SexEd: Makin' Bacon

By Daniel Balserak | Friday, January 23, 2004

Looking out onto Webster Avenue in the middle of a New Hampshire winter, I realized that the frigid walk to my upcoming 'SexEd' peer training session—not to mention the training itself—would be far more tolerable after a few (too many) cold ones. I convinced a friend to join, and then, without advance warning, dragged him to Dick's House to endure two hours of progressive, new-age sex-babble.

According to the e-mail sent by Laura Rubenstein, director of the SexEd program, "SexEd (short for Sex Education), contraception, protection from sexually transmitted infections, and communication are all tricky topics to negotiate in a relationship. SexEd is a dynamic new Peer Education group designed to help students address their sexual health with as much information and insight as possible. SexEd is a group that facilitates small group discussions and will be planning larger awareness raising [sic] campaigns." SexEd—cleverly pronounced monosyllabically—is the love-child of the Health Resources Department and the Women's Health Program. For my part, I was looking forward to some hard-core negotiation and facilitation.

As we arrived and took a seat, I realized I was the only white male present. On my left, two gentlemen—legs crossed—reclined on a couch and perused copies of Curves and Cosmopolitan. Cracking a toothy smile that was to remain fixed for the rest of the session, Ms. Rubinstein was delighted that the crowd included a fair number of men, since the program is traditionally dominated by females. An aura of openness and tolerance permeated the room, yet I was still wary. Clandestine Review reporters are generally not welcome at these types of things.

To kick off the festivities, Ms. Rubinstein asked us to introduce ourselves and explain our presence. The young man who had been reading the Cosmo said that his main reason for attending was that he "just loves sex." When my turn rolled around, I thought quickly and kept my cover, whipping up some froth about my "conservative background" and attendant curiosity about the "other side." In retrospect, it was far too truthful and should have tipped them off right away. It didn't help matters that I nearly burst out in laughter in the middle of another girl's introduction when my friend signed-in as 'Karl Hungus.' My sense of humor might have been sophomoric, but luckily, these were open, tolerant people, and I could take advantage of them.

After the introductions, we filled out an anonymous survey. Did we strongly agree, agree, disagree, or strongly disagree with an array of sexually-charged statements? We were asked to ball our papers up and toss them into the middle of our circle; we then picked up someone else's paper and discussed his or her views. For instance: "Prostitution should be legalized." Most agreed. They believed that legalization would lead to safer sex for money.

"It is acceptable to have sex while intoxicated." Here, a majority disagreed. The group continued to focus on keeping sex safe and profitable.

"It is acceptable to have sex without a condom." When asked to defend someone else's selection of "strongly agree"—probably mine—one of the effeminate young men ascribed the view to "homophobic reasoning," whatever that means.

Things quickly got spicier. A fill-in-the-blank: "When someone says 'I had sex,' what do they mean?" My friend and I responded with the obvious: "He or she had sex." As it turns out, we were close but way off. The survey I picked up answered, "penetration: oral, anal, or vaginal." Someone else astutely noted that we should not forget "vagina-on-vagina rubbing."

After the survey came the obligatory wild and crazy name game. We each chose an alliterative adjective to precede our name—I, for example, was Dangerous Dan. One young man whose first name started with an "S" chose "Stupid," and an "E" girl chose "Elliptical." I agreed with the first assessment; I was perplexed by the second. But, hey, confidence is sexy, baby!

Afterwards, we shared our feelings about various sexual practices and terminology, all of the What-Does-Abstinence-Mean-To-You school. One opinionated young lady responded, "Abstinent people have just got their thing going on. They're just doing their thing." Yes. I guess that's true.

Later, one fellow proposed a hypothetical situation about a man asking out a woman; when he was finished, Ms. Rubinstein, with a deeply pensive look on her face, nodded slowly and added, "Mmm-hmm, or another man." If the gender-bending terms weren't insufferable enough, we also had to tolerate sheer stupidity: One girl consistently used the word "paradigm" as if it were a synonym for "stereotype," only for the error to be immediately repeated by the instructor, who vigorously nodded her cheerful approval. I considered suggesting that I insert my stereotype into her paradigm, but thought better of it.

The final activity of the session involved breaking into small groups, each of which was handed a card with an explicit statement written on it. Ours was, "I want to have sex with you, but I'm not interested in a relationship right now. How do you feel about that?" Charged with translating our statement into popular terminology, we struggled to hit the nail on the head, with our best effort a casual, "Want to hook up?" The general feeling in the room was that, although the exercise may have been devised with good intentions—analysis of what we crazy kids really meant with our slang—the examples chosen were poor. In the case of my group, we agreed that these matters are more often, and perhaps best, sorted out the morning after.

SexEd: Makin' Bacon

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