Harvard University’s “Sex Week” began last Sunday and will continue throughout the week, offering 18 titillating and ostensibly educational lectures and workshops. One gem of the week was a Monday-night event entitled “Feel the Good Vibrations,” a workshop to teach interested students about sex toys and how they work.
According to the program’s description, Sex Week at Harvard is intended to comprise “thought-provoking, scholastic, [and] innovative” events that are “applicable to student experiences in order to promote a holistic understanding of sexuality.”
At “How to Lose Your Virginity,” students were able to explore “why our sex-crazed society cherishes this so-called precious gift” while learning about “the myths and misogyny surrounding a rite of passage that many obssesses [sic] about but few truly understand.” The event offered free beverages and a “reusable V-Card.”
Likewise “#FutureSex: How technology will change your sex life,” the final event of the busy week, will discuss how “sex and technology are co-evolving” when “romance is just a click, poke, or swipe away.”
The idea of “Sex Week” began at Yale University in 2002, a biennial event devoted to “sex education.” However, by 2010 many of the events were hosted by pornographic film actors, organizations in the porn industry, and sex-toy shops. A university investigation concluded that “over time, this event clearly has lost the focus of its stated intention and in recent years it has prominently featured titillating displays, ‘adult’ film stars, and commercial sponsors of such material.” Though the event returned in 2012, it was stripped of much of its former content and student directors assured the public that it would not seek any corporate sponsorship.
Sex Weeks exist at many other schools, private and public, across the country including Brown, University of Pennsylvania, Northeastern University, the University of Maryland, and the University of Tennessee.
Via Campus Reform.