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By Ronald Kessler
Mental health professionals at colleges are no longer warning students of the dangers of sexually transmitted diseases, according to Dr. Miriam Grossman, a psychiatrist at UCLA's Student Psychological Services.
Liberals have hijacked psychiatrists, she says, and this politically correct ideology is putting students at risk of illness and death.
Grossmans book, "Unprotected: A Campus Psychiatrist Reveals How Political Correctness in Her Profession Endangers Every Student," has just come out. Because she feared retribution, Grossman authored the book as Anonymous, M.D. The flap copy says, A campus atmosphere of intolerance has forced her to conceal her identity.
However, Grossman has since decided to go public so she can openly describe how liberal ideology has trumped medicine in the mental health profession and at college health centers in general.
When patients see a doctor, they are routinely asked about their sexual practices. If they say they have multiple partners or engage in anal sex, they are warned about the dangers, ranging from HIV to herpes, just as they are warned about the danger of smoking or getting too much sun exposure.
Warnings Are Politically Incorrect
Over the past 10 years, Grossman says, liberals have radicalized the mental health profession and campus health centers, deciding that such warnings are politically incorrect. In fact, on Columbia University Health Services Go Ask Alice Web site, health professionals actually give students advice on proper etiquette for engaging in group sex and going to swinging clubs.
In one typical exchange, a married woman wrote in to say she and her husband started having group sex with other couples. She asked if this was a healthy relationship. Alice, identified on the Web site as a team of health professionals, answered: Dear Reader, You can use your feelings as a gauge We all thoroughly enjoy it. Thats a pretty positive indicator. In her response, Alice gives no warning about sexually transmitted diseases.
Each year, Grossman says, more than 10 million Americans contract a sexually transmitted disease of some kind.
We really have just a horrendous epidemic on our hands. And its going down to young girls 15 years old having abnormal pap smears and having to be watched for the development of cervical cancer.
Anal sex presents the greatest danger; yet saying so is frowned upon.
Its a distortion to say that all types of sexual expression are equally dangerous in terms of transmitting the HIV virus, Grossman affirms. There are many experts who believe that under normal conditions, HIV cant even be transmitted during vaginal intercourse. Anal sex is many times more dangerous than vaginal sex. Yet, Grossman emphasizes, if you look at Web sites that provide health information, or pamphlets that are put out by different universities or organizations and the American College Health Association, its very, very rare to find one that says that anal sex is the most dangerous way to have sex.
The line promoted by health professionals and pamphlets is that, so long as people use condoms, they are safe.
More Information Desperately Needed
Theres a mistaken assumption that wearing a condom confers safety, Grossman states. And that is simply not the case, to say nothing of the fact that every survey of young people shows that in their last encounter, they did not use a condom.
Moreover, conditions such as herpes and the human papilloma virus are spread skin to skin outside of areas protected by condoms.
You may not have any visible signs of having it, Grossman said. So that many people who have it dont know it, and they are passing it along even with a condom, because the skin areas are not covered. And condoms fail; they break.
Hooking up when two people have sex with no plans to see each other againhas become common, yet psychiatrists and campus health centers do not warn of the inherent dangers.
The research is showing that between 40 and 80 percent of kids on campuses participate in a hookup at some point, Grossman asserts. Now, this is alarming. Not only because of the threat of disease, but what is it doing to kids emotionally, to young women emotionally. Campuses have declared war on many things: on cigarettes, on not getting enough rest. We have yet to declare war on hooking up.
If a girl tells Grossman she has had three partners in the past year, and she recently had an abnormal pap smear, I would encourage her to abstain for a while, Grossman says. And I would explain to her that with every partner, she has more risk of getting other diseases and other strains of the human papilloma virus. And I would treat it like other health issues, like smoking. I would be straightforward about it. I wouldnt sugarcoat it. I wouldnt be offensive, but I would feel that its my responsibility, just like with other risky behaviors, to give her all the facts that she needs, and to urge her to change her behavior.
Yet because of political correctness, psychiatrists and therapists while well-intentioned do not ask screen students for hooking up or engaging in anal sex, Grossman feels. Grossman also does not have pamphlets to warn that behavioral changes are needed. Looking back at the literature of her profession, Grossman found such warnings were given until the early 1990s.
Anything Goes Leads to STDs
In the late 1980s and early 1990s, you could still find people writing articles about this issue and saying that the sort of anything-goes, multiple-partners behavior is dangerous to our youth, and that we need to counteract it aggressively, Grossman relates. But then it sort of disappeared.
Today, she says, You dont see it being dealt with at the annual meetings, I dont see it in the journals any more. The assumption is that the only people that are going to refrain from having casual sex belong to some extreme fundamentalist religion, and that 99.9 percent of college kids are going to go ahead, and might behave like this, and the approach is simply to urge them to use condoms.
Men can have these infections and just carry them without symptoms, but women more often are getting these warts and symptoms, not things you want to have, Ill promise you that, Grossman asserts. And theyre needing treatment, and theyre having the emotional shock of being told they have an STD and sometimes not knowing who they got it from, because it can take months to show symptoms. And people feel, obviously, shame and guilt and so on.
Even if such infections are treated, latent effects can manifest themselves later in life.
There can be difficulty in conceiving a child; there can be increased risk of miscarriage, Grossman says. The hooking-up culture contributes to the skyrocketing of sexually transmitted diseases. Yet ideology is preventing questions about sexual practices from being standard on our mental health evaluation.
Within her profession, when Grossman has raised the possibility of asking students about their sexual histories, she has met with stony silence.
The attitude is, What planet are you on? she says, exasperated.
Meanwhile, Dr. Grossman is looking for a new job.
