"Sex is my best release," said Boston University freshman Anil Daibee.
College of Arts and Sciences student Daibee, a nonsmoker and nondrinker, called sex his vice, the best way "to emotionally release myself and chill my mind out with all of the stress of school . . . It's just part of the college culture."
The hook-up culture - perpetrated through the "sex is just sex" mentality and stereotypical college one-night-stands -- pervades many campuses, but a growing number of college students are rebelling against sexually liberal lifestyles with abstinence programs.
Harvard University's secular abstinence group True Love Revolution gave valentines with messages promoting abstinence to all freshmen women on campus last year. Students said the cards reinforced gender stereotypes, but co-founder Justin Murray said they could not afford cards for the whole freshman class.
"We decided to give the cards to the girls because we thought they would like them more," Murray, a Harvard alumnus, said.
Murray, now a law student at Georgetown University, said he founded the club with his girlfriend in November 2006 to inform students who were unaware of their sexual options. People who found the reasons for abstinence convincing could make corresponding lifestyle choices, he said.
TLR does not ascribe to any religious denomination to prevent isolation from the rest of the student body, club co-president Janie Fredell said.
"We believe that the message is for everyone . . . and affiliating ourselves with any number of religious denominations or any one denomination would exclude a lot of people from feeling like they could listen to what we had to say," Fredell said. "We also believe there is a real legitimate secular argument that can be made in favor of abstinence."
Fredell, a Harvard junior, said college campuses where sex for sex's sake is rampant need abstinence promotion because otherwise a promiscuous impression is the only one college freshmen get. TLR's ultimate goal is finding true love through premarital abstinence, she said.
"At the end of the day, everybody is looking for love," Fredell said. "We are all just trying to find it in different ways and [abstinence] really opens you up to really deep, real, unconfused love."
Despite the clubs' attempts to promote premarital abstinence, some college students still say that casual sex is an understandable decision.
Massachusetts Institute of Technology junior Bill Jacobs co-created the secular Anscombe Society two years ago to promote premarital abstinence and support students choosing chastity. The administration was emphasizing safe sex to the point that virgin students felt pressured from the expectation to have sex, he said, and orientation talks stressed condom use instead of abstinence.
"There was sort of an understanding that people will be having sex anyway, which makes it difficult for people who choose to save sex until marriage," he said.
The group gives chastity pledges to students who want to make the commitment to abstain from premarital sex.
Meaghan Winfield, Abolish Abstinence Only Sex Education Facebook group administrator, said there is no set perfect age or situation at which sex is appropriate. She supports people who abstain and people who have protected casual sex, she said.
"If they are ready after marriage, then that's when people should have sex," the Northern Arizona University sophomore said in an email. "If they are never ready, then they shouldn't have sex."
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