vote their way, they imply, you shouldn’t vote at all.

Liberty will no doubt continue to fill its role as town bully for years to come. But students and administrators should stop and think before backing their next conservative candidate. Is it morally responsible to utilize your resources to further your own partisan agenda, ignorant of the rest of the world around you? Or is it your unspoken duty — moral, Christian, or otherwise — to empower as many people as you can, regardless of their political opinions, in the name of, for lack of a better word, liberty?

Amelia Meyer’s column appears Wednesdays in The Cavalier Daily. She can be reached at a.meyer@cavalierdaily.com.

ELECTIONS are exciting times,  especially in newsrooms. I don’t think anyone outside the campaigns gets as much of a charge out of the casting and counting of votes as the journalists who cover it all. It’s an exercise in republican democracy, an expression of the popular will and thought. It’s about hope and fear and all those star-spangled things candidates go on about in stump speeches.

But at their core, elections are about power — who has it, who’ll get it and how that will be decided. The day before and the day after an election, the issue is what will the winners do with their power. But the day itself is about who will get that power.

This past election was particularly significant. With the nation simultaneously in a recession and two wars, with climate change threatening to reshape the very planet we live on, all sorts of potential economic, diplomatic, environmental and military threats presenting themselves around the world, this was a crucial vote.

On one side — the winning side, as it turned out — was the first African American presidential candidate put forth by a major American political party. On the other side was the second woman to be a major party’s candidate for vice president.

Another election with an epicenter much closer to Grounds was held last week, too. Unlike the presidential election, in which the winner became clear before midnight on the day ballots were cast, this one may not be truly decided before December. And that election has a lot to say about our electoral system, our political system, the power of what political operatives call their ground game, the potential impact of a single vote and the evolution of politics in the commonwealth.

Tom Perriello seems to have taken Virginia’s Fifth Congressional District seat away from Virgil Goode. Goode has held the seat — as a Democrat and a Republican — for more than a decade. The last count I saw (as I wrote this last weekend) had Perriello ahead by 745 votes. How did he do that?

“I think the college vote made a difference, maybe the difference,” State Sen. Creigh Deeds told The Cavalier Daily.

The Cavalier Daily had pretty good coverage the day after the election, but it seemed to weaken as the week went on until, by Friday, there was nothing at all. I hope that by the time this column is published some of the coverage’s shortcomings will have been redressed. But they’re worth taking note of here in any case.

Deeds was a good person to ask about such a close race. But The Cavalier Daily, which described Deeds as someone who plans to run for governor, didn’t explain why Deeds might be an expert — or at least someone with a special insight. He lost the attorney general’s race by fewer than 400 votes in 2005.

Last Thursday, The Cavalier Daily paraphrased University Democrats president Sarah Buckley saying that provisional ballots have gone mostly to Democratic candidates because they are cast mostly by students and minorities. My sense is Buckley is probably right about that, but a good follow-up question would have been why students and minorities are so often forced to cast provisional ballots.

In the same article, College Republicans president Savanna Rutherford is paraphrased as saying that Goode will win after a recount. A good follow-up there would have been, “What makes you think so?” Historically, recounts change vote totals very little. Neither of Virginia’s most recent statewide recounts have changed the winner.

The lack of a story on Friday meant The Cavalier Daily didn’t tell readers that hundreds of paper ballots had been found, uncounted, in two Charlottesville precincts. Most of those went for Perriello. The Cavalier Daily didn’t tell readers about so-called computer glitches that changed vote totals in Danville and Lunenburg County. The paper didn’t tell of provisional and absentee ballots being added to the count all day Thursday.

The Perriello-Goode race certainly isn’t as significant as the presidential contest, but it is important. It’s been more than two decades since a sitting member of Virginia’s congressional delegation lost an election. Perriello wasn’t given a chance by most people who bothered to consider the race when it began.

The vote counting is an illuminating story that’s been under-told. Perriello was ahead by more 900 votes. Then he was behind by nearly 300. Then he pulled ahead by 30. And the lead grew from there.

