Vanderbilt is hosting a sex workshop right after a guilty rape verdict. Is that a good choice?

Adam Tamburin from The Tennessean reports.

Vanderbilt to have sex workshop week after verdict

Students at Vanderbilt University are using provocative words and imagery to encourage their peers to talk about sex on campus.

The students, who are working as peer sex educators in the Vandy SexEd program, are sponsoring a workshop next week called “How to be Brilliant in Bed.” Posters advertising the event show a woman wielding a large ruler and promise “a crash course in sexy sex ed” that is “great for everyone from sexual novices to full-blown sexperts.”

But Molly Corn, a Vanderbilt senior and peer sex educator who is helping to plan the event, said the racy poster is meant to draw students into a discussion on hooking up, consent and alcohol. Corn hopes talking about sex will make her peers “comfortable with making their own decisions as they see fit.”

Corn, who also is a member of the student newspaper staff and an on-campus feminist group, said the students had no idea the event would fall a week after the guilty verdicts in a high-profile rape case against two former Commodore football players.

Students began planning for the event in November. It was initially scheduled for March but was moved to Feb. 3 because it conflicted with another event, according to a statement from Pat Helland, associate dean in the Office of the Dean of Students.

In her statement, Helland said the focus of the event is “to help students make healthy and safe choices about sexuality.”

Although she has been closely following the case of the June 2013 on-campus rape involving four former football players, Corn said she didn’t initially consider the event’s proximity to the verdicts for Cory Batey and Brandon Vandenburg, which came late Tuesday afternoon.

“We generally do not think of sex and rape in the same category at all,” she said. “We’re going to have to figure out how to best explain this.”