Sara Tiradossi/Winonan
Winona State University’s sexual health awareness club hosted interactive group trivia Wednesday, Oct. 28 to engage students on how to make safe sexual choices.
The club is comprised of students who promote, educate and positively influence others on sexual health.
President Kyler Steffe said the event provided safe sex kits and valuable information about reproductive health among college students.
“This event wanted to promote that reproductive health is very fun and exciting,” Steffe said. “As a club, we strive to provide current factual information on how to have safe sex and how to have that respect and care for your own body when it comes to sex.”
Steffe said the event benefitted students because they received educational material about decisions regarding their own health and were also challenged on what they already knew about their sexual health.
“The sex trivia that we offer is a different approach for the students to get the resources on sexual health,” Steffe said.
Club member Julia Rodriguez said there were more upper-level students than first-year students because they are more comfortable talking about sex.
“More older females stopped by than males at the sex trivia,” Rodriguez said. “That brings up an interesting topic about sex around gender.”
Rodriguez said a lot of people are unwilling to talk about sex, and in today’s society sex is a very stigmatized topic, even if it is something of primary interest from society.
“There is definitely anxiety on having the sex talk,” Rodriguez said. “But the people who stopped today and wanted to participate in the conversation were able to talk about it very openly.”
Steffe said during the trivia, it was easy to tell that a lot of the participants were shy to express their thoughts and feelings on the subject. But she said the information was very important and students should easily have access to it if they are sexually active.
People like to think they are comfortable enough to talk about sex, Rodriguez said, because of today’s “hook up” culture on college campuses, but it is often hard to engage in that talk fearlessly.
“The more this topic is discussed, the more comfortable it will be,” Rodriguez said. “If you don’t know anything about your sexual health or your own reproduction system, I could see how it is a hard topic to talk about.”
Steffe said the event benefitted students because they received educational material about decisions regarding their own health and were also challenged on what they already knew about their sexual health.
Sex trivias are not the only activities that the club organizes each semester. Steffe said the sexual awareness club plans also condom bingos, which usually attracts a lot of people.
“Last semester we hosted a huge condom bingo called Freasky Fest and almost 300 people showed up to get sex kits,” Steffe said. “It was the first time our club experienced such a great response from the students.”