Sex on campus: Florida State University

In recent weeks, I've met with three women who have each woken to discover that they had sex the previous night but have no memory of it. In each case, the women had been drinking. In each case, a date-rape drug may have been used. In one case, the sexual partner was a male "best friend," whom the woman had assumed she was safe with. In another case, the woman went home with an acquaintance. In the third case, the woman went home with a total stranger. Each woman felt a combination of anger, personal responsibility and shame.

These women, and so many others, describe a campus culture in which men expect to have sex on any given night, even if it requires pressure, manipulation or the use of illegal date-rape drugs. If refused sexual intercourse, other options are requested and expected.

When a woman is brave enough to come to me, she often describes her shame by speaking of a loss of "purity." That's not language I would have used, but it is common among Christian students. I'm not sure what a better word would be, so I have tried to redefine purity. In a culture in which as many as 85 percent of students are sexually active, I am now defining purity as not what you have done or what has been done to you, but your commitment to remain celibate from this point until marriage.