Valentine effort promotes authentic love to college students

Feb 13, 2014 / 12:08 pm

A nationwide campaign leading up to Valentine's Day is encouraging college students to seek meaningful relationships and develop a healthy understanding of love and sexuality.

Young men and women today truly "want a love story," said Caitlin Seery, director of the Love and Fidelity Network.

Surveys consistently show that "college men and women still aspire to get married someday, even if 'someday' is still several years in the future," she told CNA, adding that even in college, researchers have found "that very few students, when given privacy to speak honestly, are satisfied with the hook-up culture."

Unfortunately, Seery explained, "between the carnage of the campus hook-up culture and the broader cultural breakdown of the family, these young men and women have seen so few examples of successful stories – and so many examples of broken relationships and marriages – that too few students today even believe this kind of a love story is possible."

"We hope our campaign helps them start to believe that it is."

Based in Princeton, N.J., the Love and Fidelity Network works on dozens of college campuses across the country to promote the unique roles of marriage and family in society, as well as the integrity of human sexuality.

This is the seventh year that the network is planning a campaign to offer an alternative to the "hookup culture" and sexual revolution mindset among college students. It hopes to instead encourage an understanding of authentic commitment-based love and the dignity of human sexuality.

The initiative involves placing thousands of posters on college campuses throughout the U.S. in the days leading up to Feb. 14. In addition, students are encouraged to spread the campaign's message through social media efforts, editorials, resources, speakers and other campus events.

"For too many students, Valentine's Day on campus means being bombarded with messages that promote commitment-free hookups and distort the true meaning of human sexuality," Seery said in a Feb. 7 press release.

"Sex Week and condom giveaways are common features of mid-February campus programming, and we think students deserve better than that."

"Sex Week" events surrounding Valentine's Day have become notorious on college campuses for their vulgar components, including seminars featuring sex therapists and pornography actors, lewd film festivals, gay advocacy and promotion of sexual experimentation.

To counter this message, the Love and Fidelity Network is focusing its efforts this year on the theme of "#love: Make Yours a Story, Not a Tweet."

The organization explained that its goal is to show how the "hookup culture" can degrade the authentic pursuit for love, reducing it to "superficial and depersonalized interactions."

"This year's theme highlights the rich and unique nature of authentic love, something that is missing from casual encounters," Seery explained, adding that the campaign is seeking to "spark dialogue and inspire students to think more deeply about what it means to write their own story."