My Sex-Positive College Workshops
I have a lot of favorite parts, but one of my favorite parts of my job is presenting sex-positive workshops at colleges. I have these topics:
- The Female Orgasm
- How to Feel Sexy Naked
- Sex: Am I Normal?
- The History of the Vibrator
- Safer and Sexy
- The Politics of Sexual Oppression
They all offer my brand of a combination of medically accurate information, sensitivity and compassion training, and fun. I think it’s important for sex education to be fun because sex is supposed to be fun. And my programs have always been extremely well received, and sometimes I like to take credit for that, but I also know it’s partly because today’s college student attended high school during the Bush era “abstinence only” education mandate and either received no sex education at all, or they received what I call the “if you have sex you’ll get AIDS and die” heternormative fear-based version of sex education that is neither medically accurate nor compassionate, and definitely not fun. So comparatively, what I’m offering is fucking fantastic.
This year I’m rolling out a few new topics:
- All Things Penis
- Beavers, Peckers, and Other Sex Slang
- The 21 Year Old Entrepreneur
- Ask The Sexologist
- Virgins and Sluts
- Being an LGBT Ally
From the titles alone you can see I think humor and fun is an important method for addressing topics that can be very serious such as the above topics which are male anatomy, the etymology and implications of sex slang, women in business, anonymous Q and A, slut-shaming, and privilege. I love my job!
In addition to new topics, there are two new ideas I’m contemplating this semester for my sex-positive college programming. Please let me know what you think!
First, I’m thinking of trying to figure out a way to make my speaking fee dirt cheap or free. I’m anticipating completing my doctorate this semester, and I’m an expert in my field, and what I provide is valuable, so I have no problem charging colleges to bring me in. It’s also a big chunk of my income and I gotta eat. However when a student club is broke, I’ve always been agreeable to finding a way to make it happen, such as trades or simply just lowing my price and taking a pay cut on the gig. However I feel like this semester it’s particularly bad. I’ve heard from so many student clubs that they want/need to bring me in, but have a budget so prohibitive it won’t even pay for my gas to get there. College budgets have been slashed so much that some clubs have a “pizza budget” so they can eat at their club meetings and that’s it. Two clubs I spoke to so far this semester had no budget. Zero dollars.
Now, I’m certainly willing to negotiate a lower speaking fee. I’m not too proud to do that. But I can’t do it for free. And I can’t do it for $75. I just can’t. So what I’ve decided to do to make my speaking fee dirt cheap or free is start fundraising for the schools who want to bring me to present a sex-positive workshop to their students (remember- who often have NEVER had sex education in their entire lives) and don’t have the funding. So I’ve been doing raffles at Feminique, and I also started an indiegogo campaign where I’m relying on the kindness of strangers who believe in the importance of this work. If you’d like to donate, you can do so here:
http://www.indiegogo.com/sexeducation?c=home&a=1174145
No amount is too small to be helpful! That way, when a group says their budget for the year is $100, they contribute what they can and I can pull from these fundraised funds for the rest. It’s a win-win. They get the programming, and I’m not a doctor making minimum wage. Can you think of any other idea about how to reach students clubs without budgets? I was thinking of also starting a non-profit arm to my business, but any ideas are welcome.
Second, since edu-tainment is my delivery method of choice, I haven’t created a topic exclusively addressing sexual violence. A sentence or two is mentioned in a couple of the workshops as they relate to the topic (for example in my “Safer and Sexy” program when we’re talking about the steps for putting on a condom, the first step is “get consent”). I think it can be very effective to address it as a normal part of sexuality, such as to say “yeah, you get consent, of course, then you open the wrapper, of course… etc”, like it’s just one more step. Also it brings out students who might not ever attend a rape prevention workshop but still need to hear the message, but they will attend a workshop on orgasm, for example. And also, we all know I’m extremely emotional about violence against women, and I think if I taught a workshop specifically about sexual violence, I would get heated if/when students were less quick to see how problematic rape is and how they can be a part of the solution. When I was teaching Safer and Sexy once and I said consent is step one to putting on a condom and asked what step two is, I heard someone in the 250+ student audience say “knock her out”. Unfortunately for him, I had brass ovaries and a microphone so I called him out in front of everyone, but I wonder how I would handle an entire audience like that for an hour+ workshop. Lastly, I think positive views on women and women’s sexuality leads to a lesser incidence of sexual violence, so while I may not address it head on, by teaching that women are sexual creatures indirectly is working with sexual violence issues.
Nevertheless, I was in the shower recently. My brain is exceptionally functional in the shower and I often come up with my best ideas there. Well, I ended up writing an entire workshop in my head in the shower. I came out and quickly wrote it all down on paper. It’s like nothing I’ve ever written before and outside my comfort zone, but I think it’s quite good, would be pretty effective, and is in such a way that I think I could teach it without being a hot mess, but I’m nervous about implementing it. I need a guinea pig audience of students I know to run it by to see if it’s actually any good and if this unique approach for me will work or flop. What do you think?
Contact sexologist Jill McDevitt:
jill@thesexologist.org