All of this — the election, the drama, the swinging counts — was centered in The Cavalier Daily’s coverage area. Indeed, if Deeds is right, The Cavalier Daily’s core readership contains the votes that made the difference in this race.

Those readers should have learned more about their place in history as that history unfolded.

Tim Thornton is The Cavalier Daily’s ombudsman. He can be reached at ombud@cavalierdaily.com.

The elaborate sex positions featured in the “Kama Sutra” may send some giggling, but these ancient Hindu texts called the Tantras introduced techniques to improve and enhance people’s sex lives around 300 A.D. These Eastern expressions of sexual and emotional connection were revitalized more than 1,600 years later during the American sexual revolution and continue to play a widely influential role in Western sexual health. The social changes involved in putting the “Kama Sutra” on bookstores’ shelves opened the public’s eyes to the concept of sexual health itself, sparking a rapid evolution of sexual literature, therapy and other self-help procedures.

According to Men’s Journal, a health and fitness magazine, Alfred Kinsey was among the first to publicly suggest that couples had sex for purposes other than procreation. He founded the Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender and Reproduction in 1947 and shortly thereafter published “Sexual Behavior in the Human Male” in 1948, followed by “Sexual Behavior in the Human Female” in 1953. These books shocked the American public, costing Kinsey most of his financial backing ; however, they opened the doors for new sex researchers to further develop the idea of sex as a social act.

William Masters and Virginia Johnson were among the first pioneers of sexual health research, starting in 1957 in St. Louis, Miss. They published two revolutionary books, “Human Sexual Response” and “Human Sexual Inadequacy,” in 1966 and 1970, respectively, evaluating and analyzing sexual health and, for the first time, pleasure.

“Sex therapy as a field really became more credible after Masters and Johnson,” said Michael McGee, a certified sex educator and professor at Fairleigh Dickinson University.

Masters and Johnson said sexual problems were — often unsuccessfully — addressed using individual, multiyear psychotherapy sessions before 1970. That year, they introduced what is now considered to be the standard procedure for sex therapy: Couples meet with a male-female therapist team during a session in an attempt to overcome sexual dysfunctions such as premature ejaculation and impotence.

Sex therapy is not always the first step, however, especially if the underlying causes of the problem are purely physical. Potential patients are often referred to a physician or psychologist; only if they cannot fix the problem do people generally go to see a sex therapist.

“We need to evaluate what is going on first before we can find the appropriate resource,” said Christine Peterson, a gynecologist at Student Health. “We have a reading list that we direct patients to, but sometimes the patient will tell us, ‘I understand this information but I’m still having problems.’” Peterson said when this happens, she will “absolutely” recommend a sex therapist.

Yvonne Fulbright, sexology author, defines sex therapy as a place where couples have the opportunity to talk about sexual issues in a safe environment, receive education about how the body functions sexually and learn sex exercises to perform outside the office. Postmodern sex therapy sessions involve addressing an array of underlying causes for sexual dysfunction, especially regarding the couples’ emotional connections and willingness to address them. This focus is illustrated through a widely popular emphasis on sensate focus, a practice in which the act of sexual intercourse is intricately linked with the sexual experience on both a physical and emotional level.

Around 1970, Masters and Johnson also introduced the idea of sex surrogates, or trained therapists who engage with their patients in sexual acts rather than simply talking about problems. R.J. Noonman expanded on this definition in his 1984 thesis about the role of sex surrogates, distinguishing them from prostitutes because of what he calls “intent:” prostitutes focused on achieving an orgasm, whereas sex surrogates focused on sexual healing, spending most of their time talking about and enhancing the “cognitive, emotional and sensual worlds” of a patient.

“There are not many people who practice that due to all kinds of ethical and legal issues,” McGee said, “however it is an enormously valuable service for people with certain issues.” McGee said people who can benefit from these services vary from severely disabled patients who long to explore their sexuality to those who have suffered a traumatic experience that interferes with their capacity to function sexually.

