Is Brandon Davies the Only Guy Getting Laid at BYU?

Brigham Young University’s decision to suspend basketball star Brandon Davies for having premarital sex stunned the sports world, which got Jeremy Singer-Vine of Slate wondering: Just how common is the horizontal tango at the Mormon university? It’s a tough question to answer. A 1954 study estimated that 14% of BYU students had engaged in premarital shenanigans. But the school actually may have grown more conservative since; a 1973 poll showed 98% of students thought premarital sex was “morally wrong,” up from 88% in 1935.

Every year about 1.5% to 3.5% of students are contacted by the Honor Code Office, but most are likely for less serious violations, which can include anything from drinking tea to growing a beard. Still, some amount of students must be getting it on, because at a press conference defending the school’s decision yesterday, Athletic Director Tom Holmoe alluded to other incidents. “People across the country might think this is foreign to them,” he said, according to CNN. “But for us, we deal with this quite often.” (Did BYU do the right thing? Click to read some opinions.)