Talk with your college student about sex and religion

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College kids everywhere are home for the summer. Moms and dads, you just might want to ask yours what they were up to all year while away.According to a new book, "Sex and the Soul" by Donna Freitas (Oxford University Press), herself a Roman Catholic and assistant professor of religion at Boston University, what was going on outside the classroom might be having the greatest impact on them.If they were at a secular or Roman Catholic school, they were likely either having sex in one of its various forms with someone with whom they had no ongoing relationship, or they were made to feel weird for not doing so.The subtitle to Freitas' book is "Juggling Sexuality, Spirituality, Romance and Religion on America's College Campuses." What concerns Freitas in particular is the dearth of any connection between what is a relatively common (but non-traditional/non-religious) "spirituality" on campus, and sex on campus. Again and again, she studied young people and found "spirituality" didn't seem to impact their thinking about, much less participation in, increasingly common events such as "maids and millionaires," or "jock pros and sport ho's," parties. Or, for that matter, the "hookup" culture in general, in which it is simply expected that a woman will be open to some level of sexual involvement with a man with whom she has no romantic relationship.What Freitas also found is a culture of disaffected women in particular. (Interestingly, the men often expressed dissatisfaction with the "man as predator" stereotype, and said in private interviews that they could not be open with their friends about their desire for a "girlfriend" and a real relationship.)But the women tended to be Freitas' focus, and the women in the "dating" class she once offered at St. Michaels college were eye-opening to her: For the most part, she found, there is no traditional "dating" anymore on secular and Catholic college campuses. There is only the "hookup" culture. But in her class she quickly found that when women opened up about it, they consistently felt degraded by it. According to the students, Freitas found, "Living with (the) hookup culture means putting up an 'I don't care' front about behavior, occasionally if not frequently submitting to unwanted experiences, and, in many cases, slowly chipping away at personal standards." Interestingly, the students often found that a religious tradition might help them out of their quandary, but they just weren't sure how.Meanwhile, at evangelical colleges, Freitas found a culture of a strong and overt Christian spiritually that affected every area of life, and which she found refreshing. But at the same time, she saw an idolization of, and a self-righteousness about, "sexual purity" which I found disturbing in its own way.But the main focus in her book is the secular campus. Freitas notes that in the secular and even Catholic college world, there is little attempt anymore to consider the soul, in any sense, in one's academic life or thinking about the world. Her point is that this permeates the campus culture, and its social life in which sex is dangerously and utterly divorced from relationships and romance, is more common than we parents might realize.In response, Freitas has a list of questions to ask a college administrator or campus tour guide before you and your child choose an institution of higher learning. Questions like, how often are sexual theme parties held on campus? What organizations on campus support abstinence? How often do campus ministry groups give talks about love, sex, and romance? In what ways are religious discussions explicitly encouraged on campus? Back to those college students living (or one day living) in your home. Why not open a conversation with them now about sex and the soul, whether or not they believe there is a connection, and what that should be? It might open the way for some interesting summer discussions. It might even send them back a little more prepared to face college life in the fall.(Betsy Hart hosts the "It Takes a Parent" radio show on WYLL-AM 1160 in Chicago. Reach her through betsysblog.com. for more stories, visit scrippsnews.com.)