WRC hosts Sex Week to promote campus safety

Editor,

Since entering this University over four years ago, I have witnessed many events hosted and resources provided for sex education.

As a resident advisor, I helped host events and programs to provide this information to on-campus residents. The Residence Hall Association hosts at least one event per semester to provide residents with important information and best practices for safer sex, especially to freshmen who have no idea what to expect in college and living on campus. Some of these events have themes such as “Sex in the Dark” and “Sex and Vampires.”

There are other student organizations that host events to educate our general campus population on safe sex practices, such as the student organization called “I Heart Female Orgasm.” In 2011 the Associated Students of UNM helped ignite the Condom-Mint campaign to provide students with free condoms. In the Condom-Mint’s first year, thousands of condoms were provided to our students, and these continue to be available at 15 locations across campus.

In classrooms across UNM you will find some professors teaching sexual education. Even the Daily Lobo has published many “risqué” articles. None of these previously mentioned instances gained the sort of media attention that Sex Week is receiving.

This is an event hosted by the Women’s Resource Center (WRC) with their co-sponsors and with support from the Graduate and Professional Student Association and other groups. The purpose of Sex Week is education and changing the conversation around safer sex and consent.

The WRC has been heavily involved in making our campus safer from sexual violence, and this week’s events are meant to help just that. Many of the seminars may be uncomfortable for some, even for me. However, it would be unwise to pretend that people are not having sex. The WRC is only doing their best to start a conversation and cultivate a better educated campus with regard to consent and safer sex.

The director of WRC, Summer Little, has passionately worked to make the campus a safer place by helping to initiate both the Sexual Assault Response Team and the LoboRespect initiative. Now, Summer, along with the rest of the WRC, is hosting a week to educate our campus on an often avoided issue. It is the mission and purpose of the WRC to educate our campus and keep it safe, especially for women.

If you haven’t already, pay the WRC a visit. It is a resource center that is open to everyone, regardless of gender identity, and provides a wealth of resources ranging from counseling to support for nursing mothers to demonstrations of the female condom and bystander intervention training.

Isaac Romero

Immediate Past President,

ASUNM (2013-14)