Wait. So, your high school sex ed class didn’t cover topics like bondage, sex toys, bisexuality or transgender identities?
That doesn’t surprise University student Ariel Howland, co-director of the UO Survival Center and founder of the BLISS Collective.
Not your average sex education group, BLISS Collective is a sex-positivity student group that started in the fall to promote healthy sexuality and create a new space and climate for conversations about sex.
Faced with the challenge of building momentum for a new student group, BLISS fizzled out after last term, but University senior Emmalyn Garrett has plans to get the group going again.
“It’s always hard to get a fledgling group started,” Garrett said. “But I think there’s a lot of people interested in sex out there.”
One problem for the group, Howland said, was spreading the word on sex-positivity, a term many students are unfamiliar with.
Garrett defines it as an “acceptingness and openness toward people’s sexual expressions.”
Howland said the group’s basic view is that “any sexual activity is good as long as it’s safe, consensual and fun.”
University senior Brandi Dunkinsell, a Pure Romance consultant, goes to parties where she informs women about sexual pleasure and sells sex toys.
Dunkinsell sees herself as a sex-positivity educator in a culture where sex is taboo and there is a “severe lack of information” on enjoying sex.
In a society where sex seems omnipresent in advertising and on television, Howland understands that some people may not recognize sex-negativity as a problem.
“Sex is used to sell products and it’s everywhere, but that doesn’t mean it’s sex-positive,” Howland said.
Whether it’s pressure from family, religion or culture to abstain from sexual activity or to have only monogamous, heterosexual relationships, Howland said sex-negativity dominates the culture and acts as an exclusive force.
“Most of the examples of people who enjoy BDSM in the media are psycho ax-murderers,” Howland said. “A lot of ways of existing aren’t in the media at all.”
Garrett added that shame is often associated with sexuality.
“Our culture denigrates the body and sexuality, but it’s such a part of human nature,” Garrett said. “It’s a central part of being human or being alive in general.”
BLISS, which stands for beautiful, lovely, intelligent and super sexy, worked with the University’s LGBTQA last term to put on Sex Week, a week of events that included information on sex toys, bondage and discussion on gender and sexual stereotypes. The group also hosted an erotic zine reading by pansexual, transgender writer Tobi Hill-Meyer.
Garrett said she wants the group to continue its work in this vein, but she and Howland are also supportive of the group taking up projects that pertain to members’ particular interests.
“I’d like to see BLISS provide educational programs, events and host an open campus dialogue about sex,” Garrett said.
Garrett plans to hold the first spring term meeting of the year Thursday at 7 p.m. in the UO Survival Center in the basement of the EMU. For more information, contact Garrett at [email protected].
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BLISS: Beyond sex education
Daily Emerald
April 23, 2009
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