Wharton students use group method in sexual education

The condoms have arrived. After months of eager anticipation fueled by signs proclaiming, "The condoms are coming," the contraceptives finally appeared in full force yesterday, as part of a Wharton Management 100 project designed to foster "openmindedness on safe sex and sexuality." The Management group -- which calls itself Wharton Students Educating Generation X, or Wharton SEX -- sponsored a workshop on safe sex and homosexuality in conjunction with SafeGuards, a gay men's health program in Philadelphia. At the talk, students distributed condoms -- in different flavors, no less -- as they have done all week on Locust Walk. Wharton freshman Chianoo Schneider, one of the group's members, said the University community needs a more open attitude about sexuality. She noted that after the group hung strings of condoms up and down Locust Walk Tuesday, University officials ordered that they be removed. Safeguards Project Coordinator Chris Bartlett said that he wanted "to set up an atmosphere tonight where people can say what they want about gay people or about heterosexual people? without being harassed." Bartlett, who is openly gay, noted that he always knew he was attracted to men. He recalled an incident when he was a toddler and his mother pointed out a cute girl at a pool, saying that someday he would marry someone like that. "I looked at the lifeguard and knew that that was who I was interested in," he said. Bartlett added, however, that while he may have been born a homosexual, he chose to be gay. "I could have just been a man who had sex with other men," he said. Being gay, he explained, is a lifestyle decision, while being a homosexual is something one cannot help. Later in the workshop, Bartlett provided the event's highlight by showing how to put a condom on your partner with your mouth. Bartlett then put a condom over his entire fist and then over his head to illustrate that "no matter what he says, no one's penis is that big." During the event, each student in the room wrote down one positive and one negative thing that came to their mind about gays. One student wrote that a negative aspect was the fear of having a gay friend hitting on you. Bartlett stressed the importance of communication in such a situation, saying that having gay friends is a wonderful opportunity to learn about a different culture. "It's really being confident in your masculinity and your own sexuality to be friends with a gay man," he said. Positive aspects students wrote about included several stereotypical gay traits, including sensitivity, kindness and good sense of fashion. Bartlett said that while some of these traits are true in some cases, they are no more correct than the belief that gay men are sex-crazed pedophiles. Following the discussion of homosexuality, Bartlett discussed different types of contraceptive devices and tips for having safer sex, including his two demonstrations.

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