(5 of 7)
Despite the concern of some, the quiet majority of heterosexuals in America apparently do not feel threatened. A recent NBC/Wall Street Journal poll found that AIDS has no effect on the way 92% of the population conducts their lives. This is especially true on the nation's college campuses, where sex tends to be impulsive. "You look for signs, blisters, physical manifestations," says Abby, 19, who has dated college men. "But if somebody doesn't look as if they have a disease, you don't use condoms." One of her friends, Lenna, a Berkeley freshman, complains about phone calls from her mother demanding "no oral or anal sex, and once you get it, you're dead." Students admit hearing about AIDS daily, but to most of them it is simply not a personal problem. Though herpes is still a campus concern, condoms are generally considered an inconvenience. A few students are apprehensive about the future, however. Paul, 21, a business major at UCLA, figures that in a few years he will have to quiz women about their sexual past. "It's really uncomfortable asking 'How many guys have you been with?' " he says. "It is none of my business." But for the time being, he is not asking. "I've been in situations where it's fun and you're at the point where you're so aroused, you're not going to want to stop. You're not thinking five years down the line, you're thinking now."
Even at colleges where a few students have died from AIDS, the operative line is, "I'm heterosexual; it won't happen to me." Dr. Richard Carlson, the director of health services at Columbia University in New York City, has countered youth's "immortal" feelings by installing condom dispensers in the health-services-building rest rooms and distributing a 31-page pamphlet on safe sex.
The unflinchingly direct language of the Columbia guidelines leaves no room for confusion. On the subject of condoms, for example: "During withdrawal, hold the rim of the condom firmly against the penis so that the condom cannot slip off and no semen can escape." On fellatio: "The risk here is for the partner performing fellatio. It is common to have small cuts and sores in the mouth; even brushing your teeth can cause abrasions. This creates a route of entry for the virus in semen." On assessing personal risk: "Are you a man who has had sex with other men that involved the exchange of body fluids at any time since 1977? A single contact may have been sufficient for infection to occur."
Students have so far largely ignored Carlson's efforts, leaving the booklets in piles by mail stations. Ironically, their younger brothers and sisters may be more enlightened. At Edison High School in New Jersey, some students use condoms as the status birth control of choice -- much the way teenagers in the '50s did. "Some youngsters are better able to deal with the realities than adults who came out of the '70s and who enjoyed freedom so long," says Gerri Abelson, coordinator of the AIDS curricula in New York City public schools.