Abby Everidge
Contributing Writer
It’s Sex Month here at the College! The Sexual Respect Coalition (SRC), a sexual respect and anti-rape culture advocacy group, has been hosting events this month with various organizations. There have been events such as Sex Positive Trans Sex Education, Sex Trivia with Men Working for Change and Chill vs. Chill (Consent is Mandatory) with Women of Images and Men of Harambee.
On Feb. 21, the Sex Positive Trans Sex Education was an event that partnered with Robin Perry ’20, who spoke about trans-inclusive pleasure-based sex education and provided resources for attendees. Co-Treasurer of SRC Miranda James ’20 remarked, “The turnout was great! We had a full room and everyone was very engaged. It was an amazing event!”
On Feb. 27, Sex Trivia was presented by Men Working for Change and SRC in the form of a fun and educational trivia game on all things sex, ranging from birth control to kinks.
On Feb. 28, Chill vs. Chill (Consent is Mandatory) was an event presented by Men of Harambee, Women of Images and the SRC that featured a casual, open discussion about all things sex and relationships, including many different perspectives.
After Spring Break, on March 27, SRC will be hosting Domestic Violence 101 in partnership with the South Asia Committee. In April, the SRC will also host their annual Take Back the Night march and speak out. Students are encouraged to keep an eye out for posters on campus regarding more information on these events and more.
Myra Praml ’19, co-president of SRC, noted that Sex Month is new this year. Normally, SRC organizes events during a week-long format with events every night. Shifting to a month-long format allowed SRC to spread out the planned events and attract more attendees by increasing the length of their advertising.
“We had a big turnout to our first event,” said Praml. “There were people there who told us they had never come to an SRC event before and that was very encouraging to see.”
Praml also stated that a recent focus of the group has been to increase their collaboration with groups on campus, particularly making it a priority to work with organizations they have not yet collaborated with in order to reach audiences on campus that they have not before.
After hearing from students just now first attending SRC events, James assured them that the group is, “expanding the topics covered to be more inclusive and welcoming to all of campus.”
“As a senior who has been involved for a few years, I would say Sex Month has definitely changed a lot,” said Praml. “I think we’re making more of an effort to get people excited and to get the word out. I think we’re also putting a lot more into making our events interdisciplinary, as well as crossing contexts and boundaries that maybe we didn’t put in a relationship before, but actually are conversations that need to happen.”
In the future, Praml said that she hopes that SRC continues to expand their collaboration efforts. “It makes topics more interesting, relevant and relatable. It also helps to get attendance from different groups on campus in order to have more holistic discussions,” said Praml.
Praml noted that she has often heard that people are deterred from coming to SRC events because topics aren’t always happy or fun. “They can be heavy, sad and serious,” she said. “It’s a lot to put yourself in a position to hear about these things. We don’t want to make these topics lighthearted because they’re not, and they need this serious treatment. But I think what we want to do with Sex Month is stress the importance of educating yourself.”
“These are safe and productive spaces to have these kinds of conversations,” said Praml. “Give yourself the opportunity to learn about topics that you wouldn’t normally engage with. For me, I personally come away feeling like I have ways to create change in ways that I didn’t think about before and that I’ve learned something entirely new. I think these events are an opportunity to learn something new.”
SRC will be hosting Sex Education Month again next semester. The group also has weekly meetings every Wednesday at 7 p.m. in Babcock Formal Lounge. New members are always welcome and encouraged to come!
James shared that overall, “Sex Month is about fostering positive discussions around sex and sexuality. We believe that these conversations affect the ways students talk about sex and things related to sex, which in turn creates more sex positivity and serves to improve our campus climate.”
(Logo by Andrea Arts)