Students at University of North Carolina at Asheville will participate in “Sex Signals,” an award-winning sexual assault prevention program, on August 20th.
“Sex Signals” uses an unorthodox, humor-facilitated approach to examining our culture, sex and the core issue of bystander intervention. The program will be presented at 4:00 PM and 6:00 PM in the Humanities Lecture Hall.
In “Sex Signals,” a two-person team of highly-trained educators takes the audience on an interactive, relevant, and often-hilarious exploration of beliefs, behaviors, and gender stereotypes related to dating and sexual interaction. Through several semi-improvisational scenes, the program reaches out to students who have mislabeled coercion as consent with the hope of changing behaviors and encouraging bystander intervention when they encounter potentially violent situations. The program has recently been updated to reflect the very latest research in sexual assault prevention on campus, leaving students with concrete tools to make external change in their day-to-day lives.
“To reduce sexual assault and interpersonal violence on campus, we need a proactive approach that works to change the culture,” said Dr. Gail Stern Co-Owner and Chief Academic Officer of Catharsis Productions. “We bring a profound passion to starting these important conversations and do it in a very unexpected way. Our approach is fully supported by research in education, psychology and cognition and led by trained educators who also happen to be dynamic, charismatic speakers. Laughter and honesty have the power to initiate change. Our programs foster dialogue and introspection while presenting a clear, unambiguous roadmap for future actions and begin a positive transformation.”
Now in its 18th school year, “Sex Signals” has been performed over 3,600 times at colleges and universities of all sizes and has been seen by more than one million students worldwide. Over 80 percent of institutions report that they would definitely have the program return. “Sex Signals” was awarded “Speaker of the Year” from Campus Activities Magazine in 2015 and 2016.