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Roland Yearwood/ Echo Staff Artist

A four-part series
Part III: Sex, Relationships

By Rainah Simmons and Lotoya Goolsby
Echo Staff Writers

According to a spring 2000 survey conducted by the Campus Echo and Public Issues Reporting, a journalism class taught by Campus Echo adviser Bruce dePyssler, N.C. Central University students have contradictory attitudes towards sexual behavior. 

In the survey, 55 percent said that they have sex at least weekly or more, while 36 percent said that they have sex at least once a month. Only nine percent say that have not had sex at all in the last year. 

This, despite the fact that 44 percent said that it is not ok to have sex before marriage. 

Sixty-one percent said that they have only had one partner in the last year.  The large number of students involved in serious — seemingly monogamous — relationships may explain why students said their use of condoms is so low: 88 percent said that they did not use one the last time they had sex. 

Sixty-two percent said that is not okay to be sexually active with more than one person at a time, while 22 percent said it was okay. Eighteen percent said they have had five or more sex partners in the last year. 

Twenty-four percent said that they are in serious relationships, and 59 percent of these say that the relationships they are in are happy or very happy. 

Forty-four percent said that it is ok for couples to live together if they plan to marry, while 31 percent disagreed with this proposition. The remainder had no opinion. 

The survey also explored students’ attitudes child rearing, family size, abortion and homosexuality: 

Seventy-six percent said a working mother could establish just as healthy a relationship with her children as a woman who does not work. 

Seventy-six percent disagreed with the statement that “it is much better for everyone involved if the man is the achiever outside the home and the woman takes care of the home and family.”

Eighty-six percent of students would prefer a relationship where the man and the woman equally share responsibility for providing for the household income and taking care of the home. 

Just 14 percent said that they would rather the man have the main responsibility for providing the household income, with the woman playing the role of housekeeper only. 

Twenty-one percent said that they want only one child, while 79 percent said that want 2-3 children. No students said that they want more than three children. 

Sixty-nine percent say that abortion should be legal if the woman wants one. Just nine percent said that abortion should be illegal no matter the reason, while 22 percent had no opinion. 

Forty-two percent of students said that men should not have loving sexual relations with each other, while 13 percent say that it was okay. Forty-five percent had no opinion. 

Forty-three percent said women should not have loving sexual relations, while 19 percent said that it was okay. Thirty-eight had no opinion on the matter. 

This disapproval of homosexual relations did not extend to intolerance: Seventy-three percent agreed that NCCU should encourage toleration toward homosexuals, while ninety-one percent said that a homosexual should not be prevented from speaking on campus. Nine percent disagreed with this proposition.