Few SDSU Students Show Up for Koop’s AIDS, Safe Sex Talk

U.S. Surgeon General C. Everett Koop brought his “safe sex” message to San Diego State University on Wednesday but few undergraduates at the school that Playboy magazine recently billed as one of the nation’s Top 10 Party Schools came out to hear him.

More than 400 people sat in Montezuma Hall for Koop’s talk, sponsored by the university’s School of Public Health, but the majority were faculty, staff members, graduate students and people from the San Diego community.

“It’s not an issue here, it’s not an issue at all,” said Diane Burke, a senior in the pre-medical program. “And I don’t think the surgeon general is a very effective person to get the message out on campus. He’s so conservative-looking and he’s not in our age group.”

During a press conference before his lecture, Koop said people under 20 years old are the hardest to convince of the need to take precautions against AIDS.

“Teen-agers don’t hear many things you say to them,” Koop said. “When you’re dealing with teen-agers, whether it’s about smoking, or seat belts or drinking . . . you’re dealing with an elite group who think they are immortal.

“They like to take risks and think they will escape the consequences.”

On Semester Break

SDSU undergraduates are on semester break, a fact that could explain why so few showed for Koop’s lecture.

But undergraduates found on campus didn’t think a lecture on safe sex practices would draw a big crowd under any circumstances.

Those interviewed on Wednesday said that although they and their friends know that AIDS can be spread through heterosexual sex, few on the SDSU campus seem to be abiding by the guidelines Koop outlined in his talk. The surgeon general recommended abstaining from sex, having sex only in monogamous relationships or, at least, use of condoms.

“They snicker about (safe sex practices),” said Reiner Hof, a senior history major who is a student government representative. “I think San Diego State is as promiscuous as ever.”

Playboy, in an October pictorial, proclaimed San Diego State as the nation’s No. 3 party school.

Hof said “a lot of students here are young and still think they are invincible. Their attitude is ‘Sex is fun and AIDS isn’t going to hurt me.’ ”

Tony Ordas, a senior physiology student, agreed.

“I haven’t heard (AIDS) just come up in conversation on campus,” Ordas said. “I guess it hasn’t really hit home in this community, the way it has in San Francisco.”

Burke said she thought most SDSU students still believe that AIDS only affects a small minority of people.

A Good Girl

“Men still think they can go to a party and tell whether she’s a good girl or a bad girl,” Burke said. “The boys think they’re safe because they sleep with good girls. They still think it’s a gay disease or something only sluts get. But not that clean-looking blonde in those shorts. She’d never have it.”

Burke added that she and her female friends have not found men on campus receptive to such preventive measures as use of condoms or being tested for AIDS antibodies.

“Men get offended if you ask them to wear a condom, still,” Burke said. “The women I’ve talked to say that they’re really embarrassed to ask. There was a condom week last year and it was a big joke to people.”

Dr. Lee Wessel, SDSU’s assistant director for preventive medicine, said that although students know about AIDS prevention, they’re not putting it into practice.

“We’re seeing the same rate of sexually transmitted diseases as three or four years ago,” Wessel said.

The fact that there has been no change indicates that students are not abstaining from sex or using condoms in greater numbers than they were before the risks of AIDS were widely known, he said.

For those students who have educated themselves about AIDS, a disease that destroys the body’s immune system and is spread through exchanges of blood or semen, Koop’s 40-minute overview contained little that was new.

High-Risk Groups

But Steve Anderson, a 19-year-old history major who said he follows the AIDS issue closely because many of his friends are intravenous drug users, one of the disease’s high-risk groups, was somewhat relieved by what he learned from the surgeon general.

Koop “said only 4% got it from heterosexual sex,” Anderson said. “That’s cool. I thought it was more.”

Anderson said that every time he goes to an educational event about AIDS he “gets more and more scared” but that he doesn’t practice safe sex, although he knows the risks.

Eddie Liddle, a friend of Anderson’s, said he was the same way.

“You hear all these things, but then you go out and party and forget the whole thing,” Liddle said. “It’s like everything in life--it’s hard to change your behavior.”

Liddle said that he even carries condoms with him--he pulled one out of his wallet as proof--but that he doesn’t use them.

“It’s a scary life style,” he said, shaking his head.

Anderson said he didn’t know how effective Koop’s lecture would be in getting members of the audience to change their sex lives.

“All he can do is give you the statistics and wish you good luck,” Anderson said.