WHAT SORT of message is Fox News Online sending to college kids? Is the so-called ‘conservative’ network recommending caution when it comes to casual sex? The answer might surprise you.Currently playing on the Fox News website is a suite of online videos called FNC iMag (you’ll find it near the bottom right of the homepage). This month’s issue features back-to-college advice on ‘The Freshman 15’, ‘Dorm Room makeovers’, ‘Campus Safety’, and ‘Hook-ups’.
Just in case you’re not the parent of a teenager, ‘hooking-up’ translates to having a sexual encounter. Referring to this very intimate and personal event as ‘hooking up’ trivializes the moment — why we just ‘hooked up’! The problem with such thinking is the hook part — because no sexual encounter is either emotionally or spiritually without consequence.
Ok, you might think I’m a prude. But would it surprise the many conservative Christians reading this article — the vast percentage of which turn to Fox News for information — that the so-called ‘expert’ on the FNC iMag Video advocates meeting men at frat parties or bars, and goes even further to claim ‘hooking-up’ with multiple partners is okay?
Here in Columbia, the University of Missouri has announced that the school will supply free condoms, placed in baskets in the dorm bathrooms! Whatever happened to advocating restraint and good judgment? The message from authority is clear: college students, many of them still teens, have ‘permission’ to pursue multiple partners from the ‘the fair-and-balanced’ right, and your school will even provide handy ‘protection’!
But what do condoms really protect against? In July 2001, the Department of Health and Human Services conducted a study that took a realistic look at condoms and STDs (sexually transmitted diseases). According to their conclusions, proper use (picture an inebriated young couple at a frat party and ‘proper’ loses all meaning) of a male condom provides a high degree of protection against HIV and gonorrhea in men. However, the report further revealed that studies were unable to demonstrate that latex condoms prevented the spread of gonorrhea in women, or chlamydial infection, syphilis, chancroid, trichomoniasis, genital herpes, and genital human papillomavirus (HPV) infection in women and men.Knowing this, do you agree with Fox’s sexpert that having multiple sex partners demonstrates good judgement? Take a few minutes to watch the video — you’ll see the expert also says not to ‘hook-up’ if you’re ‘sloppy drunk’ (thanks heaven for that!) — however, her unspoken message is: moderate drinking mixed with sex is fine.
Do you want your college freshman to risk a lifetime of illness for a moment of pleasure? Of course not! Well, if you’re a Fox viewer, you might want to reconsider your options — in this household, we’ve decided that sly old Fox should be rousted out of the henhouse. Conservative America, it’s time to change the channel.
