Yale students want to know about sex. They're just too embarrassed to ask.
At least that's what the schedule for this year's Sex Week at Yale, which begins Feb. 13, suggests.
Born of the remains of a Jewish-inspired "Kosher Sex Week," Sex Week at Yale is a biannual event that brings sex therapists, former Catholic priests, porn stars (this year, porn veteran Jesse Jane of "Pirates" fame will be participating in a panel called "The Real Porn In The Morn") and writers to Yale's campus to facilitate a week's worth of discussion on topics ranging from "The Art of Mackin'" to "Homosexuality and Religion." But why? Yale is known for a lot of things: educating the intellectual elite of America, harboring secret societies of skulls and bones and producing presidents, among others. Sex, however, is just not one of them.
"I think there is a disconnect between the way sex is taught and the way students actually experience it. Not enough people talk seriously about it," said Sex Week Director Dain Lewis, a junior history major at Yale. "Sexuality is really responsible for shaping a person's self-confidence, and it's under-discussed in a serious manner in our society. The events bring the issues to the forefront and let people know that it's okay to talk about it. Everyone's struggling with the same thing."
Lewis, who got involved with Sex Week after attending a lecture in 2004 called "Finding the G-Spot," said that this year, the week welcomes the addition of a full-color glossy magazine, which will be distributed for free at Brown on Friday.
"(The magazine) was originally intended as a byproduct of the week. We thought students would benefit from a glorified schedule with informational tidbits and Sex Week particulars," said Soren Sudhof, the magazine's editor-in-chief and Sex Week's operation director. Eventually, though, Sudhof said that it expanded to include informative and explicit articles on sex and sexuality by 20 contemporary writers, as well as photographs and other illustrations.
"It's Sex Week in literature form," Lewis said.
The cover of "Sex Week at Yale: The Magazine" features a female Yale student - clad only in earrings and red underwear with "Yale" written across the bottom - looking coyly over her shoulder at the camera, almost as though she isn't aware that someone is taking a picture of her half-naked.
Lewis said the magazine, in which only Yale students serve as models, does not contain any nudity.
"We wanted to make sure we could justify everything to our moms," he said.
Sudhof, with the help of two Yale Herald editors, spent about 10 weeks e-mailing, calling and meeting with authors to collect articles and found that most people were very receptive to the idea.
"We tried to get something for every taste and interest," Sudhof said.
Although the centerfold of the magazine is an article on how to make a girl orgasm, which "doesn't leave much to the imagination," according to Lewis, he said the magazine is "clean and classy."
Molly Dillon, a sophomore at Yale who modeled in the magazine as a girl attracted to a man in a homosexual relationship, said she was not nervous about being in the risqué magazine.
"I have seen some of the shots; they are pretty cool and creative. The photographers and directors put a lot of effort into everything," Dillon said.
The magazine will be dis-tributed at 18 schools, including all of the Ivy League, Duke, New York and Northwestern universities. The editors tried to get a range of high-profile schools across the country at which to distribute and enlisted friends at those schools to physically hand out the magazines.
According to Sudhof, they made the decision to circulate the magazine nationally because they "worked really hard on it and ... wanted everyone to see it."
Sudhof said that the magazine, which will be distributed for free, will be seen by at least 25,000 students on Friday.
The magazine is sure to please Brown students upon its arrival in Providence, Lewis said.
"The editors of the (Yale) Herald were showing it to their staff and everyone really liked it," he said. "It's fantastic. The magazine is brilliant."
