Bored bathroom-goers blitzed with safer sex information

"I am targeting the community of people who are sexually active, but may be too embarrassed to walk into the health center to get information," said Jason Wang, a higher education graduate student who began the project when he was a Student Union intern last semester.

"There is a time and a place for sex education, but I fear that many on this campus can be ignorant," he said.

The brochures, which explain the different methods of sexual contact and the advantages to using condoms, have been put in 13 of the Student Union's 14 public bathrooms.

The holders were installed a few weeks before spring break.

"Bathrooms are highly frequented by students and staff so it is a great place to put them (the brochures)," Wang said.

Dan Adams, director of Student Union business affairs, said he was pleased with the way the project was handled.

"I did not want to put up tacky, inappropriate pamphlets, but I think this was tastefully done," he said.

Adams said that Wang, who presented his idea to the Student Union administration last semester, was told that the brochures must be "quality" and informational.

"Many students are sexually active, and I support information that deals with their daily lives," Adams said.

Wang said that Planned Parenthood donated the plastic holders and 1,000 pamphlets at a total cost of $320.

"Planned Parenthood supports and provides accurate information for all people," said Patti Caldwell, Planned Parenthood's director of communications. "We thought Jason's approach - using sites frequented by students - made a lot of sense."

She said it is common for Planned Parenthood to join with organizations and make donations.

Wang also said that the University of Arizona's Student Health Promotions helped him gather information and decide which pamphlets were best to use.

He said students may be embarrassed to seek information about sex on their own because the UA is a conservative campus.

Wang said the UA is conservative compared to California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo, where he did his undergraduate work and where he saw a similar project in that school's student union.

"The administration here is more conservative on many different levels," Wang said. "Everything here is more 'hush-hush.'"

Wang said he fears conservative groups at the UA will show their disagreement with the safer sex brochures by tearing down the brochure holders, but that "there are better ways to express dissension."

Brochures were not placed in the men's restroom closest to Sam's Place because of the fear the holders would be vandalized, he said.

"Not everyone agrees with sex education," Wang said. "I expected resistance, but it is frustrating when people take handfuls of pamphlets and throw them in the garbage."

Laura Kizelevicus, a history junior, said that although the bathroom is a good place to display the information, it is not necessarily an appropriate place.

"People who use the bathrooms are washing their hands and doing other things," she said. "But I do not think that people today are offended because sex is such a big issue."