Sex Salon talk at the Bishop Bar

It began with a poem.

Debby Herbenick, co-director of the Center for Sexual Health Promotion at IU’s School of Public Health, read “Ode to an Oosik,” a poem celebrating the ever-rigid and lengthy penis of a male walrus.

The poem was the ice breaker to an open discussion at the Bishop Bar Sunday surrounding the topic of sexually explicit media and its effects on viewers.
Presented by the IU Center for Sexual Health Promotion, Sunday night’s lecture was part of lectures titled Bloomington Sex Salon.

The idea behind the monthly series was to create a conversation about various sexual education issues and sexual advocacy research, Herbenick said.
“We wanted to find a way to communicate sexual information to the public and deliver others’ research to the community,” she said. “We’ll have one (lecture) every month for as long as people are interested in coming.”

The lecture featured Bryant Paul, associate professor in the IU Department of Telecommunications. He presented his findings on the effects of sexually explicit media on society and overall perception of sex on viewers.

Paul’s research in the area of sexually explicit media included any form from online pornography to strip club performances to sexually explicit images featured in print media. Paul said his research began because of his teenage self, described as a “child of the AIDS crisis,” realizing his own sexual awakening during the mid-’80s, a time when HIV and AIDS cases were most prevalent in the U.S.

The main problem Paul uncovered during research as a graduate and Ph.D. student was most people thought pornography was harmful to the human psyche.
“When I’m asked, ‘is porn harmful?’ people want a yes or no answer,” he said. “What I believe is that most content for most people can be harmful, but for most people most content has the opposite effect. There’s no real answer to that question.”

Paul said he participated in the lecture series because he wants the community to better understand the research and information surrounding sexual education, advocacy and research.

Herbenick said she chose Paul to kick off the series because he has the ability to engage an audience while communicating statistical data in a very accessible way.
“There is this quest for more information,” Paul said. “The biggest hurdle we have with sex in society is people’s unwillingness to talk about it. But it’s also a great thing that we can talk about it.”

The Bloomington Sex Salon will take place monthly, Herbenick said. The not-for-profit, volunteer-run series will include lecturers from IU’s faculty and special guest speakers, as well.