Panel questions popular ideas on sex

Multicultural forum analyzes media, models, celebrities

Damon Clevenger stood before a group of more than 150 students in Park Hall's Multicultural Center and asked them to draw on a piece of paper what they thought was sexy.

Some members of the audience drew objects, some drew people and others wrote down words. Very few people had the same definition.

The exercise was part of the forum "Culture of Sex" presented by the Multicultural Advisers of housing and residence life Monday.

The forum's purpose was to engage Ball State University students in an open conversation about cultural and media influences on sexual behavior and gender roles, Clevenger, a junior music education major and one of the organizers of the event said.

"Where do we get our notion of what sexy is?" Travis Schilla, a senior sociology and religious studies major and one of the multicultural advisers asked the audience. "Some of this notion comes from the media."

A slideshow was presented to show the different sexual stereotypes of different races portrayed by the media, using celebrities and models as examples.

Blacks were portrayed as hypersexual and aggressive, Asians were portrayed as petite and submissive, Hispanics were portrayed as hypersexual and exotic and Caucasians were portrayed as sexually oppressive.

After the slideshow ended, a panel of different races of both genders was assembled to answer questions from the audience. The panel reflected on the unrealistic body types that the media sets as the standard for sexy, how their families handled discussing sex, how body image affected their relationships and the double standard that exists between what the media tells the public about sex and what different cultures say on the matter.

The fact that society and the media are sending two different messages about sex is confusing a lot of people, Clevenger said.

"The media shows us this unrealistic figure and tells us that is what you need to look like to be sexy," Clevenger said. "The media does not want people to be comfortable with who they are."