University packing lists including condoms: is this now standard advice?

[Maybeshesbornwithitmaybeitssertraline]

My ds2 has got his essential packing list for university, including condoms. I know, better to do it safely than not but really?

When I was 18 you only needed condoms if you were in a long term relationship. Is it so different these days?

I'll admit that I'm struggling with the idea that my 18 year old us old enough to go to university so the idea of him needing condoms as well is a bit out of my comfort zone.

Gosh @Maybeshesbornwithitmaybeitssertraline as a response to your update, genuinely? So really you actually think that the only people having sex when you were at uni 25 years ago were in an LTR? And now? No one is hooking up with someone they just met, or someone they have known for a short while, or someone they have known for a while but just got together with? No one you know has done any of those things and you don't think your DC will either?

None of those things is, as such, reprehensible. I mean as long as both participants are on board and someone uses a condom or other barrier protection.

Come on OP; I am 44 and I find it really hard to believe that no one you knew had casual sex in their young adult days. Unless you only knew a couple of people and didn’t get out much.

I agree, I’m in my 50s and I only know one girl who had sex for the first time with her long term boyfriend. The rest of us were just eager to get it over with and picked the first hot lad that offered it up!

I have had chats with all my dc about consent and contraception etc. I just thought that as ds2 hasn't had a girlfriend yet, he wouldn't be needing condoms anytime soon.

He's an adult. None of this is any of your business. You're talking about him like you think he's 14.

When I was a teenager most of the girls in my friend group waited until they were with someone special before having sex. Nobody waited until they were married but nobody had one night stands either.

So what, though? Surely you realise that different people have different sex lives?

Again: you're talking about university students here. They're grown adults leaving home. They will all have their own individual attitudes to sex and relationships.

there were no packing lists 30 yrs ago

I'm in my 50's and was part of the teen generation that had the falling tomb stones adverts, so condoms condoms condoms!! Unless you're 80, university students were having random sex in your day I promise you!

There were - not like a 'Welcome to university, this is what you must pack' like a list for a school trip, but loads of pre-uni info that got sent out to you by post before moving into halls used to include some stuff from the student union on what you might want to bring. I got some stuff like that when I started uni in 1994 and at least one of my friends did too, because I remember us comparing the two different lists.

There were often general features in the newspapers with stuff like 'Got a child going to uni? Here's what our experts suggest they take with them that you might not have thought of' too.

Nigh on 50 years ago I don’t think I needed to pack much, apart from clothes.

I didn’t even need to make my own bed. Let alone provide the linen.

In 1973 I was advised to take a saucepan, a frying pan, mug, plate and cutlery. I think I needed my own towel but bedding was provided.

Literally no idea when you were 18, but i think you might just have been very naive or sheltered. Only needing condoms in long term relationships has never been a thing. Teens have been having casual sex for as long as teens have been around.

I wouldn't describe condoms as essential on a packing list just as I wouldn't describe an ironing board as essential (unless you're joining the military. Some people will need them and some people won't. It's important that everyone knows to use one though so I wouldn't be overly pedantic about them being described as essential.

I can't remember if we had a packing list, but you could barely move for free condoms in 1990. We were all going to die if AIDS anyway.

They don't take up much room. Better to have them and not need them than vice versa.

AIDS is fatal
don't be silly
put a condom
on your Willy

plus the terrifying posters with a tombstone and “AIDS: Don’t die of ignorance” on them.

Were they really terrifying? They were just poster.

There was definitely a lot of fear around AIDS as a disease- was around 86/87. I was around 10 so old enough to know about sex but not really old enough to understand the ins and outs of catching AIDS and people initially thought it to be more transmissible than it turned out to be. There was still a lot of misinformation about how you could catch it and of course everyone was talking about the awful ways you could die.

Anyway, yes, 10 year old me was terrified of getting AIDS which I viewed as probably more than 50% likely at the time 😂

I’m also from Brighton so I imagine they were rather hammering home the messaging around there relative to some other parts of the country.

I guess in 86/87 when I was 15/16, it didn’t worry me greatly.

Thanks for starting this thread it reminded me to get condoms for DD who starts uni next! Hopefully she would get more reliable contraceptions too if is she’s in a long relationship but having condoms to hand is a excellent idea.

I'm in my 40s. When I went to university I was the only virgin and I divested myself of that asap. Casual sex was rampant. Are you actually struggling with the idea that your adult son will have a sex life and should be safe when he does??

It was much more than just a poster. There were adverts like this that were repeatedly played on national TV. Plus there were leaflets https://wellcomecollection.org/works/kx943x59/items that were delivered to every home in the UK and frequent messaging in TV programmes, newspaper and magazine articles, in schools and so on that having unprotected sex was pretty much a death sentence. It was relentless.

Oh dear.

In fairness, there hadn't been the medical advances in management and treatment of HIV that there are today, so if you did have the misfortune to contract HIV via unprotected sex, it was far more likely to develop into AIDS than it would be in someone today who contracted HIV and sought treatment.

I was at uni in the early 90’s and condoms were in the uni welcome pack we all got, along with teabags and pot noodles ! I used them too !!