The Red and Black

Issue date: 12/4/08 Section: News

Media Credit: FRANNIE FABIAN The Women's Clinic in the Health Center provides a variety of sexual health information and products. The University provides many services to educate women and help them become sexually aware. [Click to enlarge]

When it comes to sexual health awareness, a surprising array of knowledge exists on campus, a Health Center employee said.

"When I do programs on campus, for some it's the first time they've ever seen a pack of birth control pills or condoms," said Katy Janousek, sexual health coordinator. "When I go into classrooms and do lectures, it's typically for a women's studies class, and students tend to be pretty familiar" with sexual health care.

Students enter the University with different backgrounds of sex education in schools, and sometimes working with freshmen and sophomore females in residence halls is "a shock," she said.

"People always ask me what's the craziest thing I've heard or seen, and it's not how radical or obscure something is but how badly people lack knowledge," Janousek said. "I'll always remember at one meeting a girl looking at a vagina model and asked if the tampon goes in the same hole the baby comes out."

Janousek said she then incorporated more about anatomy and menstruation in her presentations.

"Sometimes RAs request programs in the dorms, and I bring all the different types of birth control, penis and vagina models to let women touch and see" how to use condoms and other contraceptives, she said.

"They can ask questions in a safe space with peers."

Janousek is tailoring her program to include more details on oral sex, because a 2007 survey issued by the Health Center revealed only 1.3 percent of sexually active students used condoms during oral sex.

"There's a lack of understanding about the transfer of STIs [sexually transmitted infections] during oral sex," she said.

Her department will post facts about oral sex on bus cards and in residence halls.

Continued...

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