“They [sex surrogates] are highly trained and work closely with a therapist,” McGee said. “There are a high range of professional standards of practice that professional surrogates are bound by.”

These programs have proven successful in some clinics, such as the Riskin-Banker Sex Therapy Center in Orange County, Calif., which is nationally known for its Surrogate Sex Therapy program.

Masters’ and Johnson’s research sparked an flood of both heterosexual and homosexual literature and self-help books, one of which is “The Joy of Sex: A Gourmet Guide to Lovemaking” by Alex Comfort, published in 1972. It was the first major book on sexuality brought to the public’s attention in the United States, selling more than 8 million copies, according to Barnes & Noble. It focuses on sexual intimacy and pleasure, rather than the science and physiology behind physical acts, which was the focus of most of sexual literature of that time.

Just as the social changes during the 1960s and 1970s set the stage for the sexual revolution of that time, increased awareness of HIV/AIDS also played a major role in establishing the popular outlook on sexual health. “The Joy of Sex” was revised to discuss the disease, and much of the academic literature, such as Noonman’s thesis, was updated to include discourse about the way AIDS infiltrated sexual health practices.

The Internet also has influenced the way sexual health is discussed. The fourth edition of “The Joy of Sex” is to be released in the United States in January 2009, and according to The Huffington Post Web site and blog, it will contain a significant amount of new material focusing on sex in a new age of technology, addressing issues such as Internet pornography and cybersex.

Additionally, multiple self-help Web sites have been launched to help people not only ask sex questions they would have otherwise had to ask a physician, psychiatrist or therapist, but also to help guide them toward those resources.

While times have certainly changed since the sexual revolution, McGee said he recently attended a conference where one paper discussed that people still feel self-conscious about sex.

“Even though we live in a society when there is a lot of sexuality in popular culture, people still feel a lot of shame, guilt and fear of going in for sexual help,” McGee said. “If they can talk about their questions with someone who doesn’t judge them or exacerbate these feelings, that experience can be enormously helpful.”

From Kinsey’s social exclusion for his revolutionary research to the open advertising of sex surrogate therapy, the social perception of sexual health has and will continue to grow with the waves of social change.

There is yoga, and there is yoga. What we usually think of as yoga is an Americanized version of the Hindu tradition — we still think of yoga as a New-Agey phenomenon, an Eastern alternative to traditional Western forms of exercise. The exercise part turns out to just be asana, which is one of the eight limbs of yoga. The seven other branches of yoga do not emphasize the bodily connection; rather, they focus on mental and spiritual health.

To the untrained eye, asana sort of looks like stretching but it actually emphasizes strength and flexibility. If you are going through the poses fast enough, it can even turn into a pretty decent cardiovascular workout.

There are many different forms of yoga exercise, including Hatha yoga, which is a slower and gentler style of going through the poses. Personally, when I do yoga, I am trying to relax, so this form of yoga is great for me.

There is also Vinyasa yoga, which is a bit more intense. It emphasizes a connection with breathing and starts off with a series of fast-paced poses but slows down at the end to get into some more intense stretching. My personal favorite is the pigeon pose, after which I can barely move my hips.

Ashtanga, or Power, yoga is like Vinyasa yoga on speed; you are practically hopping from pose to pose because you are going so quickly. This type of yoga builds strength and gives the heart a good workout, and you will get sweaty. It’s exhausting, and you may be sore the next day.

The sweatiest and most intense yoga of all is Bikram, or Heat, yoga. Bikram is practiced in a room heated to 105 degrees, and the idea is to sweat out all the toxins. The heat also loosens the muscles and is thought to be more effective. I attended a Bikram yoga session once and swore I’d never do it again. Some people love it though, and I hear it’s not as bad the second time around, so don’t take my word for it.

There are two things that draw me back to yoga class again and again. The first is that it really helps my back. After a solid week of studying and a creaky back to show for it, yoga is the best thing I can do to correct the aches and pains in my body.

