Sex under the stars

Julie McKinney

Sophomore nursing major Stephanie Szabat picks a gonorrhea sucker from a tree of STDs at Sextoberfest. CAITLIN PRARAT | DAILY KENT STATER

Credit: DKS Editors

Condoms and constellations filled the Student Center’s Ballroom last night during this year’s Sextoberfest.

Stars projected onto the ballroom’s stage and large tents in the center of the room created the Sex Under that Stars theme of this year’s event.

The event was sponsored by Kent Interhall Council. The line that wrapped around the top floor of the Student Center a half hour before the event proved that sex sells.

Games such as Tack the Tail on Taurus, Virgo’s Cherry Pop and Pisces Condom Fishing rewarded students with condoms and lubricant. More than 6,000 condoms and 600 T-shirts were rewarded as prizes, said Zane Powell, KIC director of programming and sophomore marketing major.

Condoms weren’t the only item circulating in the ballroom. There was plenty of educational information as well.

Stephen Caution, freshman marketing and electronic media production major, ran the Cancer the Crab: Don’t be a Dummy game.

Caution, who is also president of Stopher and Johnson halls, was yelling “You’re clean!” or informing students who were playing the game whether they received a fake sexually transmitted disease, which was determined by which sucker they selected.

“The idea is not to get an STD,” he said.

But Caution wasn’t just handing out fake STDs: He was also providing students with information about the particular STD they might have chosen.

“You have HIV,” he told one student. He then told the student that the virus can be contracted through saliva, vaginal fluids, blood and other things.

“It’s important to do this stuff on campus for the fact that we are in a setting that sexual activity is inherent, and if we can promote safe sex – that sort of thing is our obligation,” Caution said.

Erin West, Stopher and Johnson’s director of public relations and sophomore psychology major, assisted Caution with the game.

She described how students could get fake herpes in the game.

“Then we give you a condom and say ‘stay safe out there,'” she said.

Loud music, laughter and the sound of popping condoms and balloons filled the room as the night continued.

Freshman theater major Abby Smith won Neptune’s Full of Hot Air Race, where students raced to inflate a condom.

“All my friends were coming and it sounded like a fun thing to do, so I came out,” Smith said.

Smith won seven condoms, but she said the program was good for more than free condoms.

“It’s about safe sex,” she said.

Contact room and board reporter Julie McKinney at [email protected].