Shane Foley
Connector Assistant Editor

What was long seen as impossible by many a college student, occurred Wednesday night Fox Common; UMass Lowell found a way to make sex ed fun.

Sexapalooza, with the use of a little creativity, a fair amount of good information and a whole lot of free condoms, gave students the opportunity to talk openly about sex, and learn more about how to be safe. They had games, they had trivia, they even had condom placing contests. However, most importantly they had prudent advice for all of the young students there.

The Taco Bell and P.O.D. lines were extremely packed Wednesday night due to the fact that Sexapalooza setup practically took up the entire space in Fox Common, with many scandalous sites to seduce the attendees.

Among these, perhaps the most popular, was a contest in which a contestant can challenge two friends to see who can correctly place a condom the quickest (don’t worry, they used dildos for the races, not real samples).

Aside from that, there was also a sex trivia game and an info booth about different sexually transmitted diseases.

Another very popular site was, in simple terms, an arts and crafts booth where participants may make fortune tellers and letters to secret admirers with construction paper. These compiled all the event had to offer, along with a raffle with sexy prizes, and free condoms and lubricants covering the pool tables.

Sexapalooza offered students the opportunity to experience many different things and learn new facts. Audrey Hernandez, a student who attended the event, said she originally came for the “arts and crafts” activities. Hernandez enjoyed making the fortune teller, and even did the condom placement race. She said, “I never knew that some people are allergic to lubed condoms.”
While some people came for the engaging activities, others came hungry for knowledge, like Kimberly Ferreria, another attendee. She said that she came to learn about sex and because you could win stuff.
Among the things she learned were how to put a condom on. She also learned that, “there are 19,000,000 new STIs every year.”

Included in the fun activities, a representative from health services also attended the event. She got on the microphone and answered frequently asked questions about sex. She detailed many aspects of sexual health that the average 20 something may have never heard before. For instance, she invalidated the myth that you could get herpes from kissing. She also gave good information about getting tested for STDs and when to do so.

Filling up almost the entire Fox Common, Sexapalooza garnered, arguably, one of the biggest audiences of any program at UMass Lowell. Not only was the space filled to capacity, but the supply of free condoms was completely drained by night’s end. Twenty of these students were rewarded with prizes for their attendance through the raffle, which gave away items like dildos and vibrators.

Not everybody won a prize that night, but with the information that was given out, everybody “got lucky.”