Our
view
Sex
columns should inform
Lately there has been a great deal of discussion
centering on the new trend of sex columns
in college newspapers. Even USA Today reported
on the topic, bringing forth a renewed wave
of interest.
In fact, the Union newspaper at Cal State
Long Beach has its very own sex column;
the most recent of which discussed in a
repulsively detailed way the maintenance
and preferences of pubic hair.
Some of the sex columns appearing in other
campus newspapers have a more informative
objective. For instance, The Rocky Mountain
Collegian at Colorado State University ran
a column on Friday, Nov. 15 by Ryan Owens
titled “Sex Toys 101: Let’s Begin.” The
columnist could have taken various different
approaches to this topic but his chosen
approach worked well to inform the reader
on a specific topic leaving out unneeded,
purely-for-shock-value details. Owens wrote
about the history of sex toys in a factual,
informative yet enjoyable to read manner.
If a publication that desires to call itself
a newspaper wants to run sex columns then
it should take all measures possible to
make the columns informative. After all,
it is the job of a newspaper to inform readers.
It really is not a surprise that college
newspapers run sex columns — colleges are
filled with young adults and young adults
like sex. But just because college students
will pick up a paper if they see the word
“sex” printed on it does not mean that newspapers
are absolved of their responsibility to
inform.
The objective of this editorial is not to
attack the purely-for-shock-value sex columns
— they too have their audience and their
place, but not in an informative newspaper.
The increased openness of students to the
discussion of sex is positive and beneficial.
Newspapers should be open to help facilitate
this discussion but not by adopting the
sex-sells mentality that runs so rampant
throughout most media. Leave that to Maxim,
Stuff, Cosmopolitan, Vogue and Glamour —
they all use sex to sell quite well.
Furthermore, we are not suggesting that
a sex column must be boring to be in a newspaper,
it doesn’t. It just has to be informative.
Admittedly, there is a fine line between
what is considered a purely-for-shock-value
sex column and an interesting, informative
sex column. That line must be found.
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