SHAG Week promotes healthy lifestyles

Sexual Health Awareness and Guidance (SHAG) Week kicked off with a make-it-yourself condom-gram and Valentine's Day card event at the Glass Pavilion on Monday. The newly created initiative is a week-long series of events and activities centered around raising awareness of safe sex practices in the Hopkins community.

"We've been wanting to do this for a couple years now," Barbara Schubert, Associate Director of the Center for Health Education and Wellness (CHEW) said.

While CHEW has organized many events dedicated to raising sexual health awareness in the past, they had never devoted an entire week to discussing and teaching about the subject.

"It'll definitely increase [the students' sexual health] awareness and let them maybe think about it," Schubert said. "Changing behavior is difficult. We have to start with the awareness first, plant the seed, then go from there."

The schedule of events runs from Monday to Friday of this week. Tuesday featured the delivery of the aforementioned condomgrams. dom-grams were delivered. CHEW described the student response as very enthusiastic.

"The condom grams went really well," Schubert said.

Wednesday evening featured a condom information session at Nolan's. Entitled Hump Day, the two hour event focused on relaying important information regarding condom use. The event was sponsored by CHEW, Preventative Education and Empowerment for Peers, Stressbusters and Nolan's at 33rd.

Tonight's events will feature a talk by sexuality educator Megan Andelloux. Also known as Oh Megan, Andelloux will be giving a presentation entitled "Super Sex College Style." Her talk will cover topics such as proper condom use and how to have safe and enjoyable sex. In short, she will be talking about "how to make sex more fun and pleasurable," according to Schubert.

"She'll be doing demonstrations and taking questions from the audience," Schubert said.

Index cards will be given out at the event upon which students may anonymously submit questions to Andelloux to be answered during the presentation.

"[Students will be able to] learn what's on someone's mind without feel like they're being singled out on that question," Alana Biblow, Health Educator of the CHEW, said.

According to CHEW, students will also receive prizes, such as vibrators and lubricants, for coming to the event. The event will be held at Hodson 110 at 7 p.m.

Andelloux will also host her Get Wet seminar tomorrow at noon in the Great Hall in Levering. The seminar will discuss a variety of topics "centered on reproductive justice and sexual freedom. . . from contraceptive options and LGBTQ issues to pornography and the human body," according to Andelloux's website.

CHEW will also be hosting Sexfest at the Glass Pavilion at 1 p.m. tomorrow afternoon. The event will feature groups presenting information related to sexual health. CHEW will be advertising the STI testing services of the Health and Wellness Center as well as the variety of free products, including female condoms, dental dams and lubricant, available at the CHEW office.

"We just want people to be safer with their sexual practices and infuse some fun in it as well," Schubert said. An STI testing kit is available for free at the Health and Wellness Center; however, processing the testing samples requires a $28 fee, according to Schubert.

Student groups that will be on hand include PEEPS, the Diverse Sexuality and Gender Alliance, the Feminine Alliance and the Sexual Assault Response Unit. Non-student groups will include the Counseling Center, the Health and Wellness Center and CHEW itself. Non-affiliated groups will include Planned Parenthood.

In addition to information, cube chocolates will be available for students.

"Sometimes sex and chocolate go together so we thought that would be fun," Biblow said.

SHAG week will conclude with a presentation of the film Crazy, Stupid, Love by the Hopkins Organization for Programming (HOP) in Remsen 1 at 8 p.m as part of their Friday Night Films series.

CHEW hopes to make SHAG Week an annual event. For future SHAG Weeks, they'll seek to have events on everyday of the week.

"We didn't do anything for Valentine's Day," Schubert said. "[Next time] we'd like to have an event everyday."