The second thing I love about yoga is the element of relaxation it brings to my mental state. Yoga always calms me so much more than a 30-minute session on the elliptical, after which I always feel so keyed up, having watched people push themselves to the brink of exhaustion on the machines around me. I’m always so surprised by how serene I feel after practicing yoga, even if the serenity is somewhat short-lived.

That’s just me, but the health benefits of yoga have been widely documented. This once obscure practice has now entered the mainstream and can be found in gyms and studios across the country. Even the American Medical Association has found yoga to be effective in the treatment of carpal tunnel syndrome — and if it can do good things for your wrists, think what it can do for your neck and back!

Some of the best physical benefits of yoga include better flexibility and strength as well as pain prevention. But that leaves out the mental benefits, like stress reduction. There are even workouts specifically targeted toward relieving stress, and I think that’s something we college kids can appreciate.

Yoga is distinct from what we usually think of when we go to the gym because it’s more comprehensive. It covers strength, flexibility and cardio all in one hour, and if you give it a shot, I bet you’ll find you’re a whole lot more relaxed after 45 minutes of yoga than you are after 45 minutes on the treadmill.

So if I’ve convinced you that yoga sounds like fun and you’re thinking of trying it, the first thing you need to do is pick a style and find a class (I love the drop-in classes at the AFC). Figure out what to bring — the AFC already has mats for you — and wear comfy clothes. Give it a try. You might just love it and, if nothing else, it should be interesting.

Andrenne is a fourth-year College student. She can be reached at a.alsum@cavalierdaily.com.

We’ve all heard tales of people who went off to college one day and came back 15 pounds heavier. It even might have happened to you. We call it the “Freshman 15” because it typically happens to those who are in a new environment away from home, tempted by all the readily available junk food in 24-hour vending machines and the “all you can eat” school cafeteria, not to mention the temptation of parties and alcohol.

And because college is a time to let loose, people forget the side of veggies with their pizza. But the dreaded 15 pounds is insidious and can strike at any time. We all know we should be physically active and take advantage of those gym fees you pay every semester, but perhaps we need a refresher on some quick and easy tips for healthy eating.

The first thing to remember if trying to lose weight or avoid gaining it is that cutting certain foods out entirely — the tasty stuff like cake and chips — will just lead to temptation. Remember that no food is “good” or “bad” on its own — it depends on what else you’re eating to balance out those tasty treats. The key is moderation; it’s acceptable to have a piece of cake once in awhile, but it’s never OK to eat the whole cake. It’s OK to indulge in a beer/wine/beverage on occasion, but don’t binge-drink a 12-pack — and this applies for other reasons as well, such as because getting black-out drunk is never a good idea.

But before you start changing all your supposedly bad habits, it might be helpful to find out exactly what they are. Doctors and nutritionists often recommend that people start by keeping a food journal and writing down everything they eat for a week. Then, at the end of the week, go through your journal and see what’s truly detrimental about your diet and pick one or two things to change as a starting point. When you’re trying to change your habits, it’s important to remember that change happens slowly and in baby steps. Waking up tomorrow with a new drive to eat healthily and deciding that you’re only eating vegetables, salad and salmon and drinking only water will burn you out, not to mention that it won’t stick. The ultimate goal is to incorporate healthy eating habits into your life that you can maintain well into your hundreds. So try taking one step at a time.

Now for the quick and easy tips you’ve been waiting for, with the caveat that you only try one or two at a time:

1. Switch from full calorie soda to the diet version. Don’t like the taste of diet? You can try mixing the two, slowly adding more and more of the diet stuff as you cut back on the regular stuff until you become used to the taste.

2. The above also applies to milk, with the exception that you don’t have to mix it yourself because the grocery store provides half-percent steps between skim and 2 percent. The goal is to get down to skim milk, but don’t jump down from 2 percent. Gradually wean yourself off, one half-percent at a time.

