Author: Chelsea Kellogg
Reslife turned up the heat in the Newcomb common room on Sunday, Oct. 11, with the first Oxy Sex Olympics. The program, which included lectures, activities, free food, condoms and a $100 cash incentive, was a roughly two hour long interactive sex awareness class. Participants created teams of four or five people and competed for points.
Activities included the STD Spelling Bee, Know Your Anatomy, Best Pick-Up Line, and the Condom Race. Emmons and Project SAFE both presented for 15 minutes each on sexual heath and issues regarding enebriated consent.
Coordinator of the Sex Olympics, Noel Hollowell (senior), created this program after a seminar at the Southern RAP RA conference engaged and inspired her. Hollowell expressed a desire to engage Oxy students in a similar manner, “I took a lot away from [the Southern RAP seminar], and I thought this is something we should have at Oxy. So then I tailored it toward Oxy.”
Despite recent budget cuts the program was funded by Residence Life and Housing Services (RLHS). Maureen Regan, Assistant Director of Living/Learning Communities, spoke about the motivation for a program like the Sex Olympics. “RLHS’s goals in promoting continued sex education on campus is to provide students with the facts and information necessary to make the decisions that are best for them. The more informed students are the better able they are to make decisions,” said Regan in an e-mail interview.
Some new approaches to sex education on campus include emphasizing that sex can be an important part of a healthy relationship and acknowledging that the practice of enebriated consent is highly prevalent on campus. “People just don’t know that sex has so many benefits,” said Hallowell. “There is a big stigma that if we talk about this sort of stuff we’re consenting to it, or saying this is ok to do.”
According to RLHS the program was directed towards all class years. “RLHS works to provide programs for all class levels. This weekend’s Sex Olympics program is a good example of a program that is for the entire campus community,” said Regan. Although Regan hoped that the Sex Olympics would fill some of the void that the lack of sex educators on campus this year has created, only about 25-30 students attended, raising the question of whether this program reached its intended audience.
Ambiguous advertising for the Sex Olympics left many students confused as to the nature of the program and may have contributed to the low turnout. “I had seen posters around campus and a notice in the weekly but there was so little detail I had really no idea what it was.” said Samantha Hill (sophomore).
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