Public university's 'Sex Week' features 'Chicanx sexuality’, BDSM gear maintenance

Portland State University (PSU) began its annual “Sex Week” on Feb. 28, featuring topics ranging from BDSM gear maintenance, to “Chicanx sexuality,” to a community panel about polyamory.

To kick off the week, students were invited to a “leather workshop” to learn “how to care for your BDSM leather so it can look great and last a long time!”

The panel on polyamory, dubbed “Polyglamorous,” invited students who were “[c]urious about non-monogamy” to come learn “how polyamorous people navigate dating multiple people in addition to school and work.” Students and alumni hosted the discussion on “ethical non-monogamy and polyamory.”

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Students were also lectured on purportedly damaging aspects of Latino culture. 

“Undoing Marianismo and Harmful Ideologies About Chicanx Sexuality’’ was an event hosted on March 6 by a professor of Chicano and Latino Studies in which she criticized the “cult of virginity” in Hispanic communities. 

At another Sex Week event, held March 2, students were instructed on “how grownups like to play with vibrators, dildos, anal toys, toys for BDSM, and more” 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.”

Free snacks were offered at the event about sex toys and lube.

At an event held on March 1, students were invited to eat cupcakes and discuss asexuality.

Prior to attending these events, students were encouraged to “care for one another” by participating in a “culture of mask wearing.”

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Campus Reform has been covering college Sex Weeks since 2014. 

Last year, during Harvard’s Sex Week, the university held a demonstration on painting “Pu**y Portraits.” At an earlier Harvard Sex Week, students attended a BDSM demonstration which utilized “whips, rope bondage and some floggers with different flogging techniques.”

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.”

Other events hosted by the Queer Resource Center include a “Queer & Trans Black History Month Social,” and an “LGBTQIA+ Meeting for Standing up against Anti-Queer laws.” Students can also drop by the center’s office to pick up “pronoun and identity pins.”

All relevant parties have been contacted for comment; this article will be updated accordingly.