aliciaj
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Last Tuesday, BC Students for Sexual Health hosted our first ever Sex Toy Bingo. It was a great success, bringing out almost 100 Boston College students to a local bar for a night of bingo, sexual health trivia, and prizes!
Our goal was to present a fun and engaging event to help promote sexual health. By providing sex toy prizes in combination with sexual health trivia and plenty of safer sex information and resources, we emphasized that sexuality can be safe and fun.
In order to fill their boards, everyone was asked sexual health trivia questions, the answers of which were spaces on their board. When someone got five in a row, they yelled "g-spot!" and claimed a prize.
Thanks to Good Vibrations, we had plenty of prizes for our guests, who were more than happy to learn more about sexual health for some great prizes. With the help of the Great American Condom Campaign and Planned Parenthood League of Massachusetts, we also provided goodie bags for everyone in attendance, including stickers, lube, Trojan condoms, and more giveaways.
The event got a front page spot in our student newspaper and earned a lot of buzz on campus. We look forward to hosting similar events in the future that allow students to have fun while also providing important sexual health information and resources.
aliciajThere have recently been a number of articles in The Heights, the independent student newspaper of Boston College, about sexual health and my organization, BC Students for Sexual Health (BCSSH). We appreciate the increase in conversation about this important issue and having a venue to educate students about our work, but unfortunately many of the articles published have reflected fundamental misunderstandings about not only our organization but sexual health in general.
One of most contentious programs BCSSH runs is Safe Sites, in which students volunteer to have condoms and sexual health information available in their dorms. We launched this program last year and have been able to reach students with affordable and informative resources closer to where and when they need them. However, because Boston College is a Catholic university, the provision of contraceptives on campus is a contentious issue, with opinion divided among faculty, administrators, and students. While some claim that the Safe Sites go too far in pushing the boundaries of university policy and Catholic values, BCSSH is devoted to this program as essential to making life-saving resources readily available to students.
When the student newspaper recently published fundamentally wrong information about sexual health, we had to respond. A selection from theireditorial:
The SuperSafe Sites offer not only condoms, but personal lubricants, female condoms, and other items. These distributed materials do not address BCSSH's sexual health education concerns. None of these items effectively prevent STIs, while some don't even prevent unwanted pregnancy, so their distribution is only tangentially related to sexual health.We were able to respond to this wildly inaccurate portrayal of sexual health and BCSSH's dedication to improving sexual health and education on campus in a Letter to the Editor published in the next issue. I have included below the full-length version of our response, which was not published due to the paper's LTE word limit.
Responding to articles and debates in our campus newspaper is vital to moving sexual and reproductive health advocacy forward and ensuring that students and other members of the community are educated about BCSSH's mission. Our interactions with The Heights have only further confirmed the need for BCSSH on campus and the need for more education about sexual health among college students.
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Ten Misconceptions about Sexual Health/BC Students for Sexual Health (BCSSH)
You may have noticed the recent debate about BCSSH and sexual health on campus. Allow us, the BCSSH Executive Board, to clear up some central points.
10. SuperSafe Sites deviate from our original mission.
SuperSafe Sites provide male and female condoms, lubricant, and dental dams, resources that are more inclusive of diverse sexual experiences as well as members of the LGBT community.
aliciajWritten by Lindsey Hennawi, Director of Resources, Boston College Students for Sexual Health
Boston College Students for Sexual Health (BCSSH) is committed to improving sexual health education and resources for all students at BC. We seek to foster dialogue and provide comprehensive information about sexual health, as well as to campaign for policy reform. We engage with the health of the whole person: emotional, social, environmental, physical, spiritual, and mental, in order to empower students to make informed and healthy decisions.
We do not do these things in spite of our place at a Jesuit institution, but in keeping with it. It is expressly because we have the privilege of attending a University so dedicated to the development of the self – both the body and the soul – that we find it both appropriate and necessary to advocate for these sexual health issues that are an integral aspect of that process. In that regard, we provide condoms and other resources directly to students, we run programming, such as Sex and the Soul, that explores the relationship between human sexuality and personal spirituality, and we work with the administration to understand the University's positions on these issues and push for policy reform in the best interest of the students. In short, BCSSH respects and works within the framework of BC's Catholic tradition, but we refuse to accept that it must invariably bar us from pursuing an open dialogue and concrete action around this issue. A University dedicated to fostering men and women for others simply cannot consider itself and the mission of protecting students' health mutually exclusive.
