Kevin Louis, junior justice studies major, lists qualities men look for in women at the Relationship Forum for World AIDS Week last night in Oscar Ritchie Hall. Presented by Zeta Phi Beta and Phi Beta Sigma, the topic of the forum was “Wifey Material or t

Credit: Steve Schirra

Students walking into the Oscar Ritchie lecture hall were handed a small piece of a paper with a question on it: “Which do you prefer? A one-night stand or a relationship?”

This question was the basis of last night’s discussion forum titled, “Wifey Material or the Campus Jump Off?” The forum was presented by Phi Beta Sigma and Zeta Phi Beta to coincide with World AIDS week.

“We want to know the opinion of students on campus if they want relationships or friends with benefits,” said Dametraus Jaggers, president of Phi Beta Sigma.

Ashley Tolliver, freshman fashion merchandising major, said she doesn’t like the idea of one-night stands.

“A one-night stand is taking a very big chance,” she said. “You don’t know if he’s a serial killer or not.”

D’Onna Stubblefield, Zeta Phi Beta vice president, said it was important to coincide the forum with World AIDS Week because of the danger of spreading sexually transmitted diseases during one-night stands.

Forum leaders divided the group of about 85 students by sex. Each group made a list of qualities it would like to see in the opposite sex. Some of the qualities the women said they’d like their men to have are honesty, respectability, education and nice shoes. Some of the qualities the men would like to see in women are trustworthiness, patience and a nice body.

Tolliver responded to the nice body attribute because she thought it was unfair.

“You guys are always wearing baggy clothes, and I can’t see what’s underneath,” she said.

Darius Peterson, a video production graduate student, said the women should ask the men if they work out and judge them off that.

Senior English major Carla Smith asked the men what defines a good body, and the men responded “curves.”

One of the attributes the women had listed was they’d like to see their men “thugged out.”

Stubblefield said this meant she didn’t want to date somebody who was “soft.”

“I don’t want to be able to run over you,” she said. “I need somebody with a backbone.”

The discussion turned to the role of sex in a relationship, and Peterson said sex can possibly create problems.

“When you have sex, and you put sex in the middle of it, it gets confusing,” he said.

Michele Sanders, junior integrated health studies major, said a lot of the problems with relationships start because people don’t define whether the relationship is based on sex.

“More often than not, it doesn’t happen,” she said. “People don’t define where their relationship is or where it’s going.”

Quiera Lige, freshman psychology major, said relationships aren’t just about sex.

“You need that spiritual connection to keep going,” she said.

Contact ethnic and minority affairs reporter Tim Magaw at [email protected].