“Sex on the Beach” went off with a bang as Boston University students learned about the negative repercussions of unsafe sex and alcohol abuse on Thursday.
The event, coordinated by Sargent College of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences peer counselors and the Minority Associate of Pre-Health, aimed to raise awareness about alcohol and sexual health safety, said SAR junior Alicia Gadomski, one of the coordinators.
Wellness coordinator Michelle George said student health ambassadors contacted various sexual health organizations interested in spreading information about the issue, such as Casa Esperanza, Fenway Health and AIDS Action Committee of Massachusetts.
The SAR peer counselors, student health ambassadors and organizations set up booths on the BU Beach and distributed free condoms, lubricants, stickers, pins and information pamphlets about sex, drugs and alcohol abuse to the BU community.
They also held activities, such as Jeopardy, to give students a feel for the negative side affects of alcohol.
Lisa Kelly, a College of Arts and Sciences junior, stopped by the “virtual bar,” which was designed to simulate how people see when they are drunk by wearing goggles.
“It’s really hard to walk,” Kelly said. “It’s disorienting.”
Event organizers sold mocktails, raffle tickets and Qdoba burritos to help raise money for Casa Esperanza, an organization that helps people with drug, substance abuse and mental disorders, George said.
Student Health Services physician Mark Weber was at the event to answer any questions students had about sexual health and alcohol abuse.
He said alcohol awareness is important because it is a major cause of sexual health problems.
“Under the influence of substances you are not always thinking clearly even if you have information about sexual health,” Weber said.
SAR junior Hannah Putnam, a student health administrator, said 80 percent of the activities were geared toward alcohol awareness, not sexual awareness.
Women’s Health Outreach coordinator Erica Pollock from Fenway Health said the organization chose to participate to “get students to understand they should be taking care of themselves especially when they are young.”
Northeastern University junior Matt Poon, who works as a hotline intern at AIDS Action, distributed information about how students can volunteer for the organization.
“It’s a lot of fun,” Poon said. “We get a lot of different calls. Some are very awkward. . .at least once a day I feel like I did something good.”
The “Sex on the Beach” advertisements around campus made a lot of students curious about the event, George said.
Some students even stopped by her office to ask what it was about, she said.
However, George said the turnout was not as high as she expected because of the rain.
Although 400 students had RSVP’d yes on the Facebook event page, only 70 showed up within the first hour, she said.
Students who attended said the event helped them gain valuable information.
SAR graduate student Laura Greco, who found out about the event through Facebook, said the pamphlets were informative.
“It looks like there is a lot of great info for students,” she said.
This is an account occasionally used by the Daily Free Press editors to post archived posts from previous iterations of the site or otherwise for special circumstance publications. See authorship info on the byline at the top of the page.
