PSYC 17
"Cultural Cliteracy": Introduction to Transformative Sexuality Education Winter 2019

This is not the current course catalog

This course will introduce students to transformative sexuality education. Transformative sexuality education assumes students will experience major shifts in their sexual knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors. Undergraduates commonly report inadequate sex education in high school, concern that students are sexually harassed, assaulted, or raped during their four years in residence and that little opportunity exists on campus for students to talk with each other candidly about sexual issues. The course is designed to improve the sexual culture on the Williams College campus by expanding knowledge, fostering skills, and providing opportunities for intergroup dialogue. Students will explore topics such as communication and sexual communication, gender diversity, enthusiastic consent, pleasure in and out of committed relationships, hookup culture, models of sexual functioning, BDSM/kink culture, and sexual identity. Topics will be examined through an intersectional lens. A variety of methods will help engage students with course material. Lectures by the instructors, large and small group discussions, role-plays, practice of empathy, intimacy, interviewing skills, reading literary fiction, DVD screenings, anonymous class surveys, and taking sexual histories promote students’ learning. Sexually explicit material is used in this course, following trauma-informed practices and guidelines specifying best pedagogical practices. Each class session is designed to create activities that will lead students to achieve at least three learning objectives. Evaluation will be based on submission of a journal entry related to each class session and a journal entry related to a reading/movie due each class session. Students will submit a final paper and creative project. Attendance and participation are crucial to successful completion of this course.