If you are a student and you talk about sex in ways that inadvertently offend a listener, colleges may discipline you for sexual harassment. But college officials themselves talk about the most graphic and offensive sexual subjects, even when it is unrelated to pedagogy or the curriculum.
For example, featured on the University of Oregon student resource webpage is an “eco-conscious, green, gender-inclusive sex toy shop” named “As You Like It.” It is highlighted by the university’s LGBT Education and Support Services and its “Gender-Affirming Support” efforts.
According to its website, As You Like offers “non-toxic, body safe sex toys, lubes, and many other eco-sexy goodies.”
The University of Oregon Dean of Students Office promotes the store’s “gender affirming items including packers, binders, gaffs, harnesses, and breast forms,” in addition to its “educational workshops about consent and kink.”
As You Like It features various types of sex toys, the most popular being “Vibrators,” “Lubes,” “Dildos,” “Anal Play,” “Bondage and Kink,” “Sex and Disability,” “Great For Couples,” and “Sex and Age.” Specific examples include the “Pop n’ Play Squirting Packer,” the “Bear Pride Dildo,” and the “Beginner Kink Set.”
As You Like It also features a blog whose most recent post, “What Does Pride Mean in 2023?,” states that “queerness is about disrupting hetero-patriarchal spaces and challenging the status quo.” Writers include a staffer known as “Win” who uses “it/its” pronouns.
“The first brick at Stonewall wasn’t thrown so that we could get MasterCards with rainbows on them, it was thrown because queer and trans people were tired of the violence,” Win says. “Because we didn’t want to be a part of the heteronormative American Dream. We have our own queer dreams and will fight for them no matter how many times they’re posed as nightmares.”
Other blog posts include “Three, or Four, or Maybe More!” — a guide to “Threesomes, Foursomes, and Moresomes” — and “The Best Buy for Your Booty,” which highlights As You Like It’s anal toy collection in celebration of “Anal August.”
Such sexual content is not uncommon on campus. In March, Portland State University (PSU) launched its annual “Sex Week”, highlighting “Chicanx sexuality,” BDSM gear maintenance, vibrators & dildos, and a panel discussion about polyamory.
To start the week, students were invited to a “leather workshop” to be educated on “how to care for your BDSM leather so it can look great and last a long time!”
The panel on polyamory, titled “Polyglamorous,” encouraged students who were “curious about non-monogamy” to learn “how polyamorous people navigate dating multiple people in addition to school and work.” Students and graduates of PSU participated in a discussion on “ethical non-monogamy and polyamory.”
Students were also lectured about what were seen as reactionary aspects of Hispanic culture. “Undoing Marianismo and Harmful Ideologies About Chicanx Sexuality” was the title of an event held yesterday by a Chicano/Latino Studies instructor. In it, she condemned the “cult of virginity” among Latinos.
Another Sex Week event instructed students on how “to play with vibrators, dildos, anal toys, toys for BDSM, and more.” It was put on last Thursday by a transwoman who is “training to be a rabbi with the goals of helping to foster comprehensive sex education as well as create holistic spaces for people to explore the intersections of sexuality, gender, and spirituality.”
The week of sex-themed events at Portland State was organized by PSU’s Queer Resource Center, which describes itself as existing to support “queer and trans students at Portland State University” while prioritizing “a racial justice framework to improve campus climate through education, policy change, and campus-wide organizing.” Students were also invited to drop by the Queer Resource Center to get “pronoun and identity pins.”
Sex weeks are common at colleges. Last November, during Harvard’s Sex Week, that university held a demonstration on painting “Pussy Portraits.” At an earlier Harvard Sex Week, students attended a BDSM demonstration which employed “whips, rope bondage and some floggers with different flogging techniques.”