Mental health professionals at colleges are no longer warning students of the dangers of sexually transmitted diseases, according to Dr. Miriam Grossman, a psychiatrist at UCLA's Student Psychological Services.
Liberals have hijacked psychiatrists, she says, and this politically correct ideology is putting students at risk of illness and death.
Grossmans book, "Unprotected: A Campus Psychiatrist Reveals How Political Correctness in Her Profession Endangers Every Student," has just come out. Because she feared retribution, Grossman authored the book as Anonymous, M.D. The flap copy says, A campus atmosphere of intolerance has forced her to conceal her identity.
However, Grossman has since decided to go public so she can openly describe how liberal ideology has trumped medicine in the mental health profession and at college health centers in general.
When patients see a doctor, they are routinely asked about their sexual practices. If they say they have multiple partners or engage in anal sex, they are warned about the dangers, ranging from HIV to herpes, just as they are warned about the danger of smoking or getting too much sun exposure.
Warnings Are Politically Incorrect
Over the past 10 years, Grossman says, liberals have radicalized the mental health profession and campus health centers, deciding that such warnings are politically incorrect. In fact, on Columbia University Health Services Go Ask Alice Web site, health professionals actually give students advice on proper etiquette for engaging in group sex and going to swinging clubs.
In one typical exchange, a married woman wrote in to say she and her husband started having group sex with other couples. She asked if this was a healthy relationship. Alice, identified on the Web site as a team of health professionals, answered: Dear Reader, You can use your feelings as a gauge We all thoroughly enjoy it. Thats a pretty positive indicator. In her response, Alice gives no warning about sexually transmitted diseases.
Each year, Grossman says, more than 10 million Americans contract a sexually transmitted disease of some kind.
We really have just a horrendous epidemic on our hands. And its going down to young girls 15 years old having abnormal pap smears and having to be watched for the development of cervical cancer.
Anal sex presents the greatest danger; yet saying so is frowned upon.
Its a distortion to say that all types of sexual expression are equally dangerous in terms of transmitting the HIV virus, Grossman affirms. There are many experts who believe that under normal conditions, HIV cant even be transmitted during vaginal intercourse. Anal sex is many times more dangerous than vaginal sex. Yet, Grossman emphasizes, if you look at Web sites that provide health information, or pamphlets that are put out by different universities or organizations and the American College Health Association, its very, very rare to find one that says that anal sex is the most dangerous way to have sex.
The line promoted by health professionals and pamphlets is that, so long as people use condoms, they are safe.
More Information Desperately Needed
Theres a mistaken assumption that wearing a condom confers safety, Grossman states. And that is simply not the case, to say nothing of the fact that every survey of young people shows that in their last encounter, they did not use a condom.
Moreover, conditions such as herpes and the human papilloma virus are spread skin to skin outside of areas protected by condoms.
You may not have any visible signs of having it, Grossman said. So that many people who have it dont know it, and they are passing it along even with a condom, because the skin areas are not covered. And condoms fail; they break.
Hooking up when two people have sex with no plans to see each other againhas become common, yet psychiatrists and campus health centers do not warn of the inherent dangers.
The research is showing that between 40 and 80 percent of kids on campuses participate in a hookup at some point, Grossman asserts. Now, this is alarming. Not only because of the threat of disease, but what is it doing to kids emotionally, to young women emotionally. Campuses have declared war on many things: on cigarettes, on not getting enough rest. We have yet to declare war on hooking up.
If a girl tells Grossman she has had three partners in the past year, and she recently had an abnormal pap smear, I would encourage her to abstain for a while, Grossman says. And I would explain to her that with every partner, she has more risk of getting other diseases and other strains of the human papilloma virus. And I would treat it like other health issues, like smoking. I would be straightforward about it. I wouldnt sugarcoat it. I wouldnt be offensive, but I would feel that its my responsibility, just like with other risky behaviors, to give her all the facts that she needs, and to urge her to change her behavior.
Yet because of political correctness, psychiatrists and therapists while well-intentioned do not ask screen students for hooking up or engaging in anal sex, Grossman feels. Grossman also does not have pamphlets to warn that behavioral changes are needed. Looking back at the literature of her profession, Grossman found such warnings were given until the early 1990s.
Anything Goes Leads to STDs
In the late 1980s and early 1990s, you could still find people writing articles about this issue and saying that the sort of anything-goes, multiple-partners behavior is dangerous to our youth, and that we need to counteract it aggressively, Grossman relates. But then it sort of disappeared.
Today, she says, You dont see it being dealt with at the annual meetings, I dont see it in the journals any more. The assumption is that the only people that are going to refrain from having casual sex belong to some extreme fundamentalist religion, and that 99.9 percent of college kids are going to go ahead, and might behave like this, and the approach is simply to urge them to use condoms.
Men can have these infections and just carry them without symptoms, but women more often are getting these warts and symptoms, not things you want to have, Ill promise you that, Grossman asserts. And theyre needing treatment, and theyre having the emotional shock of being told they have an STD and sometimes not knowing who they got it from, because it can take months to show symptoms. And people feel, obviously, shame and guilt and so on.
Even if such infections are treated, latent effects can manifest themselves later in life.
There can be difficulty in conceiving a child; there can be increased risk of miscarriage, Grossman says. The hooking-up culture contributes to the skyrocketing of sexually transmitted diseases. Yet ideology is preventing questions about sexual practices from being standard on our mental health evaluation.
Within her profession, when Grossman has raised the possibility of asking students about their sexual histories, she has met with stony silence.
The attitude is, What planet are you on? she says, exasperated.
Meanwhile, Dr. Grossman is looking for a new job.
