No blurred lines: ‘Sexpert’ teaches consent
Attendees learned about consent and agency’s applications to kinks.
By KEVIN GRAMLING & MAX RUBENSTEIN
There is an important distinction between bondage, discipline, sadism and masochism, commonly referred to as BDSM, and abuse, said Guru Shabd Khalsa during an event called “Yes Please! Pleasure, Power Exchange, and Consensual Kink” Wednesday afternoon.
The Student Assembly for Gender Empowerment, Relationship and Sexual Violence Prevention and Services, and Student Health came together to host the event to educate students on the power of consensual sexual relationships.
Khalsa, a licensed family and marriage therapist and a clinician at the University’s Counseling Services & Crisis Intervention, was the main speaker at the event. She framed the conversation as an opportunity to discuss non-traditional ideas around sex, sexuality and relationships in a healthy and productive way.
“I feel super strongly that healthy, safe, consensual sex is a right and a healthy part of every human being’s life,” Khalsa said. “[I] feel really strongly about you being able to access that without a lot of shame and fear and danger.”
Khalsa began by talking about hookup culture, emphasizing the widespread pressure to engage in casual, sexual relationships. She described hookup culture as lacking meaningful intention and communication. Khalsa encouraged the audience to ignore pressures about what sex should look like and establish their own boundaries of how sex is meaningful to them.
“If you are having negative reactions to stuff that a lot of your peers are doing, it’s okay to sit with that to recognize it and recognize that what works for other people might not work for you and that does not mean that anything is wrong,” Khalsa said.
Khalsa established that the two most important aspects of any sexual relationship are consent — a freely given, reversible, enthusiastic, informed and specific agreement on the actions taking place — and agency, the ability to control an action and its consequences. She challenged the stigma that asking for consent is “unsexy” and ruins the moment by emphasizing that consent makes both parties feel empowered, and there are sexy ways to check in and ensure what happens is consensual.
Mithun Tiruvedula, a graduate studying computer engineering who attended the event, said discussing these topics is important for the college student demographic, especially when coming from a background that sweeps these conversations under the rug.
“I’m from India, and [talking about sex] is a lot more taboo in India than here … And that does lead to a lot of problems later on,” Tiruvedula said. “So what I’ve seen in my relationships is there is no communication when it comes to talking about what I want, what I’m asking for, and that leads to a bridge that needs to be crossed and it’s a lot of effort.”
Alexia Sambrano, a violence prevention educator at Relationship & Sexual Violence Prevention and Services, helped organize the talk. (Jordan Renville / Daily Trojan)
But sex education isn’t just important for people coming from different cultures; Molly Holsinger, a junior majoring in sociology and political science and the director of SAGE’s Body Love Month initiative, explained that events like these can be for anyone. That being said, she emphasizes that sex week’s focus on queer sex ed is what makes it especially pertinent.
“I do think that it’s really awesome and important that sex week does focus on queer sex ed because I think that’s something that a lot of people don’t get when they’re growing up,” Holsinger said, “and an opportunity for people to ask questions they might not feel comfortable asking another at other times or parts of their life.”
In the second half of her talk, Khalsa applied these ideas about consent and agency to kink and non-traditional relationships. She discussed that these types of interactions often make boundaries more explicit than conventional or mainstream sex, which can be extremely helpful for individuals with histories of trauma, neurodivergent individuals or others who struggle with sexual vulnerability.
She also said certain kinks like consensual nonconsent, where a partner deliberately says no when they mean yes, can require an extra layer of conversation to ensure all parties are very clear on their boundaries.
Khalsa ended the talk by explaining the importance of aftercare as an opportunity to check in and reestablish boundaries within relationships. She said repetitive meaningful relationships offer much more of an opportunity to learn and grow than one time hook-ups.
“The experience of being vulnerable, the experience of being really expressive [and] overt, will probably activate some stuff in you, and that’s good, that’s fine, but it is really hard to navigate that all by yourself if you can’t then check in with your partner,” Khalsa said.
Tiruvedula emphasized that college students curious about these topics shouldn’t have to feel alone. Despite what they may think, plenty of students are also curious and open to learning more.
“Forums like these give an opportunity for you to meet other people that have similar thoughts, and you don’t feel alone anymore,” Tiruvedula said. “I feel like that is something that we need to encourage.”
