Students often prescribe to two misconceptions about college culture: everyone is having sex, and only when drugs and/or alcohol are involved.

These misconceptions plague students’ minds.

In reality, not every student is having sex. WSU’s National College Health Assessment (NCHA) for spring of 2014 stated that 73.1 percent of the campus has had either no sexual partner or just one in the last year, which is almost three-fourths of the population.

The national statistics are similar, reporting 72.2 percent of students surveyed said they have had no sexual partner or only one within the last year. Of those students, 30.6 percent reported having no sexual partner, according to the NCHA spring 2014 report.

Despite these statistics, many students perceive that everybody is having sex, so they try to assimilate to that expectation. The problem is, they don’t see the whole campus. Students only hear what others say, said Marsha Turnbull, health education administrator.

Movies like “The Hangover,” “Neighbors,” and “Animal House” feed into and build upon the perception of college, said Shane McFarland, program coordinator at Health & Wellness.

“It’s incredible, the impact of music videos and television and Facebook,” McFarland said.

With media portrayals of sex in college involving alcohol and drugs so prevalent, the questions “Is drunken sex better than sober sex” or “Is this consensual sex” arise. When consuming any type of alcohol or drug, a person’s body is affected.

By now, many students know inhibitions lower with drugs and alcohol consumption, so it is more likely they make poor choices. Despite the possibility of an STD/STI or unplanned pregnancy, drinking and drug use when tied to sex can have some physical effects as well, said Dr. Jenell Decker, a board-certified family medicine physician. For instance, men who consume alcohol and Ecstasy can have problems with erections during sex while women can have trouble climaxing, she said.

“No. Sex with drugs and alcohol is not the best,” Decker said.

Not only is the sex not the best with alcohol or drugs, people under the influence can’t give full consent, said Nikki Finnestead, violence prevention coordinator at Health and Wellness Services.

Consent is freely given and freely obtained, therefore someone cannot be forced to do something they don’t want to do, she said. So when people have been drinking and are incapacitated, they don’t have the ability to give full consent because they don’t understand their surroundings.

And a verbal yes still isn’t consent, she said. When they don’t know what they are saying yes to, that’s when it falls on the other person to ask if this person really coherent enough. It becomes a two-way street between both parties involved, she said.

“You can’t take it back; once it’s done it’s done,” Decker said. “Although you can be abstinent afterward, you just open up a whole can of worms, and is it really worth it? Some may say yes, some may say no, but it’s each person’s choice.”

The social pressures of society and friends play in part when it comes to drinking, drugs and sexual health. Friends can have an impact on a person’s values and decisions. And just as people can be pressured into drinking, the same pressure can occur with sexual activity, McFarland said. Students might feel certain activities are normalized because they see it in the media or hear their friends talk about it.

“Your decisions are based on your values or what you think your values are, and often-times the social components are somebody else’s values that influence you,” he said.