“Sex in the Dark” Is Coming to Pitt-Greensburg

So you may have seen posters around campus advertising for an event called “Sex In The Dark” to be held by the Gender and Sexuality Alliance (GSA) on Monday, Oct. 9 at 7 p.m. in Ferguson Theater. Rachel O’Niel, GSA President, offers some clarifying words:

“I’ve had people ask if you get to have sex in the dark,” O’Niel says. “You do not. Please wait until after the event.”

Students will instead be met with darkness, glowsticks, and speakers from Sex Discussed Here!–a comedy sex-ed group geared towards college students. 

Aside from “Sex in the Dark,” Pitt-Greensburg has now hosted all of the programs Sex Discussed Here! offers, including “I ❤ Female Orgasm” held in the spring semester last year. 

This year’s event provides a completely anonymous Q&A in addition to the informational set and will offer a raffle and paid merch, including glow-in-in-the-dark shirts.

“If you’re afraid of being put on the spot, the hosts go out of their way to avoid that. Questions are submitted online,” O’Niel says.

“Sex in the Dark” was featured on campus once before, on Zoom rather than in person. Sydney Spino, GSA vice president, provides insight as to why GSA brings events like these to campus.

“Everyone comes into college with varying degrees of sex-ed knowledge, and queer sex-ed knowledge is essentially nonexistent. It’s not something you learn in high school,” Spino says.

O’Niel, who attended South Park High School, says she did not have any sex-ed in high school. Alternately, Spino says that they received abstinence-based biology lessons from Hempfield High School.

“They showed us a live childbirth in 10th grade,” Spino says. “But not anything about sex.”

If your experience is akin to that of O’Niel’s or Spino’s, “Sex in the Dark” may provide an educational opportunity encompassing the why and how of sex, consent, and pleasure across gender and sexuality.

If earlier reviews from the Sex Discussed Here! Website are any indication, Pitt-Greensburg students are in for a titillating time. As Whitney Warren of the Rhodes College Women’s Center says, “I have never seen our auditorium so full.” And Anna Bogdanova, a student from Bentley College, says, “This program was hilarious. Literally no question was off limits.” 

O’Niel expects the turnout at Pitt-Greensburg to be large and happy. 

“This group brings a comedy that makes the topics more comfortable for people, especially college students, to talk about,” O’Niel says. “It’s a really comfortable environment from the get-go.”

Students can RSVP to “Sex in the Dark” via Engage, but attendance is open without signup.