Letter from the Director

 

Sex Week is an interdisciplinary biennial sex education program that explores love, sex, intimacy, and relationships in order to help students reconcile these issues in their own lives. Sex Week showcases the logistical, personal, and societal facets of sex and sexuality, and takes a harsh look at the disconnect between how sex is presented and how things actually are. We strive to get beyond the awkwardness, the discomfort, and the taboo of conventional sex education programs by treating sexual behavior as the reality that it is, as experienced by people our age. Through debates, seminars, fashion shows, concerts, and discussions, students interact with professionals ranging from models and adult film stars to dating and relationship specialists, so they can learn about sexuality from those who make a living by it.

Devoting an entire week to sex education at a school with such a conservative tradition has sparked a share of controversy. Sex Week 2004 agitated, if not incensed, almost as many as it delighted. R eligious and conservative groups across the country have attacked Yale and the event, feeling that this kind of sex education has no place in an institution of higher learning. Paradoxically, these people are our most effective ambassadors because it is through them that we know the Week is achieving its purpose: people are talking about the way young people experience sex and sexuality everyday.

Like Sex Week at Yale itself, Sex Week at Yale: The Magazine does not favor any ideology. It is not intended to encourage or discourage hooking-up or pre-marital sex. It is meant to challenge the status quo of sex and sexuality in our culture. So, if you love the magazine and love Sex Week, let your friends know. But better, if you hate the magazine and hate Sex Week, let even more friends know.

Happy reading.

Dain Lewis
Director, Sex Week at Yale

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