On Monday, The Indiana Commons broke the story that Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis planned to invite a “local expert” with disturbing online activity, including writing child rape erotica, to promote BDSM to students.
The event was purposefully vague and the IUPUI Office of Health and Wellness Promotion withheld any information about the presenter until we pressured them. It is telling that a day after we published that information, the IUPUI Office of Health and Wellness canceled the workshop.
Perhaps they realized how irresponsible the event was, or that an “introduction to bondage” event wouldn’t bode well considering IUPUI’s history of failing to take steps to protect students, some of whom are our friends, from sexual abuse. To put it in perspective, a 2019 survey of over 2,000 students revealed that 51% think that sexual misconduct on campus is a problem.
Or, perhaps they do not care, and were mainly worried about bad publicity a week before IU-Indianapolis is set to get its inaugural chancellor. Indiana University has been doing events like this for years, and only occasionally do they get enough publicity for the university to be held accountable.
This time, they got it. @libsoftiktok, Campus Reform, the New York Post, the Daily Mail UK, Breitbart, WIBC, and others shared pretty damning details from our article.
BDSM is not healthy or safe.
For years, the IUPUI Office of Health and Wellness Promotion has offered free birth control and other sex items and the Indiana University Student Government has budgeted $42,000, mostly from student mandatory fees, for such expenses, and now they claim they must teach BDSM since students “are already doing it,” despite their clear intention to promote BDSM to newcomers in this “introductory” workshop.
BDSM, while claiming to be “consensual” is teaching students how to tie, bind, and do anything that restricts movement. The similarity to sexual assault is unmistakable. In no way is this facilitating a safer environment.
“BDSM is inherently about power play, and it is inherently oppressive. There’s no safe way to roleplay dominating relationships that involve tying your partner up,” said one former BDSM practitioner we spoke to. “This seminar would have put women in danger of both physical and mental abuse.”
Clearly, IUPUI should not be promoting types of domineering sexual activity that have the potential to put women, or men, in danger of both physical and emotional abuse.
Especially so when the person they invited to teach this BDSM workshop has taken such a trivial view of rape.
Dr. Debby Herbenick, sex researcher at the controversial Kinsey Institute, is quoted in an IndyStar article about the event as saying that “teaching young people to safely try sexual acts they see on TV or on social media is critical.”
Dr. Herbenick’s own statements and research, however, acknowledges that pornography consumption is associated with BDSM participation and that pornography does not match up with reality or healthy sexual relationships. It is confusing why she would then advocate for students to copy what they see online instead of teaching students to model what a healthy relationship looks like.
IUPUI needs to take responsibility for their actions.
Over 80% of the IUPUI Office of Health and Wellness budget comes from student fees. That should not be spent to satisfy the sexual tastes of university employees.
This concern may make more sense upon reviewing the assistant director’s X account, which is a constant stream of lewd retweets, including photos of himself in his underwear and graphic photos of other adults, and who admitted he would be assisting individuals as they work to tie themselves or others up at this event.
The fact that there is so little oversight that this employee could invite a guest to campus, likely knowing full well the disturbing things that she writes about online, and presumably without even knowing or sharing her name or doing a background check, is disturbing. This individual, and the woman he has called a “local expert,” are clearly unqualified to be teaching about sexual health.
The class was canceled, but more accountability is needed.
The class has been canceled, but it will be back in a few years if something drastic does not change. Canceling is only the first step that IUPUI must take in order to fix their mistakes, and we hope that our new chancellor will take this into account.
First, any employees directly involved in this event should be fired. Their decisions relating to student health and safety are irresponsible and they cannot be trusted to teach about sexual health. We wish this were enough, or that blame could simply be laid at the feet of lone employees.
Second, the IUPUI Office of Health and Wellness must make a public apology to students and parents for failing to take steps to ensure students are safe and failing to be transparent about the guest invited to campus. They should commit to transparency in the future.
Finally, other university-sponsored events revolving around sexual education on campus should be closely scrutinized by IUPUI leadership and safeguards should be put in place. Any off-campus guests involved should have legitimate educational credentials and be subject to background checks.
If there are to be events about sexual health, especially ones utilizing student fees, they should not present such an ideologically slanted view of what it constitutes, as is being done during “sex week.”
Rather, they should take an approach centered around human dignity and respect.
Not promoting sadomasochism is such a low standard, it is shocking that it even needs to be addressed.