Peer Wellness Educators break the seal of silence about sex education with their annual event: Sex in the Dark. For many students, the topic of sex is something to fear or even laugh about, but we live in a culture where public discussion surrounding it is frowned upon. Sex in the Dark is a fun, educational and sex-positive event designed to combat this stigma, geared towards first-year students.
According to the Sexual Health Lead at Peer Wellness Educators, senior Genavieve Billiet, the aim of the event is “education, of course, but of equal importance is having the topic of sexual health be more casual and in a more fun setting.”
Before any activities began, attendees were able to check out multiple different educational and entertaining stations around the room in Anderson Center 112, including Consent is Sexy, Condoms 101 and Masturbation Station. In addition to educational tri-folds, Peer Wellness also provided fun snacks such as peaches and chips and materials to make any kind of sex-themed arts and crafts you could think of.
The majority of the event was spent doing condom bingo, where participants try to answer sex-themed trivia questions and mark the corresponding answer on their board with a condom, all of which were free for students to take home. The winner of each bingo round had their option of prizes, some of which were donated from Smitten Kitten: a local feminist-run sex toy shop who has had a relationship with Hamline’s Peer Wellness Educators for several years.
In between gaps in playing bingo, members of Peer Wellness Educators read and answered questions anonymously submitted through question boxes in the dorms and an online form, so that everybody had the opportunity to ask any questions they may be afraid to ask normally due to the stigma attached to sex education.
Sex in the Dark is an event Peer Wellness Educators have been putting on for years, but even with its long history, it does not seem to lose any attention.
“Sex in the Dark was a great chance to ask any questions you had and have fun with your friends, I’ve never been to anything like it,” first-year attendee Lola Brouwer said. For first year students, the topic of sex can be especially difficult and scary to talk about with your peers. Sex in the Dark makes the topic and questions casual and fear-free, because sex safety is vital to students’ health.
“Sex in the Dark is one of the only events on campus that you see people from all kinds of groups get in the same room and have fun together,” sophomore Elizabeth Lopata said. Lopata has attended the event two years in a row now.
With a small campus, it is inevitable that groups and cliques will be formed in the student body — but no matter what group students associate with, sex and sex safety is an important topic for everyone to know about. Events like Sex in the Dark unite Pipers of all walks of life to talk about something everybody deals with — while making it fun.
A production like this one requires a lot of time and work to make it happen. Since Sex in the Dark is an annual event, Peer Wellness Educators are able to build off their work in past years.
“We’re definitely going to take any criticism or suggestions from our evaluations and write them down, brainstorm, and put them in a very important place for next year so that next year’s lead team can incorporate all of those.” Billet said.
Peer Wellness Educators as a whole continue to emphasize how important it is for every student to feel included and involved in these events, and Billiet attributed much of this year’s success to the students who made it happen: “We had a really good volunteer group this year, and it went so smoothly – we definitely couldn’t have done it without them. And we’re always looking for more volunteers if people want to get involved with Peer Wellness – it’s a really cool program.”
Although Sex in the Dark may be their most popular production, Peer Wellness Educators have more health-related events throughout the year. Such as freeSTI testing, Goat Yoga and a finals de-Stress Fest are just a couple of the events that will happen later this semester. The next event organized by Peer Wellness Educators will be Movies & Mocktails on Nov. 14 from 7-9pm in Anderson 112.