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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
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Read more at
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Sexpertise events examine 
non-normative relationships

