MADISON - "No matter how hard you hit someone with this flogger, it will not hurt," said Ann Slabosky, a senior at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, as she unleashed a black leather whip on the forearm of her partner.The duo was leading a workshop on sexual pleasure for nearly 15 classmates in the lounge of a residence hall. They had started with a discussion of body parts and were now on the subject of sex toys. The toys were being removed from a large red toolbox and passed around with glee.
"Can I whip you?" one participant giggled to another after the flogger landed in her lap.
It was all part of Sex Out Loud, a student organization causing a lot of, um, excitement at UW-Madison. Begun a decade ago to provide information about HIV and other sexually transmitted infections, the group has expanded to include graphic workshops on how to give and receive sexual pleasure.
According to the federal government, nearly 80% of college students 18 to 24 years of age are having sex. As Sex Out Loud sees it, these students should be having sex that is safe and pleasurable. Its programming comes at a time when colleges are seeing an explosion of sex columnists at student newspapers and the introduction of campus sex magazines, such as Harvard's H Bomb and Boston University's Boink.
But while many students are grateful for the straightforward information, some say the organization has gone too far. The group receives nearly $90,000 in student fees. Critics say students shouldn't have to foot the bill for pleasure programming.
The Family Research Institute of Wisconsin is appalled that such programming exists at all.
"This whole thing with the sex toys is positively narcissistic," said Judith Brant, the organization's project coordinator. "Sex is a gift we've been given to express our love for a person of the opposite sex within the confines of marriage. Once you break out of that, you're setting yourself up for a whole lot of heartbreak and perversion."
Abstinence education expanding
The Family Research Institute of Wisconsin supports abstinence-only-until-marriage education, which has been on the rise in the United States for the last 10 years, receiving more than $1 billion in state and federal funding since 1996.
To get funding, teachers must adhere to strict guidelines, including that "a mutually faithful monogamous relationship in the context of marriage is the expected standard of all human sexuality" and that "sexual activity outside the context of marriage is likely to have harmful psychological and physical effects." Discussion of contraceptive methods emphasizes their failure rates.
Advocates say it's important to stress abstinence because it's the most effective way to prevent teen pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections.
But Sex Out Loud and its supporters see the education as harmful. The percentage of U.S. teens who received formal instruction about birth control methods declined sharply from 1995 to 2002, while the percentage who received only information about abstinence more than doubled, according to a report published in the December issue of Perspectives on Sexual and Reproductive Health.
The result: "A vast majority of students arrive on campus with virtually no real sexual education," said John DeLamater, a sociology professor at UW-Madison who teaches a course on human sexuality.
DeLamater said students are getting messages about sex from the media that often are unrealistic and irresponsible. Many students involved in a recent discussion of sexually transmitted infections, he said, thought they were immune from such infections, that they happened only to other types of people.
Mike Zdero, a UW-Madison junior who grew up in South Milwaukee, said the limited sex education he received in elementary school, junior high and 10th grade was one reason he became a Sex Out Loud coordinator.
The group, which conducts its programming in residence halls, fraternities and student apartments on a weekly basis, provides detailed information on a variety of safe-sex practices, including but not limited to abstinence. Zdero said he likes to be part of a sex education that "has no moral agenda."
But what about the new pleasure programming, which also includes detailed presentations on anal sex, role-playing, porn and BDSM - bondage and discipline, dominance and submission, sadism and masochism?
Sex Out Loud says these are among the kinks and fetishes that can help students satisfy their sexual desires, and that sexual pleasure improves physical and mental health.
"We really believe that healthy sexuality is an important part of being a healthy person," said Slabosky, a program coordinator. "Protecting yourself from sexually transmitted infections and unplanned pregnancy is important. But another important part is being comfortable with your sexuality and being able to pursue what you want."
It's not the only student organization providing this type of programming, although it might be the only one in Wisconsin. A group called Cuffs at Iowa State University is devoted to kink, fetish and BDSM. Students at Oberlin College in Ohio run a Sexual Information Center, which provides information on how to have safe and pleasurable sex.
A place to ask questions
Monica Rodriguez, vice president for education and training at the Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States, said peer sex education is valuable because it offers students a comfortable environment in which to ask questions. She said sexual pleasure is among the things that young people want to know about.
"Educators are afraid to acknowledge sexual pleasure," Rodriguez said. "This generation is like - 'Hey! Whoa! This is important!' "
At the recent Sex Out Loud workshop on pleasure, participants submitted anonymous questions on paper, which were answered candidly by Zdero and Slabosky. As the program went on, students began asking questions out loud and cracking jokes. When it came to a close, they said they were pleased with the experience.
"It was interesting because there's no place to talk about this stuff," sophomore Alicia Torres Geary said.
Sophomore Tony Uhl agreed.
"The subject is taboo," he said. "When you see people your own age, it makes you comfortable to ask questions."
Not everyone is enthusiastic.
In October, senior Danny Tenenbaum wrote a column for The Badger Herald decrying the use of student fees for Sex Out Loud's pleasure programs. He said that, at a time of rising tuition, it was outrageous to allocate funding for such things.
"You don't need to be a social or fiscal conservative to recognize the ridiculousness of sex-toy shopping spree funded by the students of an institute for higher education . . . The lavish excess demonstrated in the Sex Out Loud's budget is nothing less than a slap in the face of the students of UW-Madison."
Zdero's parents aren't thrilled about the pleasure programs either.
"They don't think that people should talk about this stuff in public, only with their partners," he said. "I say - 'How are couples even going to know what to talk about without programs like this?' "
from The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
