Only 33 Sign Pact : Responsible for Sex Acts? Men Say No

A Valentine’s Day appeal for sexual responsibility at Washington State University netted just 33 men out of thousands asked to promise not to have sexual relations with a woman against her will and to help care for any child that might result from sexual relations.

“It’s pathetic,” said Myrna Omofama, a sophomore business major who asked men to sign the sexual responsibility contract as a Women’s Center project.

“We haven’t accomplished much if only 33 men on a campus of 16,000 (students) agree to mutual responsibility in the act of lovemaking,” she said.

The contract lists a man’s obligations to his sexual partners.

Those responsibilities include a pledge by the man to be involved in the decision on what birth control method to use.

“I will take the initiative in this because women historically have been asked or expected to manipulate or alter their bodies in order to control fertility,” the contract says.

The true test, though, comes if birth control fails and pregnancy results, said Marlene Howell, the Women’s Center director who wrote the Valentine’s Day contract.

If a woman becomes pregnant, the man pledges to interrupt his career, schooling or other plans in order to help care for the child for at least 18 years.

Howell said she isn’t surprised that more men didn’t sign. However, she said, she was worried that some who signed wouldn’t allow their names to be used in a newspaper advertisement “because their friends would laugh.”