If you opted to have cookies with your condoms at Saturday’s Sexual Health Expo, you may have noticed a pair of nude blow-up dolls lounging around the refreshment room. No one could fully explain their presence, but plenty of people copped a feel anyway.
For six hours this Sunday, WesWell took over the science center lobby, hosting its first annual Sexual Health Expo, an event featuring seminars, information tables, a protection exhibition, and a refreshment room.
According to WesWell Director of Health Education Lisa Currie, the Expo’s primary goal was to provide students with the information and resources they need to have healthier sex, should they choose to be sexually active.
“I’m all about putting tools in peoples’ tool boxes,” Currie said.
According to Currie, the need for a Sexual Health Expo is particularly pressing given the current abundance of online sources with little or no credibility.
“We can provide information we know is credible: accurate, scientific facts,” Currie said. “Not something from Joe Blow’s House of Latex.”
Josh Pavlacky ’08, Peer Health Advisor and one of the event’s organizers, said that despite Wesleyan students’ general frankness about sex, some are still misinformed about safe sex practices.
“People are pretty good, for the most part, about being safe,” said Pavlacky. “People still have lots of misconceptions. Some use Vaseline on condoms. You’re ripping holes in it when you’re having sex. It’s stupid.”
The protection display drew the largest crowds. In addition to bins of free condoms, dental dams, and lubricant, the exhibition featured pamphlets, posters, presentations, and a panel of condoms, each with a brief description alongside.
“Condom displays draw the most people,” Pavlacky said. “They’re like, ‘Why does this have bulges on it?’ I had fun ordering them.”
The condoms, filled with water to emphasize differences in design, elicited amused responses from students.
“We’ve just been playing with them for awhile,” said Colin McMichael ’09.
The seminar topics included hormonal contraceptive options, queer life at Wesleyan, women’s sexual problems, abstinence, body image and sexuality, communication and sex, drunken hook-ups, global AIDS policy, Bondage and Discipline, Domination and Submission, Sadism and Masochism (BDSM), and a presentation by the Cunt Club called “Vulva 101.”
Although the seminar leaders began with prepared programs, many of these workshops ended up resembling open discussions.
At “Assessing the Female Orgasm: A Discussion of Women’s Sexual Problems,” for instance, attendees were presented with a list of 20 sex tips from the website sexualhealth.com. The ensuing conversation covered everything from female ejaculation, to the benefits of kegel exercises, to the intersection of class and sexual health, to the plausibility of spontaneous orgasm.
While most of the attendees were female, two males were present.
“If a woman doesn’t ejaculate, is she taking less pleasure?’ said one male attendee. ”If she doesn’t have an orgasm, is she taking less pleasure?“
”Vulva 101“ was even more explicit. In addition to a discussion of the female anatomy, female ejaculation, and various sexually transmitted infections (STIs), the seminar included instructions on fisting from Laurie ’06 and Kate ’06, who preferred their last names be withheld.
Regarding the latter, caution and communication are paramount and, yes, size does matter.
”I personally wouldn’t want to be fisted by Shaquille O’Neal,“ said Kate.
According to Currie, the Sexpo, as she calls it, is an outgrowth of last year’s protection fair, which took place in the MPR, a smaller venue.
”Afterwards we got questions about so many aspects of sexual health,“ Currie said.
Beginning in November, WesWell allied itself with various student groups interested in sexual health and began planning seminars that would expand the protection fair into a full size conference. Among the student groups represented were AIDS and Sexual Health Awareness (ASHA), the Cunt Club, Lamda Psi, Delta, the Planned Parenthood interns, and members of the recent on-campus Vagina Monologues production.
Tabling provided these groups an opportunity to work directly with the student body.
”I think there are enough [students who are unaware] to warrant this kind of expo,“ said John Short ’09. ”There are people out there practicing very unsafe kinds of sex under myths of safe activities.“
Although pleased with the groups who chose to participate, Pavlacky expressed hope that more groups will participate next year.
”I would have liked to have more student groups,“ said Pavlacky. ”None of the queer groups responded.“
Pavlacky pointed to Wednesday Night Football, whose leader, Aaron Tabak ’08, facilitated a discussion about queer life, as an exception.
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