Students get taste of 'Real World'

Sex and drugs -- Real World style. Last night, an estimated 400 students spent two hours asking questions and receiving frank, and at times explicit, answers from two former cast members. Disclaimers posted on the doors to Alumni Hall warned all those entering the event that opinions given were not representative of the Union Board.\nPuck and Julie, members of the MTV "Real World" San Francisco and New Orleans casts respectively, covered issues like abstinence, homosexuality and drugs. Julie, a national spokesperson for abstinence, warned students about pre-marital and unsafe sex practices and their dangerous consequences.\nSex and homosexuality ruled the evening, providing the majority of the question and answer session topics. Blatantly voicing opinions, it was clear early on Julie was pro-homosexuality and Puck was against the topic. For Julie, living with Danny, a gay New Orleans cast member, completely changed both her views and her life.\n"I had naïve views about alternative sexual lifestyles coming from Wisconsin," she said. "They were changed when I met Danny because he was different, but not the gay stereotype."\nSince finding God, Puck's view have found roots in the Bible. For him, it was not his place to judge gays, since someone else is going to judge them in the end.\nQuestions surrounding Pedro, an openly gay San Francisco member who died of AIDS in 1994, and Puck's relationship found their way into the discussion. Likewise, the controversy surrounding Danny's boyfriend Paul, a gay Marine featured in the New Orleans cast with his face blurred from recognition, also was discussed. While Julie had no qualms with seeing the couple together, Puck loudly voiced his opinion against the relationship.\nOne issue students found surprising was drug use among cast members. While contracts explicitly state there is to be no drug use in and around the "Real World" house, both Puck and Julie admitted to the presence of drugs in their seasons.\n"I would go across the street to this ecosystem preservation place, run by hippies who gave me a set of keys, lock the camera guys out, then I just got stoned," Puck said. "I would drink a bunch of coffee, unlock the door, then run across the street back to the house. I had some of my best scenes after that."\nThe shocking revelation of the evening went to Danny, who smoked marijuana and then quit his habit in New Orleans. During his addiction, Danny snuck around the house avoiding cameras and crew. Besides evading the crew, microphones contained tracking devices making it hard to escape the crew. Eventually, Danny realized his habit and kicked it.\n"He wanted to stop because he didn't want this vice in his life," Julie said. " When he quit, he stopped all on his own, he couldn't talk about it, couldn't get support -- he went cold turkey because of the cameras."\nWhile Julie admitted to embarrassing moments, courtesy of microphones and a wired house, Puck admitted to his having a softer side mainly for his four-month-old son named Bogart. \nSophomore Ryan Moore felt the forum made Puck and Julie "real" people to all who attended.\n"You got to know them as people," Moore said. "I thought that if I saw them, they'd be like Brad Pitt and they'd be famous stars. It's good to know that they are real people instead. I don't think (the Union Board) could have picked better people to come tonight."\nUnion Board Director of Major Attractions sophomore Drew Goldberg agreed the two cast members represented the youth culture and issues that affect it.\n"They are representative symbols of all of us," Goldberg said. "These people epitomize us. It's fun to see what we look like on TV. They addressed homosexuality, sex and drugs which were main issues that appeared on the show"