Commentary by Susan Brinkmann, OCDS
Parents of students at the University of Maryland will be interested to know that their hard-earned tuition dollars are funding an eco-friendly sex week at the college this week complete with workshops at sex toy shops and instruction in the use of “fetish gear.”
Campus Reform is reporting on this week’s sex week festivities which are being held in conjunction with an “eco-friendly” sex toy shop in Washington DC known as The Garden. The event runs from October 15-18.
“The purpose of Sex Week is to provide diverse opportunities for the campus community to learn, connect, and explore the dynamic world of sexuality and sexual health & wellness,” says the website of the University Health Center. “We have collaborated with numerous student and campus organizations as well as sexuality experts in the community to provide a variety of resources, perspectives, and forums for conversation.”
Some of the those forums will include a workshop entitled: “Asking for It: Finding your Words for Better, Sexier Communication in the Bedroom” which aims at teaching people how to talk about what makes them feel good. The teacher is Bianca Palmisano, executive assistant of The Garden, who refers to herself as a “self-professed sex geek” and “also a pole-dancer.”
Other workshops include “Different Strokes, Flogging 101,” and “Yes, Sir? Exploring Domination and Submission.”
Reverend Otis Gaddis III plans to host a discussion of sex and spirituality entitled: “With Groanings That Cannot be Uttered: Can Sex be a Spiritual Practice?”
The general public might be interested to know that they are funding these events, all of which are sponsored by the University which receives both federal and state tax dollars.
When confronted about this outrageous event, neither The Garden nor the University had the courage to respond.
The faculty and administration at the University of Maryland haven’t yet caught on to the fact that these raunchy college sex weeks are becoming so juvenile that even students are becoming embarrassed.
This year, Yale University had the courage to cancel sex week because the events are more like porn shows than the so-called “educational” forums they were originally intended to be.
A group of students, calling themselves “Undergraduates for a Better Yale College“, banded together to get Sex Week cancelled after noting that about one-third of the events scheduled during the last event were hosted or facilitated by pornographic film actors or people intimately involved with the pornography industry. They criticized the sadomasochistic bondage displays, erotic piercing seminars and presentations by polyamory activists. What has all this to do with education?
Thankfully, the students had the sense to call it what it was – a glorified peep show – and demanded that the school stop hosting these degrading spectacles.
“Tell Yale that a pornographic culture does not create respect but degrades, does not build up relationships but undermines them, promotes not consent but the ugliest form of pressure, does not stop sexual harassment and the objectification of one another’s bodies but makes us numb, blind, and indifferent to how we actually look at and treat others,” the students write.
“Tell Yale that you want a campus marked by respect and love, full of flourishing friendships based on the acknowledgment of each person’s integral value, relationships based on true love between partners—not transient lust—and a sense of familial trust between all students.”
Administrators responded by cancelling sex week.
We can only hope this will become a national trend that will shut down these smut shows and protect the spiritual, physical and mental health of our young people – and put our hard-earned taxpayer money to better use!
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