Sex and the Smithie: Hygiene's the trick to avoid getting sick
Issue date: 10/29/09 Section: Opinions
Smith seems to be a place full of health contradictions. Students who use the stair-stepper daily at the gym also take the elevator to their class on the third floor of Seelye. Students don't use antiperspirant because it's carcinogenic, but still manage to justify their twice-daily cigarettes.
Alcohol kills germs and will keep you from getting the stomach flu. Smoking weed will break through your phlegm and get rid of your chest cold. Wearing shower shoes will save your life, but running around campus naked, exposing your feet and other extremities to more than a few hairs in the drain, is just a bit of good fun. These are all things I've heard around campus, and laughed at, and maybe tried - just once. And actually, my cough got much worse.
Still, despite all these crazy pairings and pieces of advice, nothing seems more ludicrous than people's beliefs about and justifications for sexual hygiene. I'm not talking crazy thoughts, like "I won't get pregnant as long as I'm on my period." Hopefully, we've all had some kind of sexual education, and generally, people who believe that are proved wrong very quickly.
The more acute hygiene contradictions include girls who won't let their best friends drink from their Sigg water bottles but will make out with random high-school/frat/townie boy at a Smith party, or girls who will go down on aforesaid random boy but will not share his toothbrush. I mean, come on. How is a toothbrush grosser than a penis?
With the H1N1 phobia rampant around campus, and students already in quarantine, Smithies are running around drinking chicken noodle soup, purchasing lifetime supplies of Tylenol and thermometers and using hand sanitizer like it's their job. However, aside from these minor modifications and stressing about getting sick, students don't seem to be reforming their ways. Girls are still getting drunk, staying up half the night and kissing strangers - you don't know what viruses could be lurking in that mouth!
So keep washing your hands, and maybe brush your teeth or gargle salt water after a male interaction - I know, sometimes they are too hard to resist. Seriously, behavior like this could kill you. Okay, so it hasn't gotten that far yet, but it could set you weeks behind in your schoolwork and get you locked up somewhere scary on Green Street.
The "Sex and the Smithie" column is written by a different Smith student each week.
Alcohol kills germs and will keep you from getting the stomach flu. Smoking weed will break through your phlegm and get rid of your chest cold. Wearing shower shoes will save your life, but running around campus naked, exposing your feet and other extremities to more than a few hairs in the drain, is just a bit of good fun. These are all things I've heard around campus, and laughed at, and maybe tried - just once. And actually, my cough got much worse.
Still, despite all these crazy pairings and pieces of advice, nothing seems more ludicrous than people's beliefs about and justifications for sexual hygiene. I'm not talking crazy thoughts, like "I won't get pregnant as long as I'm on my period." Hopefully, we've all had some kind of sexual education, and generally, people who believe that are proved wrong very quickly.
The more acute hygiene contradictions include girls who won't let their best friends drink from their Sigg water bottles but will make out with random high-school/frat/townie boy at a Smith party, or girls who will go down on aforesaid random boy but will not share his toothbrush. I mean, come on. How is a toothbrush grosser than a penis?
With the H1N1 phobia rampant around campus, and students already in quarantine, Smithies are running around drinking chicken noodle soup, purchasing lifetime supplies of Tylenol and thermometers and using hand sanitizer like it's their job. However, aside from these minor modifications and stressing about getting sick, students don't seem to be reforming their ways. Girls are still getting drunk, staying up half the night and kissing strangers - you don't know what viruses could be lurking in that mouth!
So keep washing your hands, and maybe brush your teeth or gargle salt water after a male interaction - I know, sometimes they are too hard to resist. Seriously, behavior like this could kill you. Okay, so it hasn't gotten that far yet, but it could set you weeks behind in your schoolwork and get you locked up somewhere scary on Green Street.
The "Sex and the Smithie" column is written by a different Smith student each week.
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