Safer sex carnival hosted on campus

This past Tuesday night, Minnesota State University, Mankato’s Student Health Services and Residence Hall Association teamed up with multiple other on-campus groups to provide a fun night full of games, trivia and treats all themed around safe sex.

MSU sophomore Matt Jensen felt reassured that such a taboo topic was spoken about so freely in a positive light. 

“I wanted to come in here because I saw there were a lot of people already here and I wanted to check out what was going on,” said Jensen. “I’m excited that people are so open to talk about sex freely.

The games started on the outside of Preska 126- where the main event was being hosted- with an RHA table where students could vote on their favorite term for a condom, which included “Love Glove” and “Weenie Beanie”. 

Students who voted were able to take a prize off of the welcome table, which held gear such as water bottles, socks, movie candies, and more. Once inside, there were a multitude of activities that students were able to participate in.

MSU RHA Program Coordinator Bailey Kowarsch was excited to be a part of the event. Kowarsch helped run some of the game tables that coordinated with safe sex and responsible drinking. 

“Student Health Services reached out and asked if we wanted to do some tables,” said Kowarsch. “We said we’d love to, and so they gave us our topics and we got our prizes and put together our games.”

One game at the carnival for students to play was spinning a wheel to win a variety of prizes, such as Sunny-D and safe sex kits. Another was students throwing bean bags at blown up condoms to pop them for prizes. Nonalcoholic beer pong was included in the carnival, where students had to answer questions about consent, which could lead them to winning a speaker. 

Other games included mini corn hole with condoms to win even more condoms, listing down abstinence-based date ideas to win prizes, and students learning their love language.

Whitney Issacson, a volunteer with Health Peers Reaching Out, said the group got involved with the carnival to promote safe sex and alcohol consumption.

“My table was ‘How to Swipe,’ where students were able to look through silly, fake Tinder profiles of random people all based around sex and alcohol,” said Issacson. “We wanted to bring awareness with interactive booths and prizes.”

The Women’s Center hosted an educational booth on women’s anatomy, along with having a raffle for prizes.

The LGBT Center hosted a game where students could answer questions about queer sex and relationships. If they got enough questions right, they were able to play another game of nonalcoholic beer pong to win LGBT Center merchandise.

Students rotated through the booths throughout the night, energetic about the games themselves and the prizes they could win. At the end of the night, students were able to enter tickets won at the booths in a raffle for a date-night goodie bag, along with guessing the number of condoms in a jar to win 25 condoms of their own.

All organizations involved in the event preached the importance of protected, consensual sex. The Student Health Services and Women’s Center are both resources for students with questions about safe sex.

Header Photo: Student Health Services and the Residence Hall Association hosted a Safer Sex Carnival on Tuesday Feb. 10. Students were able to participate in games to win prizes such as condoms, water bottles and movie candies. (Courtesy Photo of Flickr)