NEWS + OPINION
Are taxpayers footing part of the bill for GVSU’s kinky Sex Ed Week?
Published April 18, 2023
Written by Henry
Photography by Simply American
[Contains explicit content]
Sending your kids off to college is such an exciting, yet terrifying time. As parents, you do the best you can to create a solid foundation for your kids to stand on. You expect them to do and see things that they may not be prepared for.
But did you expect those things to be brought to your students via the local health department in the form of a kinky Sex Ed Week?
Did you prepare your kids to go from “pajama day” in elementary to “stop by the sex toy booth” when you leave the presentation on “what to call trans private parts?”
Higher Education
On February 6, 2023, Grand Valley State University (GVSU) kicked off the 2nd Annual Sex Ed Week. The line-up of events would make your grandma blush. GVSU, in collaboration with the Ottawa County Health Department, took it upon itself to educate “people with penises” and “vulva-owners” about the complexities of sex. If you can’t find what you’re looking for at the “Kinky Karaoke & Condom Cupcakes” event, maybe the presentation “What Is Sex?” would be a better fit.
Students who thought they would get some good answers on “what is sex” soon discovered that they may have signed up for something they hadn’t quite anticipated. Attendees learned about “polyamory” (multiple sex relationships), bondage and discipline, domination, submission, sadism, and masochism. And if that didn’t satisfy their curiosity, they also learned about lube, kinks, and “crush fetishes,” which involve “being stomped.”
A quick glance at GVSU’s website on Monday, February 6, 2023, and you would have seen the Ottawa County Health Department proudly listed as a “partner” to this event. But had you gone back to the same website on Wednesday, February 8, 2023, you would have found no mention of the Health Department. And that is where the backtracking began.
Were They Or Weren’t They
Ottawa County Department of Public Health (OCDPH) Communications Specialist Alison Clark said in a statement published by MLive on February 9, 2023, that her department’s involvement in the event was limited to sexually transmitted infection testing and “the provision of condoms for young adults on a voluntary basis.”
“OCDPH requested that GVSU remove the department’s logo because it gave the appearance that the department is a sponsor of this event, and it is not,” she said. “OCDPH did not contribute any funding for this event.”
Compare those comments with what was stated in the Grand Valley Lanthorn from February 13, 2023. “The event was sponsored by GVSU Recreation and Wellness (RecWell), the Center for Women and Gender Equity (CWGE) and the Ottawa County Health Department.” A lot of mixed messaging has occurred around this event.
Hop, Skip, And A Jump To The Sex Toy Booth
At the event called “Sex Ed Resource Fair,” the Ottawa County Health Department had two county employees manning a table just a table down from the sex toy booth. Visitors to the fair could peruse table after table filled with internal condoms, external condoms, lube, dental dams, and sex toys. Students could collect stamps at each booth to turn in and possibly win a raffle prize at the end.
Throughout the week, students learned how to increase clitoral literacy, how to have anal sex, what songs people masturbate to, that higher education is linked to more frequent masturbation, and so much more.
At the end of the week, Ottawa County Health Department’s very own Heather Alberda participated in “Are you smarter than a sex educator?” Alberda is the Sexuality Educator for the Ottawa County Health Department. She was involved with GVSU Sex Ed Week both last year and this year.
Second Time Around
In February 2022, GVSU held its first ever Sex Ed Week. The event was a joint collaboration between the Recreation and Wellness department, the Center for Women and Gender Equity, and the Ottawa County Health Department. 181 students participated. The February 14, 2022’s edition of the Grand Valley Lanthorn stated, “In the future, the planning committee wants to do more to advertise in as many areas as possible and to incorporate more student organizations.”
The 2022 Lanthorn article included the OCDPH Sexuality Educator Heather Alberta saying, “We want to collaborate with more of the professors that came through. We want to do a better job of reaching some of those majors and minors that would benefit from this and reaching out to Greek life and having them encourage their people to come.”
A recent article drop from The MidWesterner grabbed the attention of the citizens of Ottawa County and the Board of Commissioners when it questioned the Health Department’s involvement in Sex Ed Week. The Health Department then scrubbed its name from the event, claiming it was ONLY involved for the purpose of providing STD testing and distributing condoms.
But the Health Department’s involvement in 2022 told an entirely different story. Not only did the department help collaborate the event, but it also wanted to make sure more was done. Nowhere in last year’s Lanthorn article did Ms. Alberta state anything about STD testing.
This isn’t the first time the Ottawa County Health Department has been caught over-stepping, what should be, its bounds. Last spring the Health Department website was actively promoting links to progressive activist websites. It seems it may now be a habit for our Health Department to do as it pleases and scrub the evidence once caught.
Getting Back To Basics
It is time for the Ottawa County Health Department to get back to the basics and stay away from political activism. After many constituents contacted the Board of Commissioners over the county’s involvement in Sex Ed Week, Chairman Joe Moss addressed the issue on Justin Barclay’s show, February 9, 2023. Mr. Barclay asked Chairman Moss his reaction to “what looks like taxpayer dollars being allocated to this event.”
“What we do, we’re accountable to our taxpayers,” Moss replied. “And from what I’m hearing, they’re not happy.”
“I think there needs to be accountability where it needs to be, critical thought when making decisions on what kind of events people decide to participate in or sponsor or support,” he continued.
Thankfully, Ottawa County has leaders on the Board of Commissioners who have demonstrated they are willing to course correct where needed and prioritize accountability. The Board of Commissioners oversees the health department. Course correcting is supported by the Ottawa County Republican Party, which released a statement against the Health Department’s involvement in kinky Sex Ed Week.
Ottawa County should return their focus to things government should be involved in. And that is not the bedroom.
The opinions expressed within this article are the author’s and do not necessarily reflect the positions and beliefs of Simply American or its affiliates.
