Dreaming of the Sex Talk at CSU Channel Islands

The Multicultural Dream Center at California State University Channel Islands provides support and services to underrepresented students on campus including fostered youth and undocumented students. They host a variety of events throughout the academic year such as celebrations, dialogues, and workshops to get students more involved in diversity and inclusivity discussions.

Say It With A Condom connected with Motoko (Mo) Kitazumi, the Intercultural Services Coordinator in the Multicultural Dream Center to hear more about how they utilized the condoms they purchased from us a few years ago. Mo said that they purchased SIWAC’s traffic light consent condoms, and LGBTQ Pride condoms.

Mo discussed how her campus is not currently having “the sex talk” and the consent condoms were a start to that conversation! The consent condoms specifically were used as giveaways at events, handed out during tabling, and used as general promotion during the campus’ sexual assault awareness week. Mo continued on and mentioned that it sparked a different conversation than what they were expecting- it was brought up that by just handing out condoms, they’re assuming what students might already know.

Students come to college with different levels of sex education based on what their families taught them, what they learned from friends, and what they were officially taught in school. Each family is different, so those conversations aren’t ever going to be the same, and each school district has different policies and expectations of what they’ll be teaching the students. When they finally get to college, everyone’s level of knowledge is different, and the university takes some responsibility of educating the students as well.

The Multicultural Dream Center purchased these condoms as a conversation starter, and that’s exactly what happened! Mo said that conversations were started around whether students even knew how to properly use a condom, if they knew what consent was and how to get it, and other general sex education conversations. This actually helped the Multicultural Dream Center start to plan Sex 101 events specifically relating to different identities and how there are different perspectives and nuances when different identities are involved.

Mo said that the LGBTQ Pride condoms were used for tabling, National Coming Out Day, and their Lavender Cording Celebration. With the condoms they purchased, there were multiple designs, and students began a quest to “collect them all!” Mo said that this was great marketing for their office, as students would come into their office asking for the other condoms they haven’t already collected.

They also recently purchased Custom Condoms as well! Mo mentioned that the design matches their brochures in the office, and is all part of a new marketing campaign to get students to learn more about Intercultural Services.

The Multicultural Dream Center at California State University Channel Islands has taken unique opportunities to start new conversations on their campus, and get students excited about these educational conversations. Check out their office and other initiatives here!