Unprotected Collegians

Dr. Miriam Grossman, psychiatrist at UCLA and author of Unprotected- A Campus Psychiatrist Reveals How Political Correctness in Her Profession Endangers Every Student, originally agreed to write the book under the condition that the publisher would conceal her identity out of fear that she would lose her job, then gave permission to Dr. Laura Schlessinger to identify her on radio. “My profession as been hijacked,” she writes. “I cannot do my job, my patients are suffering, and I am fed up.”

She has treated more than 2,000 students at UCLA. “Radical politics pervades my profession, and common sense has vanished.” Grossman claims. She goes on to explain that counselors no longer advise that casual sex is “mindless” and “empty.”

Pregnancies, abortions and STD’s all used to be serious matters. Traditional marriage and parenting were valued milestones. This is no longer the case.

Instead students are advised to use latex and have a limited number of partners. Abortions are an everyday part of life. Traditional marriage between one man and one woman is just one option among alternatives, all equally valid.

“These changes are the result of social agendas foisted on the campus community, and in my work at the counseling center, I see the consequences daily,” she reports. “Dangerous behaviors are a personal choice, judgments are prohibited— they might offend.”

“Attendance at ‘multiculturalism’ workshops to increase my sensitivity and inclusivity, and confront my sexism, racism, and homophobia—are mandatory.”

“During my years on campus, thousands of students have opened up to me, and shared their private lives,” she recalls. “With some frequency, they suffer the consequences of our hook up culture: sexually transmitted infections—some have them, others have significant anxiety about contracting them; unwanted pregnancy; confusion, loneliness and heartache due to chaotic and empty relationships.”

“It’s bad enough that today’s freshmen arrive on campus having grown up with Friends and Sex in the City, brainwashed to believe in the ideology of sex without consequences,” she writes. “What’s worse is when our universities, and some health professionals, accept this risky lifestyle as unavoidable, and in some cases even promote it.”

Dr. Grossman shared these revelations with AIA in an e-mail. “I wrote Unprotected to alert students, parents, educators, and colleagues: there is critical information which is being omitted or distorted due to social agendas in health and counseling, and young people, especially women, are paying dearly,” she maintains.

As she points out in interviews, that implicit cost is a sad one. “One study showed 57% of college women agreed that being promiscuous is a way to fit in,” she remembers. “But I’m troubled by something different: a culture that dupes a young woman with the fraudulent ideology that they are like men.”

“Not that every man is comfortable with multiple casual encounters, but we have hard science indicating a young woman is more vulnerable, physically and emotionally,” according to Dr. Grossman. “But that research doesn’t reach college students, and so when some of these women find themselves confused and angry after hooking up, they think there’s something wrong with them.”

“Let’s examine the double standard we have in this area of health,” she argues. “When it comes to diet and exercise we assume young people are capable of self discipline and that—when armed with the facts and encouraged by health providers—they’ll make smart decisions.”

“Ditto for cigarettes, drugs, and alcohol. Why then, in the area of sexual health, do we assume poor choices and risky behavior?” she asks.

“Why do we dismiss the healthiest choice—waiting, and finding someone else who also waited—as ‘unrealistic’?”

“The truth is that latex decreases, but does not eliminate physical risks, and has no effect on emotional risks,” she warns. “In my book, that’s not protection.”

“Instead of giving a false sense of security, we need to declare war on hooking up, and deal with these urgent issues with the same no-nonsense approach we’ve used in health campaigns.”

“After all, self discipline exists outside the gym and the cafeteria. When students see that we, the experts, are alarmed about risky behaviors, and have faith in their ability to make smarter decisions, then perhaps they will consider it.”

“Otherwise, why should they?”

Wendy Cook is a staff writer for Accuracy in Academia.