The EMU isn’t always so lively at 6 p.m., but on April 13, hundreds of people lined up outside of the Redwood auditorium, cascading all the way down three flights of stairs and ending past the first-floor information desk. Curious chatter filled the open area as students anxiously awaited the return of Sex Toy Bingo, which is part of a series of Sex Week events UO hosted to support Sexual Assault Awareness Month.

University of Oregon senior Gabbi Micheli said she didn’t know what to expect from the Sex Toy Bingo event. She said after the experience, she would highly recommend others to attend future Sex Week events.

“I thought it was going to be a little bit lesser-known, small. I don’t know why I thought that, but I just wasn’t expecting the community to show so much love,” Micheli said. “It was really crazy seeing the line drape down all the way down the EMU staircase. That was pretty wild.”

Sex Toy Bingo has been hosted by UO’s Sexual Violence Prevention Education program and partner organizations for the past several years to raise awareness for sexual wellness resources. This year, donors such as Good Clean Love and Babeland provided prizes for bingo winners, while organizations like the HIV Alliance tabled the event and provided resource information.

Ritu Roy, assistant director of the SVPE program, said the SVPE office exists as a way for students to have access to advocacy and resources dedicated to ending sexualized violence. Roy said that from 2015 to 2019, the UO campus experienced a “statistically significant reported decrease in sexual violence on our campus when the national average increased.”

“The work that we’re doing collectively is creating some sort of impact,” Roy said of the statistics. “We are here to support survivors and create trauma-informed spaces across the board for everybody.”

Roy started working with SVPE in 2016. She said the student-centered program allows Ducks to connect with peers who may relate more to their personal experiences. Roy said SVPE created all of the SAAM events they hosted in collaboration with student leaders and campus partners to create more interactive programming.

“On this campus, we have moved beyond awareness,” Roy said. “Awareness in itself can feel not as engaging or inviting, especially to survivors who have had these experiences.”

Roy said SVPE’s approach to prevention on campus helps include everybody in the conversation, not just those who already take interest.

“A prevention value is that everyone is part of the solution and everyone can be a part of moving toward ending violence by reducing violence,” Roy said. “For that reason, we say that SAAM is a time that is filled with hope.”

Gracia Dodds, support group and education coordinator for Sexual Assault Support Services, said the nonprofit has been working since 1991 to provide survivors of sexual violence in Lane County with support services and to change societal conditions that allow for oppression such as sexual violence to exist. She said SASS’s presence at educational events like Sex Toy Bingo is important to spread the knowledge of available resources.

“Creating a culture based around consent is really huge for making a foundation where people don’t experience sexual violence,” Dodds said. “It’s tough to change whole institutions, but by creating a little bit of change for each person that interacts with our services, we’re building a culture that is more enthusiastic about consent and makes sexual violence less socially appropriate.”

Dodds said SASS aims to have a multilingual and multicultural perspective, outreach and support while providing low-barrier services to survivors. She said SASS accomplishes this by providing 24-hour access to survivor resources through support groups and phone lines.

“Building consent culture is huge to these educational spaces. Helping teach people that they deserve to be in control of their own bodies is prevention,” Dodds said. “Advocating for that pleasure and that autonomy helps people know that they deserve agency over their own bodies in sexual situations.”

Micheli said Sex Week events provide a safe and fun environment on campus for the community to come together in a positive way to participate in Sexual Assault Awareness Month.

“I really think this event is super valuable on this campus to spread awareness about not just sex positivity but sexual assault and all these kind of heavy topics,” Micheli said. “We need to normalize people speaking up about it, 100%, especially people on campus.”

For Micheli, taking advantage of sexual wellness resources can be uncomfortable at times, but she says showing up for events like Sex Toy Bingo helps normalize topics of sexual wellness and violence.

“Just because maybe you haven’t experienced sexual violence doesn’t mean you can’t be an ally,” Micheli said. “I think that clearly showed at the event because there were so many people, they had to shut the doors.”
SAAM events on campus concluded with Take Back The Night, an annual protest raising awareness for sexual and domestic violence, and Care and Advocacy Program focus group events.