Despite chilling temperatures, things are heating up at Syracuse University’s Office of Health Promotion with their annual Frisky February series.

Frisky February is a month-long initiative in recognition of Sexual Health Awareness Month aimed at “raising awareness and knowledge about different aspects of sexual health,” per its website. The series kicked off Friday with a Sexual Health Fair hosted by SU’s Student Association, featuring games, prizes and on- and off-campus sexual health resources.

Michelle Goode, the Health Promotion specialist for sexual and relationship violence prevention, said that for every event that participants attend, their names will be entered into a raffle for a variety of sex-positive prizes, including sex toys and sexual health books.

OHP staff, peer educators and community members are invited to take part in educational seminars and guest speaker events centered around topics such as sexual health, consent and individual self-care, featuring partnerships with SU’s chapters of It’s On Us, Safer Sex Express and Students Advocating Sexual Safety and Empowerment, among others.

Vivianna Salce, a senior communications sciences and disorders major and healthy relationships and sexuality peer educator at OHP, initially got involved with the office’s peer education program her freshman year at SU. She said that she was inspired to join the education team because of her own positive experiences with sexual education in her New Jersey high school, and wanted to share the knowledge she had gained to the greater Syracuse community.

“I felt like I was pretty educated compared to my peers, and I thought it would be cool to further my knowledge,” she said. “In other states, they just teach abstinence, or they don’t teach about birth control or STIs, which I think is really important.”

One of the misconceptions many students have regarding sexual health, Salce said, is that it only pertains to sexual safety and issues of consent. She added that while these issues are significant for college students, it’s also important to talk about sex in a positive, non-heteronormative manner.

Part of Salce’s role as a peer educator is serving as a team leader in OHP’s sexual health and pleasure division. Along with providing educational resources on the human anatomy and information regarding healthy masturbation practices, other members of her peer educator team focus on issues regarding how to “pick up” people in a healthy and consensual way.

“You know, because it’s cuffing season,” she said with a laugh. “It’s to do it in a respectful manner, even if you’re not intending to be in a long-term relationship. You still have to treat them with some kind of respect.”

Salce said that Frisky February is especially important for members of SU’s community because of issues regarding sexual assault and consent on college campuses. She said that for some students, consent can become a misconstrued concept, especially given what they hear and see in mainstream media.

For some people, Salce said, their sexuality is an integral part of their identity and should be embraced. She said that, even for those who don’t identify as sexual beings, it’s still important to have an awareness of their sexual autonomy and the rights that come with it.

“There are some people who are very sexual and some people who aren’t,” she said. “Even if you aren’t super sexual, it’s still good to know about it.”

One of Salce’s hopes for this year’s series is that it will teach community members that sexual health is more than just a vital component to their safety and wellbeing — it can be a source of pleasure and enjoyment, too.

“Everyone should know things about sexual health and pleasure, and they should feel comfortable going to someone about it,” she said. “It’s not something to be ashamed of. It’s something that’s really empowering when you do learn about it.”

Published on February 3, 2019 at 9:02 pm

Contact Kelsey: katho101@syr.edu | @writtenbykelsey