3. Drink more water. Whatever else you’re drinking during the day, add a glass of water with every meal. This isn’t such a problem in today’s society with all the bottled water we buy, but the vitamin waters and the enriched waters are a huge pitfall for people trying to watch their calories. Those things call themselves water, but they are sneakily chock-full of calories you don’t need. Obviously they aren’t as calorie dense as soda or juice but they contain more calories than plain water. If you can’t stand the taste of plain water, add Crystal Light, which adds flavor and no more than 5 calories to your water. Plus, those little packets are a heck of a lot cheaper than vitamin waters, which don’t do anything for you other than provide you with flavored, calorie-full, overpriced water.

4. Add more veggies and fruits. We’ve all heard this a million times, but veggies don’t always taste good (especially the cafeteria variety — what ARE they cooking them in, dirt?). Fruits are tasty, but have a lot of sugar, so really we should eat more veggies. The trick here is to start small. For example, add a salad before every dinner — with fat-free dressing — and add veggies to the salad. The outcome here is two-fold. You’re not forcing yourself to eat vegetables you don’t like and sacrificing foods you do like because you’re still eating your regular dinner, and eating a salad has been shown to make you feel full faster because the salad is occupying space in your stomach before the rest of the food hits. In the end, you eat less of the other food and increase the amount of vegetables in your diet. In the process, you’ve upped the amount and variety of nutrients you’re getting. And eating more fruit is good, too. If you can’t be convinced to eat more vegetables, you can be happy and healthy with eating more fruit, and you can add them to a salad instead.

5. Toss out the white stuff, bring in the whole grains. Not only does this apply to bread, it applies to all flour products, especially pasta. With bread, they’ve come up with the white-wheat stuff for people who can’t tolerate whole grain bread, and it’s definitely a good starting point to ease your way into eating wheat bread. For pasta, they now have the whole grain varieties that taste wonderful. Many people complain that they’re too stiff and don’t taste right, but I’ve found that cooking them slightly longer helps cut down on that aspect, and like many of the tips I’ve provided, it’s about gradually getting to that point. So start by making a meal with half whole grain and half regular pasta — trust me, you won’t notice a difference!

These are five fairly easy tips to slowly incorporate into your diet, without making any drastic changes to what you’re eating. But remember the important principles: All things in moderation and “start low, go slow” when you make changes to your habits. Oh, and try to hit the gym or walk outside for 20 minutes a day and work up from there — it will do wonders!

Katie is a University Medical student. She can be reached at k.mcbeth@cavalierdaily.com.

“My patients are students like you,” Dr. Miriam Grossman said. “Bright, ambitious kids at one of the top universities.” When it comes to issues of sexual health and decision-making, however, she has come to see the average student as “naive, misinformed and vulnerable.”
About 250 students gathered in the Maury Hall Auditorium last Wednesday to hear Grossman, a former UCLA campus psychiatrist, deliver a lecture titled “Sex, Lies and Hook-ups: A Campus Psychiatrist Tells It Like It Is,” sponsored by the Inter-Sorority Council. Some came to receive extra credit for a class, some came because their boyfriend or girlfriend asked them to and others came simply out of curiosity.

Third-year College student Melissa Woods, a Delta Gamma sister, said she attended the talk because she felt the issue is “very relevant to U.Va., especially the Greek culture.”

Glenn Phillips, another third-year College student, said he came for outside credit for an ethics class, adding that he “thought it sounded a little scandalous, too.”

Grossman was introduced by ISC Rep. Ashley Berrang, who noted that Grossman graduated from New York University Medical School, completed a fellowship at Cornell University and has 10 years of experience as a campus psychiatrist at UCLA.

“When I graduated from medical school, I took an oath,” Grossman said. “I swore to prevent disease whenever I could. I am here today to give you information in hopes of doing just that.”

She explained that students who come into her office generally face one of two types of challenges. The first type pertains to unforeseeable problems that cannot be controlled, such as a sports injury, a roommate problem or coming down with mono right before an exam. The second type includes problems that are completely preventable. They are caused, Grossman said, “by casual sex with multiple partners, or by ‘hooking up’ as it is called these days.”

