| << Front page | Commentary | November 14, 2004 |
Education for sexual issues
To the Editors:
The Sexual Information Center would like to thank all those who attended Safer Sex Night and all those who worked to make it possible.
SIC would like to give special thanks for the Review coverage provided in the previous issue.
In addition to the many educational presentations mentioned in that article, Safer Sex Night also offered workshops on sex toy safety and safer oral sex. They even included demonstrations of negotiating sexual consent and educational erotica with various safer sex practices, and hundreds of posters with information on topics ranging from latex to lubricants to lymphogranuloma venereum, a rare STI.
SIC does more than just Safer Sex Night! SIC offers educational and counseling services as well as low-cost safer sex supplies year-round.
If you need to do some shopping or if you have any questions about sexuality, sexual health or related topics, please come visit us in Wilder 203.
Office hours for Fall semester are Sunday to Thursday at 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. and 8 p.m. to 10 p.m., as well as Fridays and Saturdays 4 p.m. to 6 p.m.
In response to Ms. Lodge’s letter from the November seventh issue, SIC would like to explain why Safer Sex Night is held in the format that it is. Safer Sex Night was started in the mid-1980s in response to the AIDS crisis. There was little education about safer sex available from the College or other sources, and what was available was in a dry, clinical format that students just weren’t listening to.
The idea behind the original Safer Sex Night, and the current event, is to provide comprehensive safer sex education in a format and environment that students want to attend.
The advantage that Safer Sex Night has over health center workshops and other more “tasteful” presentations is that it allows very important, potentially lifesaving, information to reach people who would not voluntarily attend a “tasteful” event and who would be unlikely to get much out of it if they were compelled to attend.
Safer Sex Night also aims to educate about safer sex in a way that affirms and validates sexual expression as a positive part of many people’s lives.
The event is attended by more than just a “visible minority”. Based on ticket sales, attendance and some informal surveys, we know that the vast majority of Oberlin students attend at least one Safer Sex Night, and many, perhaps even a majority, attend two or more.
SIC would like to invite members of the college community to give feedback on Safer Sex Night. If you have suggestions for how to improve the event, especially ways to make the education offered more prominent and accessible, please let us know.
You can contact SIC by emailing SIC@Oberlin.edu or sending snail mail to Wilder Box 26.
–Lee McKeever
College senior
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