After last year’s battle for Sex Week at UT, ETSU begins a fight for its own.
Much like UT’s sex week, ETSU Sex Week will strive to create open communication with three main components: health, communication and pleasure, ETSU student and Sex Week advocate Max Carwile said.
The name ‘Sex Week’ is unofficial, and Carwile said programming at ETSU’s ‘Sex Week’ may be quite different from programming by UT students.
UT’s Sex Week offers workshops, STI and HIV testing and speakers on topics such as health, orientation, gender identity, consent and sexual assault.
At this point, programming for ETSU’s proposed ‘Sex Week’ has yet to be established. ?The group of students in support of ‘Sex Week’ will convene again in August to discuss more details. Carwile hopes to have ‘Sex Week’ in action this February.
Last school year, UT Sex Week organizers encountered friction when trying to achieve similar goals.
In February, the Tennessee House of Representatives passed a resolution condemning Sex Week at UT.
This past session, the Tennessee General Assembly attempted to pass legislation to dismantle Sex Week, and even threatened to cut funding for UT unless the event was addressed. Ultimately, the school worked with legislators to reach a compromise.
ETSU SGA President Doretha Benn said the name ‘Sex Week’ may not be fitting for what ETSU students want to implement, and hope a different name would result in less negative feedback.
“The UT situation is very concerning,” Benn said. “We’re focusing on health, communication and education. I don’t think ‘Sex Week’ would be the appropriate title, because it doesn’t necessarily grasp the whole concept we are trying to go for.”
Nickie Hackenbrack, senior in biochemistry, cellular and molecular biology and co-chair of Sexual Empowerment and Awareness at Tennessee (SEAT) said she supports movements for a Sex Week at ETSU, pointing out that many private universities and colleges already have similar events.
“Max has a fantastic group of people already at ETSU that I know will put together a Sex Week that is tailored to ETSU’s needs and interests,” Hackenbrack said. “People see the word ‘sex’ and make assumptions about what we are trying to accomplish. In reality, we do not presume that anyone is or is not having sex and talking about sex is not emphatically encouraging sexual activities. I suspect that ETSU’s biggest challenge will be similar.”
Elizabeth Stanfield, a junior in geography, said that Sex Week is especially important in a culture of sex negativity where sex is often talked about as dirty and bad, and discussion is closed.
“Schools should have Sex Week, because it fills a gap where most students haven’t had an adequate education,” Stanfield said. “Especially in Tennessee, we get to college and find ourselves having to make decisions about sex, sexual health and sexuality without the tools to do so. The sex education most people have had in school is based on fear and isn’t conducive to anyone making a balanced and informed decisions that are probably really important to them in the future.
“Sex and sexuality are a part of all people’s lives in some way, whether they be straight, part of the LGBT community, sexual, asexual or anything else. For a lot of people sexuality is a very important part of their lives, and that’s why it’s important that people are able to make their own decisions about their healthy, identity and pleasure.”
