Love Your Body Campaign hosts event on "The Anatomy of Pleasure"

Tuesday night, over 40 attendees participated in the “Screw Smart presents: The Anatomy of Pleasure: What You Didn’t Learn in Health Class,” a jumpstart to the Love Your Body Campaign hosted at the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Center by the Penn Consortium of Undergraduate Women and the Penn Women’s Center.

Before starting, College junior and Co-Programming Chairwoman of PCUW Becky Duncan said, “Everybody be open-minded and have fun.” Leading the workshop were founders of ScrewSmart J.D. Ackerman, Rebecca Alvarez and Kira Manser, whose mission is to promote sexual health and satisfaction.

After ground rules were established to foster a safe and open environment, Alvarez began with an icebreaker that asked the audience questions. They started out rather conservatively asking whether anyone watched Saturday Night Live this week or whether anyone voted, becoming more suggestive when asking if anyone had some rope lying around their room.

Next, Ackerman did a fruit activity asking people to close their eyes while using their “five sexy senses.” After distributing fruit, she applied how people used their senses with fruit to sexual acts like “spanking a bottom.”

Manser, “a nerd” about anatomy, talked about genitalia of females and males. For the vagina, topics ranged from skin sensitivity to the G-spot. For the penis, topics ranged from vibrators to ball torture, which Manser acknowledged some people are into and some people are not.

People then formed small groups and engaged in creating a “menu” for sexual activities. The best group won copies of Spread magazine, a publication by and for sex workers.

Wharton junior Katarina Muller came to the event because she “had a relatively free night,” and said, “Pleasure and sex — who isn’t interested in that?” She added, “I also appreciated that they were LGBT and specifically gender queer friendly during their anatomy portion.”

Duncan and College senior and PCUW Chairwoman Meg Hlousek agreed that they found the program successful. “A lot of people came from all over,” Duncan said, with Hlousek adding, “I think it would be great to see sex-positive events created throughout campus.”

Wednesday afternoon, PCUW and co-sponsor Student Health Service will be hosting a screening and discussion of “The Penn Body Project,” which Duncan described as “a video featuring Penn students about self-esteem and body issues.” Hlousek added that the video concerns “both their appreciation and frustrations.”

Thursday night, Love Your Body will feature a movement workshop titled “Voicing Your Body,” co-sponsored by the Greenfield Intercultural Center. Duncan explained, “Using some of the exercises from theater of the oppressed, Fatimah [Muhammad] from the GIC will be facilitating a workshop where we explore our voices through the movement of our bodies.”

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