Not into casual, meaningless, loveless sex, A.K.A. “hookup culture”? You’re in luck — Undergraduates for a Better Yale College will hold an alternative series of events during Sex Week that will be known as “Love Week.”
Love Week, scheduled to run from Feb. 5-14, is intended to function as a contrast to Sex Week and will emphasize “the greater whole, not just sex,” said Eduardo Andino ’13, UBYC co-founder.
“It’s the physical, the psychological, the emotional and the interpersonal,” he said. “There were criticisms that [our petition to ban Sex Week] was negative, so this [initiative] is kind of on both sides. We’re offering something negative like ‘we don’t think this should be happening’ but we’re also offering something else too.”
Isabel Marin ’12, another member of UBYC, said the group considers elements of Sex Week “destructive to a healthy campus culture at Yale.” Still, she said, Love Week is not intended to be a “full-fledged replacement” to Sex Week but will instead emphasize the importance of relationships and “happy sex.”
Scheduled events include talks titled “Chastity and Human Goods,” “The Person as a Gift” and “Sexual Bliss: The Path to Sexual Satisfaction and Marital Happiness for Today’s Couples.” In addition, Love Week will encourage students to go on “traditional dates,” i.e. dinner and a movie, on Valentine’s Day.
See the tentative schedule for Love Week below:
Sunday, Feb. 5, 3 p.m.: Vicki Thorn on the biochemistry of sex and a theology of the body
Monday, Feb. 6, 7 p.m.: Anthony Esolen, “The Person as a Gift”
Tuesday, Feb. 7, 4 p.m.: W. Bradford Wilcox, “Sexual Bliss: The Path to Sexual Satisfaction and Marital Happiness for Today’s Couples”
Wednesday, Feb. 8, 4 p.m.: Dr. Richard Panzer on sex education in the United States
Thursday, Feb. 9, 4 p.m.: Elise Ehrhard on marriage and contraception
Friday, Feb. 10, 4 p.m.: Christopher Tollefsen, “Chastity and Human Goods”
Saturday, Feb. 11, Evening (Tentative): Dance party that will feature “clean forms of dancing with a partner”
Tuesday, Feb. 14 (Valentine’s Day): Date Night, UBYC will encourage students to go out on traditional dates. Will possibly create a function on the UBYC website where students can get set up on blind dates.