Ernest Gomez | The great sex survey scam

We might be unranked in football, but we've almost cracked the top 10 in the world's most-played sport.

Penn took 11th place in the second annual Sexual Health Report Card, a ranking of sexual health resources at 139 U.S. colleges and universities released by the makers of Trojan condoms. The Ivy League also won the title for the Most Sexually Healthy Conference.

I know what you're thinking: Students in the Ivy League don't have sex as much as our friends in SEC, Big-12 or Pac-10 schools. I agree.

However, the rankings have nothing to do with preponderance of sexual activity. The study gauges the availability of sexual-health resources in eleven categories.

While any effort to promote sexual-health awareness among college campuses is commendable, the survey fails to provide an accurate picture of the quality of sexual-health resources at Penn or any other school.

Evelyn Wiener, director of Student Health Service, said, "Although [Trojan] discloses how they came up with their rankings, I don't know that there's any validity to their scoring criteria."

Among the 11 survey categories (ranging from condom/contraception availability to sexual-health awareness programs), Penn received A's in seven categories and B's in four. Penn's cumulative sexual-health GPA was 3.55.

When asked who at Penn was contacted for survey data, Trojan spokesperson Melle Hock said, "an independent research firm, gathered information from the staff [of] student-health centers and reviewed their Web sites."

Surprisingly, Wiener and Susan Villari, director of the Office of Health Education, do not recall being contacted by Sperling's, the independent research firm, or Trojan.

I seriously question the validity of a study that failed to contact either these administrators yet provides an evaluation of Penn's sexual-health services. I question the survey's credibility further if grades were based entirely on Web site content.

It's possible that Sperling'scontacted random SHS staff, but one -- they probably didn't -- and two, why didn't they go to the head administrators?

We can't tell how carefully Sperling's reviewed every school's Web site. Even if they were thorough, the study may have ignored resources readily available to the student body that are not advertised online.

Not to mention that some schools, especially ones with religious affiliations or conservative student bodies, might be hesitant to advertise free birth control on their Web sites.

Penn's "A" rating for condom availability is especially suspect. A survey of 1,100 Penn students conducted by the UA in the Fall 2006 semester found that 39 percent of males said they experienced problems such as breakage and discomfort with the Lifestyle condoms distributed for free on campus.

It's unsurprising then that Penn students are using condoms for vaginal sex only 40 percent of the time, according to Villari.

Clearly, at best, the rankings give an indication of access to resources - not quality, not student awareness and definitely not student health.

The Trojan study tried to get college students' perceptions of their school's sexual-health resources using a Facebook poll. Over 33,000 students responded, but only 32 were from Penn, so I repeated the five-question survey for Penn students on my own.

39 Penn undergrads responded to the question: "Do you feel that Penn's Student Health Service does a good job of making its services and information known and available to students?" 28.2 percent of respondents said yes, 56.4 percent said no and 15.4. percent had no opinion.

When undergrads from all 139 surveyed schools were asked the same question in the Facebook poll, 66 percent said yes, 26 percent said no and 8 percent had no opinion.

Despite our impressive ranking, Penn could obviously do a better job of marketing its sexual-health resources.

Given these limitations of the Sexual Health Report Card, it's nothing more than a marketing tactic Trojan uses to slip its name into college newspapers every year. Most college newspapers bought the survey hook, line and sinker and published the results giving Trojan free advertising.

The "Sexual Health Report Card" tells us nothing about the actual sexual health of the student body. Trojan is making unqualified implications about student bodies based on supposed polling and web surfing, putting universities' health centers on the defensive in the process.

So don't worry.

Villanova's 135th ranking doesn't mean your one night stand has herpes - he or she would just have some trouble using the school's Web site for help.

Be safe, be smart and don't let these rankings get to your head (no pun intended).

Ernest Gomez is a Wharton and Engineering senior from Beverly Hills, Calif. His e-mail is gomez@dailypennsylvanian.com. Please, Call Me Ted usually appears on Mondays.

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