If you don’t want to get the flu, you get a flu shot. If you don’t want to get a sexually transmitted disease or pregnant, you use a condom. Luckily, Syracuse University Health Services gives both of those things out for free. And in a perfect world, everyone would wear a condom all the time and get a flu shot and no one would ever be sick.

That’s not reality, though. And the difference between not getting a flu shot and not wearing a condom is that there’s no stigma to getting the flu even if you didn’t get a flu shot.

It’s good that Health Services encourages students and faculty to get flu shots and it provides people with free condoms, but there needs to be more encouragement from Health Services and various groups on campus for students to get tested for STDs.

There’s an unspoken stigma surrounding STD tests. Nobody wants to admit they’ve gotten tested, even if it’s just part of a regular checkup. It’s like getting tested is an admission that you have a lot of unprotected sex — even though it shouldn’t be, considering just how common STDs are.

According to the American Sexual Health Association, more than half of all people will have an STD at some point in their lifetime, and one in two sexually active persons will contract an STD by the age of 25. An April 29, 2013 article by The Atlantic states only 60 percent of teens supposedly wear condoms and that condom usage declines as people get older. People should be wearing condoms 100 percent of the time, even when they’re in a monogamous relationship. But they don’t.

So in addition to promoting safe sex, why don’t colleges encourage students to get regular STD tests?

I always found it interesting that university residence halls always gave out free condoms, but seemed silent when it came to encouraging residents to get tested for STDs. When I was a freshman, my dorm often held “condom bingo” events where students could go and win a bunch of free condoms. My floor also had a “condom king or queen” that would hand out condoms upon request.

I get the logic behind the whole “give out free condoms and no one will have unprotected sex” thing, but it seems like trusting college students — or anyone, really — to do the right thing doesn’t always work out.

I asked the Resident Hall Association president, Malik Evans, why residence halls seem to steer clear of promoting STD tests, but give out so many condoms — both of which are components of safe sex.

Health Services, he said, gives the RHA a number of condoms to distribute to residence halls. RHA doesn’t try to promote or discourage sexual activity. As for telling freshmen to get tested for STDs, Evans said RHA has never done a program like that, as those programs can fall to campus organizations that promote safe sex, like Sex-Esteem.

Evans also said information about where to get tested for STDs is among the information resident advisers give their residents, along with general information like how to contact the Department of Public Safety.

According to Health Service’s website, although HIV testing and counseling is free, the cost of STD testing is dependent on what your insurance covers. The only way to access free STD testing that doesn’t require your insurance is to go downtown to the Onondaga County Health Department Clinics. I can understand why SU couldn’t provide free STD testing to students all the time. But I think they could do more to encourage students to get tested.

During flu season, for example, Health Services offers free flu shots. Why couldn’t they have a month where all students need to get tested is a student ID? Or why can’t residence halls promote regular STD screenings along with all the free condoms they give out?

The obvious counter-argument for promoting STD testing is that it would encourage students to have more unprotected sex. I’m sure people argued that providing students with condoms would increase sexual activity on a college campus. And yet, that’s become a normal thing on most campuses.

So in addition to all the condoms, Health Services and groups on campus should encourage students to get tested. The more people that get tested regularly, the fewer students there will be unknowingly spreading STDs.

Kate Beckman is a sophomore magazine journalism major. Her column appears every week in Pulp. You can reach her at kebeckma@syr.edu or follow her on Twitter at @Kate_Beckman.

Published on January 28, 2015 at 12:01 am