Stony Brook’s Planned Parenthood Generation Action (PPGA) hosted its first-ever Sex Carnival on Saturday, May 3 from 1:45 p.m. to 4 p.m. at the Staller Steps, hoping to promote sexual education through fun games and prizes.
The event was set up with different tables and areas, each containing a designated carnival game — such as “Junk on the hunk” — a playful spin to pin the tail on the donkey, “Penis ring toss” and “Tug-a-penis.”
One table served drinks, snacks and sweet treats for students to take. Another served as a resource table where PPGA provided Plan B pills, condoms, decorative pencil cases and pins.
Each attendee was given around 10 green tickets to play each game. The winners of each game were given pink tickets, which could be used to get a larger prize. Attendees were free to play any game as many times as they liked without winning tickets.
The prizes included PPGA t-shirts and three different plushies which were penis, ovary and breast shaped.
Alyssa Cornell, the treasurer for PPGA and a junior majoring in psychology, stood at the penis ring toss table. The activity used a plastic penis attached to a headband, which participants wore on their forehead while others attempted to toss rings and land them around the penis. Students could have also chosen Cornell to hold up the penis on the table instead of wearing it.
Cornell explained that events like the Sex Carnival help normalize conversations about sexual education. She shared that her favorite activity was the sperm sack race, a play on the typical potato sack races.
“We try to make sure that everyone here [at Stony Brook] has the resources they need. That’s why we give out the Plan Bs, condoms, lube and all that stuff,” she said. “It helps normalize [sexual education], especially now with everything that’s happening under the current administration.”
Approximately every 30 minutes, a volunteer with PPGA would call for attendees to play games that involved larger groups, such as “Tug-a-penis” and “Sperm sack race.”
The “Tug-a-penis” game was based on tug-of-war, except participants had to rub lubricant on their hand to make their hands slippery, making tugging the rope much more difficult. Each team consisted of four people and members of the winning group would receive pink tickets for a prize.
Pema Gurung, a freshman majoring in biology, shared that she chose to come to the carnival because there are often limited activities available on the weekends.
“I think — especially [on weekends] — there’s not a lot to do, so it was nice to have something to spend [my] Saturday doing,” she said.
Gurung then shared her favorite activity was the tug-of-penis.
“I liked that [the PPGA volunteer] got everyone together and made it a big competition. It was more fun than the little activities,” she added.
Later on in the event, a volunteer called down all attendees to participate in a sperm sack race. There were six potato sacks with sperm designs on them, and the winner of the race would receive five pink tickets.
Fiorela Garcia, the event coordinator for PPGA and a junior majoring in social work, shared that she researched carnival-style events and drew inspiration from Pinterest when planning the event.
“I had seen [many] different carnival ideas, and I thought that it would be cute to make it sex-related or sex-themed,” she said. “I was getting a lot of inspiration from Pinterest, and [I was] trying to figure out how we can relate it to PPGA’s [purpose].”
She shared that PPGA’s goal is to make the carnival an annual event, and she hopes this event can spread awareness of PPGA’s resources to students.
“PPGA focuses on health — [specifically] sexual reproduction health — and ensuring that not just women, but that in general [people are] aware of their rights [and] have access to a lot of resources,” Garcia said. “Creating fun events allows people to be aware that we are on campus and to understand that we are a group that you can come to if you need help.”
Garcia emphasized that PPGA provides a truck for students to get tested for sexually transmitted diseases and infections, along with other resources such as condoms, Plan B pills and lubricant products — all of which were given away at the carnival
“There’s [resources] like that on campus that a lot of people don’t know about,” she said. “We really want to spread [our] voice and be able to cater to the body’s needs.”
