The bulletin boards in Ellis Hall attract all manner of strangeness and propaganda. Notices for OU Socialists Club share space with College Republicans literature, meeting information for pagans sits side by side with flyers for Campus Crusade for Christ. I even found a cartoon titled "Sodomized Again!" from the fun-loving Campus Crusade for Cthulu.

The last interesting thing I found on one of those boards was a picture of a bride in her white dress and groom still in his tuxedo above the caption, "What to wear when you're planning on safe sex."

This set me to thinking (and that is never a good sign). First off, I pondered the logistical difficulties of sex in wedding-wear. Have you ever seen all the layers and ruffles and ribbons and bows and crap on a wedding dress? Unless he hung his new wife by her ankles from the rafters, this poor husband wouldn't even be able to find his wife, let alone (verb) his (noun) into her (noun). Plus tuxedos are hot. Any man attempting to accomplish interpersonal interface, as it were, would die of heat exhaustion, if dehydration didn't get him first.

But then I wondered what exactly makes married sex, safe sex? After all, it sure sounds dangerous. Even after they shed their clothes, there is no guarantee their sex will be any safer than any other. Sex, like finals, is comprehensive. Even after the goofy smiles and butt tinglies wear off, that funny itching in your naughty bits will still be there. Just because Bob and Jane are sharing themselves only with each other now doesn't mean she never topped off the 4X400 relay team, and he never spent an enchanted evening with a promiscuous, hemophiliac intravenous drug user. And no matter how restrictive a rented polyester tuxedo may be, it can't stop crotch crabbies.

I was really thinking about this. Even if neither Bob nor Jane ever suffered through an embarrassing discharge or painful urination doesn't mean they're safe because they're married. Because the implication that all non-married sex is unsafe, I assume that means they won't have sex (at least with each other) until their wedding night. That's not dangerous, that's downright suicidal.

What if Bob can't achieve erection unless Jane wears a gray wig, a flowered apron, bakes him cookies and calls him "Sonny"? Is the first night of the rest of their lives together the right time for Bob to learn that Jane screams "Let's go, Mets!" when she climaxes? I should say not. Sex with strangers may be thrilling, but it is no way to build a life. Let me put it this way, would you want to stay with the first person that ever knew you biblically? You want the person who did all that inept fumbling and misguided groping around all the time? Do you want the individual responsible for that disturbingly sticky, creepily wet and surprisingly short experience to sit across from you every morning with his nose hair in his coffee or her breasts resting on the table? I didn't think so.

What if one of them is a jerk? Does that suddenly go away with the exchange of rings? What if Bob likes inflicting pain? If he likes punching Jane in the ear every time the Mets come on TV, he's not going to suddenly stop because she's his wife. In fact, it probably means it will be that much harder for Jane to get away. What if Jane is a charter member of the Lorena Bobbitt fan club? When that veil comes down, will she magically drop her subscription to Cutlery Magazine?

I sure can't figure out how married sex is safer than other sex. If anything, it seems more dangerous. Marriage doesn't prevent a significant other from sleeping around, punching you out or just being a bad lay; it just makes leaving harder. Once you sneak out after yodeling in the valley with an individual you've suddenly discovered is Sasquatch, all you leave are bad memories and maybe a poorly disposed of contraceptive device. Leave a marriage, though, and for the rest of your life you'll still have to deal a person you've decided is Satan's most evil minion on Earth. That's an awful big price to pay for a quick slap and tickle.

Harris dearly loves his girlfriend, and the experience described above in no way refers to their first time. And in case either of their mothers ever read this, the previous statement in no way implies they've ever had sex.