The Women’s Center and LGBTQ+ Services, Health Promotion in the Center for Health and Counseling Services and the Office of Violence Prevention are teaming up to provide Ramapo students with the Healthy Love Party (HLP) program. The program offers students services to educate themselves on sexually transmitted infections (STIs), safer sex practices and recognizing red flags in relationships such as verbal coercion.
The program specifically covers topics like barrier methods, consent 101, campus resources and how to reduce your risk of contracting a sexually transmitted infection and/or pregnancy.
The program starts the party by running through the selected topics ranging from methods to resources to reducing the risk of sexually transmitted diseases. Students are asked to bring up any questions that they may have on the topics and are encouraged to learn more. After the talk, students are asked to participate in special activities to showcase what they have learned with various games.
Activities offered in the program include an STI-themed Kahoot game, condom relay races and red flag/green flag, which provide helpful knowledge to students in a fun and relatable way.
For the condom races, students partake in a way to learn how to properly apply a condom. The aim of the races is to reach a wide audience and provide a sense of entertainment while also learning about how to practice safe sex.
In terms of relationship advice, the event hopes to shed light on potential signs that may lead to more issues. A game of red flag/green flag helps students recognize potential signs that could denote questionable relationship behavior. They will hear a behavior or phrase, and then raise either a red flag or green flag whether or not the subject portrays consent and respect.
For example, according to the National Domestic Violence Hotline, some green flags include: respecting each other’s opinions and talking openly about problems while listening to one another, giving each other the freedom to be yourself and be loved for who you are, being honest with each other but able to keep some things private, respecting one another’s need for time and space apart, and talking openly about physical, sexual and reproductive choices together.
Meanwhile, some red flags include: your partner embarrassing you or getting you down, controlling who you see, what you do and where you go, taking your money or refusing to give you money for expenses, preventing you from working or going to school, intimidating you and many more that the program aims to teach about.
In an email interview with The Ramapo News, Director of the Women’s Center and LGBTQ+ Services Alex Woods and Health Educator in the Center for Health and Counseling Services Megan Johnston explained why the HLP program is significant to college students.
“There were 26 million new STIs in the US in 2018 and about half of these infections were in people between the ages of 15 and 24,” they stated. “Additionally, Ramapo’s last campus climate survey revealed that the leading form of sexual violence perpetration was verbal coercion by someone known to the survivor… Ultimately, we hope to help students feel prepared to advocate for themselves, their desires, and their health in sexual encounters.”
Student clubs, organizations and resident assistants are able to schedule a time to participate in the HLP program on the health promotion outreach page or they can email studentwellness@ramapo.edu, ovp@ramapo.edu and women@ramapo.edu.
pbortner@ramapo.edu
Featured photo courtesy of Cottonbro Studio, Pexels
