The Boston College Students for Sexual Health (BCSSH), a grassroots movement of Boston College students moving to ease accessibility to condoms on campus, has recently made their new condom distribution campaign public via an online blog.
Their latest promotion of prophylactics consists of “responsible party kits.” These kits are described as such: “Each kit consists of two components: a set of solo cups with a condom taped to the bottom of each cup and a series of three flyers with consent and safer sex information.”
Solo cups are plastic, inexpensive, and popular methods of distributing alcoholic beverages at college parties. The idea behind distributing Solo cups with condoms taped to them is to ensure that each party member has access to contraception should they need to use it later that night.
“Any Boston College student can receive a Responsible Party Kit for free as long as they promise to hang the flyers in a visible place during their party. In this way, anyone holding a cup of beer at a “Responsible Party” is also discretely provided a condom.”
The flyers, mentioned above, contain messages such as the following: “the 1-1-1 rule – one condom, per penis, per sexual act,” “Sexually Transmitted Infections: the BC bubble isn’t made out of latex. Here’s what you need to know,” and “YES only means YES when consent is given freely, without verbal or physical threats, and not under the influence of any drugs or alcohol.”
The flyers define consent as valid only when one’s sexual partner is “not under the influence of any drugs or alcohol” despite the fact that students at the aforementioned “responsible parties” are being handed Solo cups along with a condom.
Responsible party kits can be obtained by filling out an online form and arranging a time for a BCSSH representative to provide the party materials.
The Vice President for Student Affairs, Dr. Patrick Rombalski, confirmed that the BCSSH is not an officially recognized university student group and receives no university funding. Despite lacking official status and funding, the BCSSH website can be accessed directly from the website for the UGBC (Undergraduate Government of Boston College) alongside links to the student rights policy, menus from local restaurants, and resident assistant resources. From the BCSSH website, students can find out places on campus from which BCSSH representatives will distribute contraception. As the blog post mentions, the public distribution of condoms on campus is forbidden by university policy.
In addition, the BCSSH has enjoyed the ability of advertising on campus, cosponsoring events, and bringing speakers to campus. This past month they hosted a sexual health trivia night at a local bar, cosponsored by the BC Law Students for Reproductive Health, at which material from Planned Parenthood was distributed. The BCSSH website also lists several off campus sites as places where one can obtain contraception, including a local convenience store, a nearby CVS, and the nearest Planned Parenthood.
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It’s interesting that so much of your April 27th issue focused on the activities of BCSSH and the ALC and GLC budgets and made no mention of the current crisis the Church is facing around the world. You devote a whole section to Church issues yet didn’t even touch upon an important and relevant news story that is currently gripping the world’s attention. It’s cute the Pope is in Malta but I think there’s bigger stories to pursue. There were no articles about the sexual abuse of hundreds if not thousands of children at the hands of church leaders although you did choose to get in a few jabs about the disgusting practice of wanting college kids to use protection during sex and you sure got to the bottom of GLC and ALC budgets: They need money for dances (who knew?)