This behavior has a number of negative consequences, she noted.

“Casual sex causes more anguish on our campuses today than you might imagine, especially with young women,” Grossman said, noting she travels around the country to college campuses to spread awareness in hopes of preventing such problems before it is too late.

Grossman said because of their “unique sensitivities,” she is particularly worried about young women. “It’s not politically correct to call girls vulnerable,” she added, “but it’s medically accurate.”

Women can be vulnerable to contracting the silent diseases carried by men. “[Men] can carry these things and have no idea they’ve been infected,” she said, noting that such diseases will not show up in a routine STD testing if they are not active at the time the testing is done.

Additionally, Grossman said this unique sensitivity is influenced by the chemical oxytocin, which affects maternal feelings and behavior. It is one of the chemicals that “creates a woman’s reality.” While Grossman said men also have this chemical along with a large amount of testosterone, women are more sensitive to the hormone. In women, oxytocin is released during labor and nursing and promotes an emotional bond.

“But it is also released in the female brain during intimate behaviors: touching, gazing, positive emotional interaction, kissing, nipple stimulation and orgasm,” Grossman said. Basically, she concluded, “we’re wired to have an emotional attachment, which goes against the casual, uncommitted nature of the hook-up culture.”

Oxytocin affects the amygdala, the part of the brain that sizes up situations and can either wave a red flag or flash a green light, she explained.

Quoting a statement by Dr. LouAnn Brizendine, who specializes in the effect of male and female neurobiology on relationship dynamics, Grossman said, “Research shows that the female brain naturally releases oxytocin after a 20-second hug … Don’t let a guy hug you unless you plan to trust him.”

Grossman’s discussion of the mechanics behind certain emotions registered with fourth-year Engineering student Erin Hayes, who said the presentation helped “explain a lot of the emotions I’ve experienced in my life.”

Because emotions can turn into sexual encounters, Grossman discussed the probability that a young woman would contract human papillomavirus. A University of Washington study followed 82 female undergraduates for a year after they became sexually active, she said. Those who said they used condoms all of the time had an 37.2 percent incidence of HPV. Those who said they used condoms during less than five percent of their sexual encounters had an 89.3 percent incidence of HPV.

Grossman identifies “the immature cervix” as the reason it is so easy to infect a young woman with HPV, Grossman said. “In teenagers and young women, the cervix is immature, meaning that it’s only one cell thick.” As a woman gets older, she explained, the cervix grows to be 30 or 40 cells thick, making it virtually impossible for the HPV virus to travel through it.

She displayed an image of a mature cervix alongside an immature one. The difference, she noted, is “really quite striking.”

Looking forward to when people do get older, Grossman talked about the risk of not fulfilling one’s future goals. Three-fourths of college freshman students surveyed said having a family was an essential or very important life goal. By age 35, however, 55 percent of high-achieving women are still childless. It is important, Grossman said, to know that if you always put your career or something else first and the years go by, you might risk missing the opportunity to have a family.

“I’m not telling you to go out and have babies right now,” she said, “I’m just telling you that there’s a window of opportunity, and that window will close.”

Grossman noted that she simply wants young women to be informed so they can make sensible life decisions. True feminism, Grossman said, would encourage girls to learn about and understand their bodies and sexuality, thereby empowering them.

Second-year Engineering student Calvin Li, however, said that he felt Grossman’s interpretation of feminism was flawed.

“From what I understand about feminism, I don’t think she portrayed it correctly,” he said, noting that he does not feel feminism should focus on the differences between men and women as a source of empowerment. He said, however, he agreed that discussions such as Grossman’s are “good to have on campus” and noted that much of the information in the discussion was new to him. Second-year Engineering student Ricky Passarelli, however, said he had heard it all before. “I really wasn’t impressed,” he said. “Nothing really struck me as new or interesting.”

Grossman concluded the presentation by urging students to remember that “it’s all on your hands; just be smart. It’s not always nothing.”

