We’re already well into the season when students are supposed to be heading off to (or back to) college for the fall semester. That hasn’t happened at a lot of schools, or if it has, they’re incorporating a lot of distance learning and other conditions not typical of the college experience in the past. At Yale, however, one of the nation’s allegedly most prestigious Ivy League institutions, the faculty has been working on ways to keep all of their charges safe from COVID even when they’re not engaged in scholastic activities with their professors. They’ve published a guide on how to safely have sex while reducing the risk of contracting the novel coronavirus.
As the Free Beacon points out, this isn’t some clinical dissertation ripped from the pages of a CDC advisory. The staff wants to really reach out and get in touch with the way the kids talk these days, dealing with them in a relatable fashion. With that in mind, the guide gets exceedingly graphic, going into specific details about different aspects of sexual encounters and the best ways to minimize exposure to the virus. But near the end, they actually put forward an idea with considerable merit. The best way to have sex during the pandemic may be to do it remotely.
Yale University published a comprehensive guide for how to have sex amid the coronavirus pandemic—so comprehensive, in fact, that it includes detailed descriptions of the sex acts thought to spread the virus.
Yale’s health department circulated a “Safer Sex During COVID-19” document that advises students to limit sexual interactions by masturbating and “liven up” their sex lives by wearing masks. The guidelines also offer tips on how to properly clean sex toys before and after use…
Other tips include selective kissing, using condoms, washing hands before and after sex, and using the internet for sexual exchanges.
There’s the key phrase for you right at the end of that excerpt. “Using the internet for sexual exchanges.” In other words, they’re just talking about the video chat version of “phone sex” which has been going on for as long as most people alive today can remember. But if both partners stay in their respective locations, they’re not technically “having sex,” right? So what Yale is actually advising is to try absinence.
It’s funny in a way because when it came to the idea of unintended pregnancies or the transmission of STDs, you couldn’t get most of our colleges and universities to even broach the topic of abstinence. This, despite the fact that it’s essentially the only 100% foolproof way to address those issues. But finally, when we have a pandemic shutting down the entire world, Yale is finally willing to consider the unthinkable and tell the students that maybe they should stay alone in their own rooms and just fantasize about one another.
I’ll confess, this is a slightly different situation from when we’re talking about high school students (or even younger children) and topics of sexual education. With very few exceptions, most of the students at Yale are either already 18 years old or they will be turning 18 presently. They’re technically adults, so these are decisions they will be facing and those who elect to be sexually active will need to be well-informed on the risks and available options. But just hearing about an Ivy League school suggesting that young people might want to avoid sex is refreshing, isn’t it?
Now that they’ve got that squared away, perhaps Yale can get back to dealing with some of the other issues on their plate. For one thing, they could end their racist admission policies. And while they’re at it, they could ensure the free speech rights of their students, including the opportunity to hear the voices of conservative speakers instead of simply indoctrinating everyone into socialism and liberalism. But that’s probably a bit much to hope for at this point.
