2-News
3-News
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
News
Friday, February 12, 2016 — 3
of eight people are unaware that
they are infected, according to the
Center for Disease Control. HIV
spreads through blood, semen,
pre-seminal fluid, rectal fluids,
vaginal fluids and breast milk. In
the United States, HIV is spread
mainly by having unprotected
sex with someone who is HIV-
positive
or
sharing
needles,
syringes or other equipment that
are used to inject drugs with
someone who has HIV, according
to the CDC.
HIV is a bigger problem in
youth — people aged from 13 to
24 — in the United States, with
26 percent of new infections in
this age group in 2010. Over half
of the people in this age bracket
with HIV do not know that they
are infected.
During his talk, Stephenson
pointed out that young people
— including college students —
might not necessarily have HIV
prevention or testing on the top of
their priority list since there are
other aspects in their lives to keep
them busy. Though the University
Health Service currently offers
free confidential HIV tests for
University of Michigan students
— the test costs $20 for others —
the students may not utilize the
resource.
“Is (HIV prevention or testing)
a priority for young people?”
Stephenson asked. “What about
other priorities — school, getting
good grades and planning what
to eat?”
Stephenson said addressing
some of those other priorities
might encourage young people
to prioritize HIV prevention
or testing, an approach called
the “life skills approach.” The
approach focuses on developing
and honing various practical
skills, such as decision-making,
problem-solving
and
critical
thinking, in young people to then
educate them about issues such as
HIV.
Stephenson said the approach
may
help
“sort
out”
other
problems the young people have
so they can focus on dealing with
sexuality issues, such as HIV
testing and relationships.
“If you sort your life out,
you are more likely to get HIV
testing,” Stephenson said.
Stephenson
also
discussed
iCON, a website for youth in
the LGBTQ community to find
resources in Southeast Michigan
about various issues related to
their sexuality, such as HIV
prevention and testing, legal
counsel and coming out to family
and friends. Stephenson is the
co-director of the Center for
Sexuality and Health Disparities,
the organization that developed
iCON. iCON is tailored for the
user’s unique status on gender,
sexual
orientation
and
HIV
status.
Brentney Wilson, an Eastern
Michigan
University
student
who attended the session, said
she found iCON “fascinating”
and liked how research on other
topics that are not immediately
related to HIV research were
used to address the HIV issue in
young people.
“How they are using other
research to segue into research
on HIV — I thought that was
clever,” Wilson said. “HIV is a
very touchy subject, so it can be
very hard to do talk about HIV
with people.”
Sexpertise
Director
Laura
McAndrew
said
an
open,
honest discussion of sexuality
is important because sexuality
can greatly influence a person’s
happiness and wellness as it is not
just about sexually transmitted
diseases or pregnancy.
“Sexual health is part of one’s
overall health,” McAndrew said.
“Sexual health includes having
a
positive
relationship
with
your sexuality, feeling positive
about your sexual orientation
and having a pleasurable sexual
interaction.”
HIV
From Page 1
DELANEY RYAN/Daily
LSA freshman Peyton Watt plays games and participates in sex positive themed activities in a carnival at the eighth annual
Sexpertise at the Michigan League on Thursday.
DELANEY RYAN/Daily
Law School student Katie Reyzis speaks about sex trafficking from a legal perspective at the eighth annual Sexpertise at
the Michigan League on Thursday.
and trying to communicate that
‘whatever you want is great
for you and I want to help you
navigate that sort of thing,’ ” she
said. “So, some people might not
even be interested in sex and
that’s perfectly all right too and
so we try to explore all of those
different identities.”
The games and activities at the
carnival were named as puns on
terms associated with sex. One
such game was “Quickies,” in
which participants were asked
to sort out myths and facts about
sex.
The host of the activity, LSA
freshman Ciara Hancock, said
she was surprised by how little
people knew about sex and how
difficult it was for participants to
separate fact from fiction.
“There’s a lot of information
out there, but that doesn’t make
it good information,” she said.
“Some of the littler ones that
don’t seem very important and
seem kind of common sense, a
lot of people are finding (what)
they
fundamentally
thought
they knew isn’t true and it’s a big
surprise about some things that
they just don’t know the basics
about.”