As an executive board member of BCSSH, these were the points I tried to discuss with a Jesuit and resident minister who we encountered during last Friday's condom distribution when he told me that my participation in the distribution was degrading to the dignity of both myself and other students, that it – the distribution and the act of protected, consensual sex itself – made any who participate less of a person and less human. He further elaborated that we female volunteers were making it easy for men to use us, as if sex were an inherently misogynistic act which a woman could not be empowered to pursue for herself, and in which there could not possibly exist mutual consent and respect.
Having never before been accused of degrading students' dignity, nor told I am less than human, I was taken aback by this attack on my freedom to educate students and my personal freedom in making informed decisions related to sexuality. Yet, what shocked me most was when he began to shout at students with whom we interacted. "You're better than that!" he would say to students who accepted condoms. And when a student declined our offer, he would laud them: "Good for you! You have dignity!"
As this interaction continued, I watched student after student appear to take interest in receiving sexual health resources, but shy away because of his comments. These students turned down life-saving health materials because they were intimidated by a University figure employed to support and guide them. Whether this was his intent, this Jesuit's actions directly infringed not just upon students' personal comfort, but also their very freedom to make decisions for themselves. In so doing, he jeopardized students' health and safety.
Is this the culture we want for our students – one of intimidation, fear, and judgment? BCSSH has always acted with respect, both in our approach to University administration and with regard to the student body, in whom we recognize a plurality of views and experiences. We acted respectfully toward our protester as well, inviting him to speak with us. The behavior we saw in return, however, was anything but respectful of students, their health needs, or their freedom of choice. BC should foster a community that empowers and supports its students to make healthy decisions for themselves, not one that judges or endangers them.
After last Friday's encounter, I am more than ever committed to the BCSSH mission. I realize just how great a need there is for open dialogue, a University culture more accepting of students' personal choices, and our efforts to promote students' ability to make those choices in a healthy manner. This Jesuit accused us of being "animals" who ignore the consequences of our actions. But BCSSH is here precisely because we know the consequences of a student body that is not provided adequate sexual health information and resources – like how, for example, one in four college students has a sexually transmitted infection. With that in mind, we cannot afford to judge or intimidate students. Our health and safety are too important.
Please consider this letter an open offer to the BC community to engage in conversation and meaningful dialogue. We hope that as a community we can respect students' rights to pursue choices about their health in a judgment-free environment. Human dignity and respect for the self means nothing without respect for others.
Letter to the Editor originally published in The Heights.
aliciajAt Boston College, a Jesuit Catholic school, we have to be creative about working with the Great American Condom Campaign and figuring out how to reach students with safer sex information and resources. Openly distributing sexual health resources -- condoms, that is -- on campus property is grounds for intervention by the police.
aliciajWhile we have made much progress in these past few months, most of this has not been tangible (the progress we have made is mostly in the form of meetings, the creation of an administrative Committee on Health and Wellness that includes sexual health and will work on long-term goals for health education, and events on sexuality and spirituality, especially within the Catholic tradition). The administration is unwilling to compromise on its ban on contraceptives on campus; we cannot hold sexual health safer sex lessons; and there is a policy banning sexual activity in the dorms.
We decided to take the initiative to get sexual health resources into the hands of the students. Members had previously received a shipment of free condoms from Advocates For Youth's Great American Condom Campaign, as well as from other public sources. Using these supplies, last spring we began distributing condoms along with informational sheets (see images below) on the public sidewalks around campus, where students frequently pass to get between their dorms and the main campus.
While we initially were asked to leave by the Boston College Police Department, we established our legal right to be present on the public sidewalks of the City of Newton, and have organized condom distributions several times since, handing out over 10,000 condoms in all. The students have been almost all supportive of our efforts, many even excited to be getting condoms from the BC SSH volunteers on Fridays - since these resources are expensive and (if not for us) unavailable on campus.
While we are aware that many at the university are unhappy with our program to provide condoms on campus, we know that the students (almost 90%) support our efforts. An official policy bans sexual activity in the dorms at BC, but this is far from the reality. Whether one agrees with hooking up or even any form of premarital sex, sex is simply a fact for the lives of most young adults, and we must prepare them accordingly. Whatever choices our peers make about sex, we, BC SSH, are committed to helping them make the safest choices possible.
