Sex Week isn’t just about sex, say students
UT event to address wide range of complex topics
Five years after the University of Tennessee’s controversial Sex Week started, student organizers behind this year’s events say they’re hoping to let people know it’s not just about sex.
Sex Week, which begins April 2, may have started as a way to address sexual assaults on campus and more traditional issues around sexuality such as abstinence, how to talk to your parents and your doctor about sex, and the intersection of faith and sexuality, but this year, the event is tackling an even broader range of issues.
A workshop on mental health and sex will explore “the complex intersection between two extremely taboo topics,” according to the event’s programming, another workshop will talk about how to use your sexuality as a tool for political resistance and activism and an international cooking workshop will strive to embrace other cultures via the preparation of aphrodisiac foods. It’s also being billed as the “biggest and best” Sex Week yet.
“For us, it’s about trying to make up for some of the programming that was lost but also re-committing our focus as an organization to speaking to different identity groups on campus and making sure every student at UT can find at least one event over the week that applies to them,” said Colleen Ryan, co-chair of the executive board of Sexual Empowerment and Awareness at Tennessee, the student organization that sponsors Sex Week.
Ryan and SEAT Co-Chair Geoffrey Harvey said conversations about a wider range of topics and issues of diversity are important, especially following the de-funding of UT’s Office for Diversity and Inclusion last year.
Sex Week’s ever-popular drag show, a sex toy giveaway and a sex and cannabis expert speaking on living with a sexually transmitted infection are all part of a racy lineup that in year’s past has drawn the ire of some state lawmakers who have criticized the event on campus.
But there will also be keynote discussions on socioeconomic class and race, and how they intersect with sexuality.
“A lot of people who are in charge don’t seem to connect with the idea of diversity and inclusion, so they don’t really see the importance of it,” Harvey said. “Empowerment is an important part of what we do and it’s about making sure people who feel disenfranchised have a voice.”
That includes not only survivors of sexual assault, but other groups that might be disenfranchised, whether for their race or religion, a physical disability or their mental health, and how those things affect sexuality.
About 4,000 students are expected to attend Sex Week events, according to Ryan, who said the budget for the six days of events is $22,800. Funding comes from student programs and services fees and a majority of students have chosen to allow their fees to go towards Sex Week programming since lawmakers ruled in 2013 against allowing state funds to go towards the event.
Sex Week was also cited last year in a law that diverted $445,000 in funding for UT’s Office for Diversity and Inclusion and again banned UT from supporting Sex Week with state funds. About 80 percent of UT students chose to “opt in” their student program and services fee for student programming such as Sex Week, according to Karen Simsen, director of media and internal relations for UT’s Office of Communications and Marketing.
The money, Ryan and Harvey said, is being well spent.
“I think if any state legislators or any member of the public reached out to us and asked for an explanation of any of our events, they would realize that even the more salacious-sounding ones have a very educational purpose to them,” Ryan said. “Every year after every event we have students come up to us and thank us and say it made them realize there was something about their relationship that was unhealthy that they wanted to talk about. We’ve seen in many cases that it’s impacted student lives; that it’s saved student lives.”