The LGBT Resource Center’s advertisement for its Valentine’s Edition Queer Sex Ed event.
On Friday, Cornell’s LGBT resource center sent an email to numerous students inviting them to learn about “fisting” and “scissoring.”
Sent from a Cornell email address, the email promotes the group’s “Valentine’s Edition” Queer Sex Ed event. The event will discuss questions of “How does consent with alcohol work?” and “Are fisting and scissoring real?” and “How much lube is too much lube… and why am I sticky all over?!”
The event also features a sex toy giveaway, including “sexy door prizes (vibrators and stroker eggs)” and a “Grand Prize SEX TOY GIVEAWAY.”
The email arrives during a week of numerous advances by Cornellians in favor of maximum sexual liberation. On Thursday, the Student Assembly passed a resolution to bring Plan B vending machines to campus, and the High Rises Community organization released an advertisement on campus groups for a “Sex in the Dark” event tomorrow in Jameson Hall, a freshman dormitory. The “Sex in the Dark” event description is just one line: “Come to Sex in the Dark to get the sex education you never had and some HOT goodies!”
The High Rise organization’s advertisement for their “Sex in the Dark” event, as seen on campus groups.
In the past, students have protested and disrupted speaker events because the speaker’s ideas were viewed as “violent” or dangerous for students to hear.
Is there a level of open sexuality that is similarly unacceptable at Cornell? Receiving this type of sexual material could conceivably be threatening or intrusive for some students. In other contexts, sending or giving out such material could be considered harassment. According to the website of the Derek Smith Law Group, an organization of sexual harassment and discrimination lawyers, “sexual gift-giving is a form of prohibited sexual harassment.” Their web page includes a description of what qualifies as sexual gift giving:
Sexual gifts may include adult toys, adult-themed games, pornography, lingerie, romantic jewelry, personal care products, perfume, or any renderings that depict nudity or a sexual act. They may also be gifts with sexually explicit sayings or wording, as well as gifts intended to spark a sexual response. Sexual gifts in the workplace create a hostile work environment by creating extreme discomfort amongst individuals at work.
By this standard, even the email might have constituted a form of harassment if it had targeted an individual. Cornell has yet to draw a clear line on what is acceptable.
Correction: an earlier edition of this article mistakenly referred to the LGBT Resource Center as the LGBTQ Resource Center.