She noted that students are able to act in a sensible way in terms of exercising, eating and succeeding in classes, so they just need to apply that ability to their sexual lives as well.

It is a time every University student absolutely dreads. We lie awake at night hoping and praying that it not come, but deep down we know it will. Sooner or later, it catches up to all of us.

No, not graduation day, as horrifying as that may be to fourth-years like myself who are discovering all of a sudden that, without realizing it, they’ve amassed 120 credits. No, not the day the fire marshal discovers the crock pot in your dorm room, although I’d rather be on the bad side of a Kodiak bear than the University fire marshal. No, not the day your Plus Dollars run out. It’s the most stressful time of them all: Paper Season.

Paper Season usually hits about two-thirds of the way through the semester, after midterms and generally right at the point when one has finally gotten comfortable with the reading load. Of course, we theoretically ought to know that Paper Season is coming because the papers are clearly announced on the syllabi. But let’s face it: There are some things that the young adult mind doesn’t process well from reading. “No Right Turn on Red” is one, and “Paper due Nov. 16” is another. So we end up completely surprised.

The non-College students reading this are likely having a hard time gathering up much sympathy. “Come over to the Engineering School or Architecture School some time,” they are no doubt saying, “and I’ll show you a work load that will make you thankful for papers.

”There is a lot of truth to this. Until you have to write a paper, however, it can be hard to imagine the way a paper assignment can loom in the mind of a student. The normal course of events corresponds roughly to the Five Stages of Grief, though somewhat out of order.

Denial: In this stage, one tries to deal with the situation by convincing oneself that one is not really in the class after all. This generally lasts about all of five minutes. After all, the ISIS schedule doesn’t lie. But it’s nice to spend a few minutes in Fantasyland.

Depression: This is the portion of coping with a paper when the assignment seems overwhelming. Despite the fact that everyone could come up with 6,000 words off the top of his or her head about what’s wrong with college football’s postseason or how So-and-So got jobbed on “Project Runway,” writing 3,000 words about something with academic importance appears to be downright Herculean. People going through this stage of the process generally can be found either in the fetal position, clutching the syllabus and sniffling, or at a bar.

Anger: When one actually begins to write the paper, anger usually sets in soon afterwards. The complaints come fast and furious. Who would want to write about this, anyway? This book is stupid! This great thinker was a moron! This whole discipline is a joke, never mind the fact that I’m majoring in it! People in this stage tend to be rather volatile — they might be sitting right in front of you typing calmly, and put their laptop through the closest wall a moment later. It’s a good idea to avoid people in this stage at all costs. If you absolutely must see them, make it something like a quick lunch only and insist on plastic utensils.

Bargaining: In the stages of regular grief, one tries to bargain with a higher power, i.e., God. The closest thing to God in the paper-writing process is, of course, the professor. I’m not one to ask for extensions myself, but in some situations it may be the right move. One, however, has to be smart about this. Conjuring up some instant chicken pox with a red Sharpie is probably not going to fool someone with a Ph.D.

Acceptance: Sooner or later, one eventually comes to terms with the paper assignment and hunkers down to do the research and crank it out. Unfortunately, this moment often comes the night before the paper is due. Oh well. In these tough times, something has to prop up agricultural economies, and it might as well be the coffee industry.

There’s no denying that Paper Season is a difficult time of year, though there’s always a nice, long holiday waiting on the other side. What helps is if students hang together and show each other a little solidarity. If someone recalls one of your library books, return it ASAP; you never know when a life might be hanging in the balance. Step lively in the dining hall; the person behind you might be in one of those turkey-sandwich-in-15-minutes situations. If you see someone glumly hunched over a laptop looking bleary-eyed and hopeless, give him or her a pat on the back. And, needless to say, resist the urge to put your own laptop through any walls. Paper Season or no, that’s probably not covered by the warranty.

Matt’s column runs biweekly Wednesday. He can be reached at m.waring@cavalierdaily.com.