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Permissive behavior has not disappeared from campus life, but some attitudes are being reconsidered. Monica Feinberg, 22, a heterosexual Yale graduate, maintains that bisexual dating, which was not only accepted but chic among some students at certain Ivy League colleges, is no longer exciting and * fun. "It was mostly experimentation," she stresses. "The students do not consider themselves bisexual . . . They felt that sleeping around was no longer a novelty. They moved on to something else."
Many universities are sponsoring AIDS-education programs and classes. Two weeks ago, the University of California, Berkeley held a national symposium on "AIDS and the College Campus," attended by about 435 representatives from nearly 90 colleges, at which the reportedly first straight safe-sex educational film, Norma and Tony, was shown. It indicated that there is much progress to be made in this new field. For 30 minutes, Norma and Tony painstakingly covered themselves with spermicides, condoms and latex squares before engaging in intercourse. The film was so cautiously clinical that a group of viewers quickly lost interest in Norma and Tony, and even in sex for that matter, focusing instead on the number and variety of odd-textured and -shaped devices employed.
The slow work of education continues. An organizer of safe-sex programs at the Claremont Colleges in Southern California explains his teaching tactics: "You have to be sneaky. You tell them it is about sex, and when they're there you tell them it's mostly about AIDS. By then they're already sitting down." Claremont sponsored a "Sex and the Single Student" week during which 2,700 condoms were handed out.
Despite the fanfare, most educators think it will take more than education to change sexual mores. "We're a generation away from accepting condoms," says Mary Sherman, a public-health educator at Berkeley. Dr. Richard Keeling, chairman of the American College Health Association's task force on AIDS, admits that some people cannot be reached through education. "There is a despairing theory in health education that says until there is some horrible base-line number of people who have died, the disease doesn't become personal enough to the rest of the community for it to take fundamental changes in behavior seriously."
It may have to hit home. "Since they're just experiencing their sexual prime and want to act on it, young people push AIDS into their subconscious," says Greg Reynolds, 26, a practicing bisexual in Miami. "But as more people are getting sick and dying of AIDS, it starts hitting their friends. It is much more effective than reading about it in the media. You think, 'I knew him. I could be next.' "
The potential spread of AIDS can be grasped by observing the ways in which other sexually transmitted diseases, such as gonorrhea, chlamydia and genital herpes, move through the country. "There are a minimum of 6 million S.T.D.s recorded annually," says Dr. German Maisonet, medical director of the Los Angeles Minority AIDS Project. "Which means that about every five seconds an American is involved in a high-risk sexual practice minus a condom."