If you're like me, you probably received a few blitzes over the last few days from various campus organizations telling you to come learn how to have an orgasm. One of the more recent blitzes I received was from Sexperts. The subject line reads: "Is it possible to have an orgasm without being touched?" What I should have done was stopped reading there and simply pressed delete. What I did instead was make the mistake of opening the e-mail. "Is it possible to have an orgasm without being touched? With your clothes on? By breathing?" Who knows, I wondered. Who really cares? While I apologize for having to put you all through another reading of this e-mail, I do so to prove a point: Sexual discourse on this campus has gotten out of hand.
This latest Sexpert e-mail is just another reminder that this campus organization has forgotten what it means to be a health organization. Having a campus group like Sexperts teach students about safe sex and the risks of STIs is a tremendous benefit to student life. Learning about the risks of pregnancy and diseases is something most college students can benefit from. Whether you are sexually active now or will be in the future, these lessons teach you important facts about sex and dispel misleading rumors. And learning this all from well-trained Sexperts whom you may know from class or your dorm is an added benefit. After all, some of us wouldn't feel comfortable learning this from a middle-aged doctor.
But should this otherwise beneficial organization be involved in teaching students about the "unlimited possibilities" of orgasms or how to use sex toys as they did last year? No. In fact, when Sexperts which, according to its website, is "a sexual health peer-advising group sponsored by Dartmouth College's Health Promotion Department" and other organizations venture into these risqu topics, they discredit themselves. They lose their audience. And most importantly, they mask their otherwise important message about sexual health.
Sure, there may be students on this campus who are interested in learning about the vast range of orgasms or how to use anal beads. That's fine, and they are welcome to be interested in whatever they want. But I'm willing to bet that most students are not interested in learning about those topics. Students probably have more important things to learn about and more important e-mails to check than the ones from Sexperts that regularly alert students about these "workshops." But the "work" being done here certainly isn't the work you would do in the library. Or maybe it is
Sexperts and any other campus organization concerning student health should then not be allowed to blitz out to campus if their message strays from one concerning student health and safety. There should, instead, be a box students can check on BlitzMail Bulletins that allows them to receive these messages if they so choose. After all, most students probably don't want to see a blitz about orgasms directly under a blitz from their government or physics professor. The two just don't mix.
The College also should not be funding these organizations that pollute campus life with messages that are unrelated to sexual health. Students should not have their tuition money spent so that other students can go to the Hanover Inn and learn how to have an orgasm. In the blitz referenced above, there were ten "co-sponsors" listed for this workshop, some college-run organizations, others not. Regardless, the funding for Sexperts should be cut if they spend their money on the less important issues of sexual experimentation and sexual freedom instead of the critical issue of sexual health. This is not a matter of fiscal conservatism, but rather a matter of making sure that Sexperts and other groups are effective in advocating a health-related message.
Inevitably, there will be responses to this article that defend the right to free speech for campus organizations. Some will probably say that I'm close-minded for attacking the liberal discussion of sex on campus. But I argue against this liberal discussion of sex and these "workshops" not because I personally find them to be disgusting (which I do), but because they pollute the otherwise important message that these organizations have to offer. And so I say to the Sexperts: don't go there. You, better than anyone, should know what that means.
