A penis at Eastern Michigan University’s Putnam Hall has been causing quite a stir lately. A very, very large penis.
Don’t get your mind out of the gutter yet—you didn’t read that incorrectly. There really was a huge paper penis plastered to the brick wall of the residence hall, and for good reason. Its purpose was to—err—arouse interest in the titillating Sex Olympics, a sex education event hosted by EMU resident advisors Kerri Musick and Katy Palmer.
Erica Everett, a freshman majoring in dance here at EMU, said, “I found out about the event because one morning I just walked out and saw a giant penis and I’m like ‘Why is that there?’”
“It was eye-catching, vague and funny enough to catch everyone’s attention,” Musick said. “We really wanted to draw in a crowd that typically did not attend RA or hall events, and that was the best way to do it.”
The Sex Olympics event aimed to make learning all the juicy details of staying safe during sexual activity fun. Attendees were split into nine different teams, each with their own identifying bracelet—either a neon jelly band or a colored piece of yarn. Some attendees chose not to participate, but watched instead. In total, there were around 115 to 125 students in attendance, with 90 of them playing for one of the teams.
The teams then took on a number of mini-games with intentionally awkward titles such as “Blow or Bust,” a bubblegum blowing contest, and “Love Bites,” a game that requires its players to get up close and personal with their teammates by having them pass an orange down the line using nothing but their chins.
It wasn’t all fun and games, as the group playing “ConDo or ConDon’t,” a seemingly simple race to put a condom on a banana, found out. The catch was that nobody wins—no one took the time to inspect the package beforehand to figure out there was a hole in each team’s rubber.
Musick and Palmer then led a discussion segment. The duo, clad in eye-catching togas and headbands crafted from tied tampons and stuck-together sanitary napkins, went out of their way to ensure the information being presented was accurate.
“The turnout is awesome. I’m not sure if it’s the ‘sex’ word or the Olympics that’s turning people on,” Kathy Walz, program coordinator at EMU’s Wellness Center, said. “They really put a lot of effort into making sure that they’re giving out accurate information and I’m really impressed with the effort they put in here.”
The Sex Olympics took care to fill any voids that may have been left by less-than-helpful high school sex ed classes, teaching students that even if abstinence isn’t an option for them, there are safe ways to approach sexual activities. Many students living in the First Year Center didn’t grow up in an area where sex is discussed with such frankness, and with the pervasiveness of sex on campus and in the media it’s easy to forget the risks of getting it on. Fail to wrap it before you tap it and you could be stuck with a kid or a bout of gonorrhea, which is very unsexy.
As Musick put it, “Safe love is true love.”
To learn more about how to stay safe and sexy, pay a visit to Snow Health Clinic on campus or visit them at www.emich.edu/uhs. Grab a condom or two while you’re at it—you never know when it will come in handy.
