LAS VEGAS, NEVADA - Many students have not played Bingo since elementary school, but the game that once evoked images of senior citizens in sleepy retirement homes has experienced a recent revival at UNLV.Tuesday's game, held in Dayton Complex, had not one empty seat. For an on-campus event, that is quite an impressive turnout.
Hotel major Lauren Englander, 20, along with her friends Jocelyn Mata and Meagan Winzenburg, were responsible for the event. Englander knows how to draw a college crowd.
"It is a for-sure that residents will turn up for free condoms," Englander said, laughing. Indeed, participants picked up free condoms and lubricant as well as a new sexual vocabulary.
The game ran very much like traditional Bingo, though instead of using numbers, Englander used sex terms. Initially, there were some snickers from students, but the more they got in the game, the quieter and more serious the atmosphere became.
It is amazing how words like orgasm, porn, gay and semen lose their shock value when repeated over the course of an hour.
Sex Bingo also had some clever trivia worked into it, where students were asked whether they knew which foods supposedly improve your sex life or which is the only legal sexual position in Washington, D.C.
The answers to the questions are wheat germ, whole grains and seafood – among other foods – and missionary is the only legal position in DC.
Englander said she wanted students "to learn different sexual words, crazy sex facts and just have fun practicing safe sex."
Sex Bingo delivered all that and more, as the general feedback Englander has received is that students "loved it."
Although Sex Bingo was a light-hearted game, it deals with an increasingly important issue, which begs the question, should universities teach sexual education?
Controversy erupted at George Washington University over the summer when Michael Schaffer, a professor who had been teaching a human sexuality course for 17 years, was let go.
According to Inside Higher Ed online news, one of Schaffer's assignments included conducting self-exams on breasts and testicles, but that's not what got him into trouble.
Schaffer's discussion of personal shaving habits bothered two students of the combined 150 students he taught in two class sections.
The two women who filed negative evaluations said Schaffer's class was "demeaning to women," and cited comments such as "Look before you lick.," which Schaffer wrote on class papers. Schaffer said he made comments on all students' final papers to add "a little humor to teach about safe oral sex."
Patricia Sullivan, acting chair of the Department of Exercise Science, was the one who told Schaffer to look at his course evaluations to learn why he was being let go. However, of the stack of evaluations Schaffer saved, students commented about his being open and understanding, how he covers real issues with a sense of humor and provides an environment for self-discovery.
Inside Higher Ed reported that "Nearly all of the negative comments [were] limited to things like: '[class] is too long'; 'one less paper.'"
In addition, Inside Higher Ed quoted former student Andrea Mandall who said, "During the class, females learned to speak up in the bedroom, about everything from use of condoms to being comfortable expressing herself and protecting herself against disease."
Sex Bingo was controversy-free, but future events may not be as accepted at UNLV. However student leaders, for now, are eager to plan more events like it. Englander summarized her state of mind this way:
"We are always programming."
from The Rebel Yell
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