With the changes to UCD SHAG this year, Roisin Nicholson looks at the general attitude towards discussing sex on campus.
Last week saw the return of an event to UCD which is common on most campuses across the country. Sexual Health Awareness and Guidance (SHAG) day and night was reinstated by Welfare Officer Clare O’Connor. It is a return to the style of previous sexual health weeks that UCD has had. Last year it was replaced by Sex Out Loud week which focused on consent.
During her election campaign last year, one of O’Connor’s main points was to bring back SHAG week, stating that there was little difference between each event.
With the recent launch of the campaign #NotAskingForIt, the Students’ Union has made sexual assault and safety one of its key campaigns for the year. While the focus of this campaign and SHAG is different, they have the same basic premise to encourage conversation around safe sexual experiences. If the Union is to truly work for this aim, then they must put the same amount of effort into each campaign.
However with SHAG only held for one day, students are losing a vital opportunity to talk about sex in a frank and honest way. It’s impossible for the Union to organise the same amount of events that would fit in a full week to a single day. Therefore students are seeing less opportunities and resources to discuss sexual health in general. By only having one day for this issue, the discussion around it will be significantly lowered. In the long run, it is students who will suffer the most from this, as less weight is put behind the conversation.
While SHAG is generally seen as an opportunity to bring that discussion to campus, reducing its time span to a single day begs the question, how much value do the SU really put on breaking down that barrier.
The decrease in the amount of time allocated for UCD SHAG follows a pattern so far this year with the mental health event Mind, Body & Soul held for two days, down from three last year.
“With SHAG only held for one day, students are losing a vital opportunity to talk about sex in a frank and honest way.”
One of the key points of UCD SHAG was a coming out workshop with the LGBTQ+ society. Trans rights are a big concern for the society, yet the posters advertising SHAG featured drawings of people with their genitalia prominent. For people who are transitioning or are unsure about how to broach this subject on campus, the advertising for UCD SHAG may not make them comfortable having this conversation.
Even though the posters to promote SHAG could have made some students uncomfortable, there is always the chance that they did not see them. The posters were only posted around campus a few days before the event and previously, the advertising had largely been a number of handwritten signs simply saying “UCD SHAG, 21 October.”
The lack of attention paid to organising SHAG day corresponds with the general lack of concern in Ireland for sexual education. Many students went to religious schools where open sexual education can be against school policy.
Some students do not learn about contraception until fifth year of secondary school and the sex education they receive in school mainly focuses on preventing pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections. The focus is generally on heterosexual sex with little attention paid to homosexuality or other methods of contraception. In some schools, there are accounts of anti-abortion classes or advocates of celibacy addressing students.
“The lack of attention paid to organising SHAG day corresponds with the general lack of concern in Ireland for sexual education.”
These classes are unrealistic and can force students to find out information from other, possibly less reputable sources. A report commissioned by the Department of Education found that students are becoming sexually active at a younger age and they are often receiving information about sexual health from informal and unsupervised sources. The report continued that what students in secondary schools hear may be inadequate to give them full knowledge of sexual experiences.
However, despite this report, the official curriculum in secondary schools is relatively incomplete. At Junior cycle (between the ages of 12 and 15) students learn about puberty and fertility. They do not learn anything about contraception until senior cycles, by which time most students are 17 years old. This corresponds with the legal age of consent in Ireland which is one of the highest in Europe.
The education that most young people receive throughout their school life is sometimes not sufficient to keep up with real world practices. It makes discussion about sex a secret and illicit conversation. By the time most teenagers come to college, this idea could be deeply ingrained. Being in third level is the perfect opportunity to undo some of these underlying attitudes. However, the reduction in importance of SHAG this year suggests that this is not something that is central to current Students’ Union policy. While they have a perfect opportunity to bring an honest discussion about sex to campus, UCD SHAG this year has undermined both the #NotAskingForIt campaign and other previous efforts.
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