LSA
sophomore
Sareena
Kamath, who attended the event,
said she was impressed by variety
of sexual health issues addressed
at the carnival.
“It addresses a lot of issues
in a way that makes you think
that you’re not being judged
or castigated for something,”
Karmath said. “We were just
doing this ball toss activity that
was about consent, so I think
that’s a good way to teach people
about consent that’s fun and
natural.”
LSA
freshman
Alexandra
Chapdelaine
said
she
was
excited to find that the event was
forthright with its discussion of
sexuality.
“There’s a lot of things that
people don’t talk about because
they’re seen as too serious or
taboo, but this kind of brings it
out in the open and lets everybody
celebrate themselves,” she said.
Chapdelaine said consent is an
important issue on campus that
still isn’t properly discussed and
she was glad to find that that topic
in particular was a critical aspect
of the carnival and presented in
an engaging way to students.
“It doesn’t get talked about
enough on college campuses,”
she said. “I know there’s a lot of
rhetoric about asking for consent,
but it’s still awkward for a lot of
people. So, I think it’s important
to know how to do that.”
Kamath echoed Chapdelaine’s
comments
on
consensual
sex, adding, “A lot of times
you talk about when a non-
consensual event happens and
the consequences of that, but we
don’t talk enough about how to
prevent it as much.”
CARNIVAL
From Page 1
Polyamorous
engagements
explained at the
Leauge
By EMILY MIILLERS
Daily Staff Reporter
About 50 people attended back-
to-back interactive lectures on
sexual health Wednesday evening
as part of the annual Sexpertise
conference on sexual health,
hosted by the University Health
Service. The events, titled “See-
ing Other People: Open Relation-
ships, Polyamory, and More” and
“Kink Outside the Box,” took
place in the Michigan League.
Public Health graduate stu-
dent Tahiya Alam coordinated
the Sexpertise conference this
year. She heads the Sexpertise
committee, which is a part of Sex-
perteam, a group that promotes
sexual health through various
campus events. She said the con-
ference is largely based on student
recommendations from last year.
“We look at what the students
are looking for in terms of sexual
education and what’s available in
terms of resources in our commu-
nity,” Alam said.
Amy Jacobs, a clinical social
worker at the University of Michi-
gan Health System, presented
“Seeing Other People: Open Rela-
tionships, Polyamory and More.”
She discussed different types of
consensually
non-monogamous
relationships and discussed her
own experiences with open rela-
tionships.
Jacobs emphasized that con-
sensual non-monogamy is not
cheating because these relation-
ships are based on communica-
tion and honesty.
“You’re negotiating those kinds
of things with your partner to
find out what’s important to you,”
Jacobs said. “What do you need
out of our relationship so that I
make sure that I’m respecting
that relationship when I’m with
other people?”
Jacobs provided responses she
often got when she told people
she was non-monogamous, such
as questions about how open rela-
tionships work and why she had
gotten married. Overall, she said
the decision to be non-monoga-
mous is dependent on an individ-
ual’s definition of a relationship.
“What is your definition of
a relationship that works? Is it
being together for a long time?
Or is it being happy?” Jacobs said.
“To me that’s not a great mar-
riage, just staying together.”
Jacobs also said being honest
about her relationships is a posi-
tive for her daughter, in that she
gets to experience alternative
family styles and know she has
options for future relationships.
Public Health graduate student
Emma Sell-Goodhand and local
sex educator Tori Renaud pre-
sented “Kink Outside the Box.”
“Kink,” according to present-
ers, is defined as non-normative
sexual activity, like bondage or
role-play.
Sell-Goodhand and Renaud
incorporated various cell phone
polls for the audience with ques-
tions about kink, misconceptions
concerning kink, different roles
and implements in sex play and
areas to avoid in a more hands-on
style presentation.
They
cited
studies
that
expressed the physiological and
psychological benefits of kink,
including having a more open per-
spective on sex and other aspects
of life. Renaud said she believed
communication among partners
may lead to benefits from kink.
“These activities require a lot
of communication,” she said. “A
lot of psychological problems
stem from suppressing things —
whether those be your emotions,
your desires.
men is whether they think this
person who is proposing them is
going to be a good lover,” Conley
said. “It’s not about whether or
not they think they’re going to
bond with them, marry them and
support them and their children.
