Online Journalism Today

Designed by Katie Stout

Real People With Real Issues have a Conversation about Sex and Consent

by

Destani Jameson

On Thursday October 10, the Hood College Health Center and the Coordinator of Diversity inclusion cosponsored an uncensored series conversation about sex and consent. The Coblentz game den was the perfect atmosphere for the drop in conversation for “real people with real issues to have a real conversation.”
Although staff members of the Hood College community sponsored this event, it was a conversation for students and led by students. Travis Eichelberger, Assistant Director of Student Engagement and Diversity Initiatives Coordinator, and Dede Trapp, Staff Nurse from the Health Center, facilitated the conversation.
Free pizza, drinks, candy, condoms and sex education gathered about 15 students. The Coblentz game den was set up in a cozy comfortable setting with couches set up in a circle. The group was instructed to write a topic that connected to sex or consent and place it in the bowl. This is how topics were picked for the discussion.
When asked to define sex, Dede said, “generally speaking, the word sex means either a differentiation of gender or an act between two different people. But sex really means a variety of things.” When asked to define consent she said, “Consent is an informed understanding of a situation whereby the person agrees to whatever type of action either written or verbal. The importance of consent is that both individuals have a clear understanding of what that is, the individual’s responsibility and how to communicate effectively with other people.”
Marnica Johnson, Senior at Hood College
“I wanted to talk about tabloid pornography and how it affects a person’s sex life. Some people see porn as the playbook of what you are supposed to do. Even though some may not be comfortable with what is going on in the “playbook.” You run into a problem when one person says oh that looks like fun and they may want to try it, and that partner has no idea where they got this idea from.”
The conversation began with the evolution of porn. How it went from corny scenes set-ups and sex with condoms to the unrealistic graphic hard-core porn of today. Porn used to be fantasy and unrealistic, now porn is more realistic and much directed by what is going on in society.
Could porn possibly make a partner feel insecure? One of the participants said yes, it makes you feel like you have to compete with the screen. The facilitators mentioned how the accessibility of porn today is different because a person can access porn 24 hours a day.
“In my role at the college, I am an advocate for any student of difference. While I am going to work very hard to support all students, I have to look out for cultural differences, whether international students or racial ethnic students. They have a different concept of consent and making sure that they are prepared for the environment here. There is lots of additional baggage when you are already an underrepresented person and you are dealing with a situation like non-consented sex and what society says about you and your people and fighting against those stereotypes,” said Travis.
The next topic of discussion was losing your virginity. The group discussed stigmas of losing your virginity surrounding gender double standards. The environment, community and religious beliefs influence an individual’s decision to lose his or her virginity. The group tackled defining the loss of an individual’s virginity. Some interesting terms extracted from the conversation was oral virgin, and anal virgin. However, the group concluded that the loss of virginity is defined as penis and vagina contact for heterosexual couples.
The value of the virginity increases with age, and the act of having sex is more significant during and post college years. During the pre-college years typically a female who loses their virginity is seen as promiscuous more likely to catch an STD and higher rates of pregnancy. The benefit of a female who loses her virginity pre college avoids the awkward sensation during her college years and is prepared for the emotional attachments that come with sex.
When asked if alcohol is a factor in a scenario do you believe sex is able to be consented?
Jordyn Curtis, freshman at Hood College replied, “No, because no one is in their right state of mind, so you would not know if they were actually okay with it or know their intentions. Drunken heart sober mind, you still never know if that person was fully okay with doing it. “
The facilitators provided a lot of free condoms and sex education pamphlets. They asked students to take them. The facilitators also encouraged students to speak up if any situation arises with an act of non-consented sex. Overall, this uncensored series was a success, looking forward to the next one in November talking about Racial Injustice.

Ash Beckham Gives Talk on the need for Acceptance of LGBTQ community

by

Shannon Jones

Students, staff, and faculty gathered to see Tedx speaker Ash Beckham present her talk “Give Voice to Your Truth” on Wednesday, Oct. 27 in the Brodbeck Music Hall.
In this talk, Beckham, who considered herself an “accidental advocate” for the LGBTQ community, addressed the importance of empathy and acceptance and shared her own experiences to engage the audience. The main idea of this talk was “creating a more empathetic community on campus,” she said, and bringing that empathy into other communities as well.
“The first step is to embrace the diversity that we all bring,” Beckham said. “To embrace our own differences, and be willing to share our own stories so people better understand us.”

ab1

(Ash Beckham, photo by Shannon Jones)

Beckham went through and talked about the importance of each word in the title of her speech, “Give Voice To Your Truth,” and what they mean. She started with the word “Truth,” which, to her, is simply “the fire inside us.” She also discussed the words “tolerance” and “acceptance” and how they differ from each other.
“Tolerating isn’t enough. We need to get to the point of acceptance,” Beckham said. “The difference is tremendous.”
Beckham also discussed how to deal with people who do not show acceptance or do not understand. “We have to acknowledge the fact that the words we choose affect other people,” she said after sharing stories of how she lost her temper with people who were rude towards her.
“I eventually realized I wanted to be a passionate cause for change,” Beckham said. “I wanted to maintain my veracity, but also have some serenity and some kindness, and not lose who I was generally as a person to the anger these situations were bringing me.”
The event drew a substantial crowd consisting of students, faculty, and staff. One student, Joe Denicola, thought that Beckham’s speech was thought-provoking.
“I thought [Beckham’s talk] was really interesting,” said Denicola, a senior at Hood College. “I really didn’t think much about the way that you give your own voice, especially not in the way she talked about where you try to find a balance.”
“It doesn’t always have to be confrontational,” he continued. “I never really thought of it that way, mostly because I’m used to more harsher settings, where it’s kind of like, “You’ve got to know this thing or else you’re a horrible person,” and the fact that it kind of steered away from that was really cool for me.”
Beckham first went viral in 2013 with her TEDx talk “Coming Out of Your Closet,” which currently has more than 5 million views on YouTube and covers the subjects of homophobia in society. She has since given other TEDx talks on the topics of sexuality and empathy.

Thank you for reading.