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Even though Elaine Pasqua lost her mother and stepfather to AIDS, she is not one-sided about high-risk behavior. As a college student, she partied.
“I got through it, but not everyone does,” she said.
Pasqua, president of Project Prevent, a non-profit organization that provides AIDS prevention education, spoke to about 200 students Monday evening about the effects alcohol has on sexual activity.
Alcohol is the number one high-risk behavior, Pasqua said, and the main reason that people drink alcohol is to feel more confident.
Pasqua provided an example of a guy wanting to talk to an attractive girl at a party.
“You start pounding down drinks thinking you’ll loosen up,” she said. “Then, you’ll have the worst breath at the party and the girl will not want to talk to you.”
Within 90 seconds of having a drink, alcohol leaves the stomach, Pasqua said. After only five minutes of having one drink, the alcohol reaches the brain and greatly decreases a person’s inhibitions.
Pasqua asked freshman industrial design major Holden Plack to wear goggles simulating a 0.10 blood alcohol level to show the effects of alcohol on coordination. Plack, a TU basketball player, was unable to make a shot—or even walk a straight line.
“It’s kind of wild,” Plack said.
Alcohol can also have an effect on grades.
“Twenty-eight percent of college dropouts are due to alcohol,” Pasqua said.
The average A-student has 4.25 drinks a week, she added, explaining that as the amount of drinks increases, GPA decreases.
While she doesn’t expect students to never drink, Pasqua said it is important to drink responsibly. Dangers of alcohol include rape, violence, injuries and even death.
Pasqua shared a story about a Cornell University student who decided to go to the roof of a building while drunk. He thought it would be a good idea to slide down the chimney, she said, but on the way down he got caught on something and choked to death.
Hand-in-hand with alcohol is unsafe sex. Pasqua asked everyone to participate in a Fluid Exchange Exercise, in which students picked up a cup containing either water or sodium hydroxide, representing HIV. Since both liquids are clear, students did not know which one they had.
Students mixed their liquids with three other people to simulate exchanging fluids with other people through sex. Afterward they had their cups tested; if the liquid turned pink, the student had contracted HIV. The amount of cups containing sodium hydroxide began with 24 and increased to more than 140 after exchanging fluids.
Junior exercise science major Steve Fell was shocked as he watched his and a friend’s cups turned pink.
“It wasn’t a good feeling,” Fell said.
Though the exercise wasn’t a reality, it still affected people, Pasqua said.
“Think about how difficult it would be to tell someone you love that you have HIV,” she said.
She then filled the audience in with statistics: 65 million people have an incurable sexually transmitted disease, 25 percent of people under 21 have an STD and there are around 40,000 new cases of HIV every year in the United States.
Chlamydia and gonorrhea cases have increased greatly, even among middle school students.
“We have an epidemic because kids don’t think oral sex is sex,” Pasqua said.
STDs can leave people sterile and ruin their hopes of having a family. There are many preventive steps to take.
Abstinence and masturbation are 100 percent effective in preventing pregnancy and STDs, Pasqua said.
However, if students do have sex, they should protect themselves by using latex condoms, which are 99 percent effective against pregnancy and STDs.
To show how alcohol can affect safe sex, Pasqua asked a student to wear beer goggles and place a condom onto a dildo. Afterward, Pasqua pointed out what the student did wrong, or was not able to do intoxicated.
Pasqua explained that when using a condom, a person must first check the expiration date and then press the packet to see if there is a cushion of air. If there isn’t any air, there is a hole in the package, and the condom should be thrown out. While putting on a condom, one also needs to leave a space at the top, which can be done by pinching the top while rolling the condom down.
Another topic was the date rape drug.
“This is the coward’s way to have sex,” Pasqua said.
It only takes 15 minutes for date rape drugs to take effect. To help avoid date rape, Pasqua suggested going to parties with trustworthy people and not leaving drinks unattended.
The event ended in a role-playing game. Four males and four females assumed given identities. Each person then read a script about their “identity,” describing who they liked and who they had slept with.
As the story unfolds, the audience realizes knowing if someone has an STD is impossible because their past partners’ sexual history may not be known.
“People will do and say what they want for their own sexual gain,” Pasqua said. “One night can change your life. Don’t blow the opportunities that lay ahead for you.”
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