From the bright red sexual consent guidelines posters that adorn nearly every bathroom stall and bulletin board on Oberlin’s campus, one might assume that these policies were second nature to most Oberlin students. But this past week the Office of Health and Life Skills Education aimed to drive the message home with its fourth annual series of workshops entitled Sex, Violence & Consent.

The array of workshops has remained consistent over the years, with slight adjustments in content and presentation based on the availability of participants and feedback from the community. This year topics ranged from the meaning of sexual consent, to defining childhood sexual abuse and its long-term impacts.

One particularly popular awareness-building workshop, “Men Talking With Men: Sex & Respect,” encouraged male students to focus on how they might create sexual relationships that are respectful of boundaries and of one’s sexual partner as a whole person. This workshop also featured comments by John Sabin, co-founder of HOMBRE (Halting the Outrage, Men Bringing Rape to an End), and Jeff Ramsey, Oberlin’s head football coach.

Another workshop exploring ways to confront and overcome sexual assault and abuse in the Latino/a community was conducted in both Spanish and English by prevention specialist and bilingual advocate Mari Colun.

The annual program, sponsored by the Office of Health & Life Skills Education and the Office for Equity Concerns, was established in response to two alleged rapes during the fall of 2001, at which point College President Nancy Dye commissioned a student and faculty-led task force on sexual ethics and education.

In a letter to the Oberlin Review in December of that same year, she wrote that the goal of the task force would be to come up with recommendations for new programs and more effective ways of educating all students to the realities of sexual assault and rape and the ways to prevent them. Among the suggestions presented by this task force at the start of the 2002-2003 academic year was the need for the implementation of such workshops.

“We have to focus on prevention [of such incidents],” said Lori Morgan Flood, the director of health and life skills education, “and that is best accomplished through education.”

Most Oberlin students would agree that issues surrounding sexual health and responsible decision-making in relationships are important enough to merit the attention of a weeklong program such as Sex, Violence & Consent.

However, given the weighty subject matter and what Sexual Offense Policy Administrator Camille Hamlin Allen refers to as a “culture of busyness,” organizers have found it difficult to attract large numbers of participants.

“I think there’s an ‘I don’t need that’ kind of attitude when it comes to these types of events,” said senior Emily Roberts, a student assistant to Flood. “People think if they know the politically correct terms or they know a lot about one area they know everything and they don’t need to hear anything else. They don’t realize there’s a bigger picture.”

In response to the question of whether the small turnouts are because students may feel uncomfortable talking about the reality of violence and rape in some sexual relationships, Allen stated, “The messages relating to sexual health are so important that it’s equally important to bring people out of their comfort zones. Communication and dialogue about these issues are essential, even if it is difficult for some students.”

To both Flood and Allen, the issues brought forth by this week’s workshops are particularly pertinent considering a recent incident in which a female resident of Dascomb Hall was reportedly raped. Flood said that it “affirmed how important the work is that we’re doing. We’re all in this together.”