No. It’s about whether they think
the sex is going to be good.”
She acknowledged that the
logic behind this myth seems
intuitive, but oftentimes the
truth is shocking to the public.
“It doesn’t fit our images of
women,” she said.
Conley said one of the strong
predictors of participation in
casual sex for both genders is
whether they feel they will be
stigmatized. She said women,
like men, want respect during
sexual encounters. However, as
a demographic females are less
likely to feel respected and more
likely to be stigmatized.
“The very men who are
especially interested in having
casual sex are the ones who
are especially likely to engage
in slut-shaming and especially
endorse the double standard,”
Conley said.
Conley stressed that these
social
factors,
rather
than
biological
and
evolutionary,
largely
dictate
women
and
men’s motivations to engage in
and enjoy casual sex.
“When
you
control
for
these two factors statistically,
the
factor
associated
with
stigma and then also the factor
associated
with
how
much
pleasure people expect to get
out of the encounter, generally
these
gender
differences
evaporate,” she said.
In addition to disproving
misconceptions
surrounding
gender
differences,
Conley
also
explored
the
struggle
between
monogamous
and
consensual
non-monogamous
relationships. She described the
perception that “monogamy is
best” as a so-called halo effect
— society has a tendency to
ascribe positive traits toward
monogamist relationships and
is less likely to do so for “open”
relationships.
In
her
research,
Conley
found
that
between
people who cheat on their
partners
in
a
monogamous
relationship
versus
people
who are consensually in non-
monogamous relationships, the
latter group was more likely to
promote safe health practices.
For example, the consensually
non-monogamous participants
were more likely to talk about
their
sexual
history
with
partners and use condoms, and
they were less likely to engage
in sexual activity while under
the influence.
She also challenged the notion
that
those
in
monogamous
relationships
have
better
relationships. A series of graphs
presented during her remarks
illustrated data showing that
there was no difference between
the two groups when asked
about the level of relationship
satisfaction, commitment and
passionate love. The last two
slides of the series deviated by
a small margin, showing that
consensual
non-monogamous
partners shared a higher level
of trust while a greater portion
of
monogamous
partners
reported a higher level of sexual
satisfaction.
“If you’re asking me, when
I look at these data, if I see
evidence that this whole halo
effect around monogamy is
deserved, I really can’t see it,”
Conley said.
The last myth Conley aimed
to disprove was that sex is
immoral and dangerous, and
she emphasized that people are
often irrational about avoiding
sex to avoid STIs. The promoted
ideal encourages individuals to
not engage in sexual activity at
all, she said.
In one of her studies, Conley
asked participants to rate how
many people out of 1,000 can
be expected to die from driving
from Detroit to Chicago or
from having one instance of
unprotected sex — participants
guessed that people are 17
times more likely to die from
unprotected sex. In reality,
individuals are 20 times more
likely to die from driving from
Detroit to Chicago than from
having unprotected sex, she
said.
Engineering
sophomore
Jacqueline Thomas said she has
taken a class on the sociology of
sexuality, and was interested in
attending the event because of
her previous experience with
the topic.
“I thought it would be really
interesting to see how the
University
promotes
events
like this,” Thomas said. “I
really enjoyed the part about
consensual
non-monogamy,
I really enjoyed how the data
showed virtually no differences; it
was really nice and informative.”
Creating
Complex
Characters:
Dr. Candace Moore, assistant
professor in the Department of
Screen Arts and Culture and the
Women’s Studies Department,
began her session with a clip from
the Netflix TV show “Sense8.”
Her lecture examined LGBTQ
sexuality in media with a heavy
focus on scenes from the 1970s.
Moore began by pointing to
film and television from the ’90s,
noting the few episodes on shows
such as ‘Roseanne’ and “L.A.
Law” that portrayed gay and
lesbian characters to increase
ratings. However, she said during
that time most of what audiences
saw were a few episodes where
there would be non-sexualized
same-sex characters or a couple
of lesbian kisses.
“I want to question this idea
that gay sexuality was expressed
in any kind of out way or
potentially queer way,” Moore
said.
RESEARCH
From Page 1
Read more at
MichiganDaily.com
Read more at
MichiganDaily.com
Sexpertise events examine
non-normative relationships