Our world has a major fascination with sex. It invades our media and our psychology, and today, it's taking over The Spectrum. Sex is a large part of our generation, and an even larger part of our society.
As of Fall 2011, students at UB will have a chance to take a class that will be focused on sex with the introduction of COM 492: Sexual Communication.
This course is the precursor to a book written by the late Dale Brashers, head of the department of communication at the University of Illinois, and Lance Rintamaki, assistant professor in the department of communication at UB. Rintamaki states that COM 492 is aimed to "address a lot of the myths that exist around [sexual communication]."
Rintamaki and a team of undergraduate research assistants scoured through over 16,000 articles on sex and communication, which created the basis for the course. These articles ranged from online publications, which Rintamaki describes as the "sexual Wild West," to how people act in sexual encounters.
This class was first taught in Spring 2010 at the University of Illinois to a group of 500 undergraduates. When Brashers passed away in July 2010, Liz Karras, a Ph.D. student at the University of Illinois, then taught the course.
"The course filled up within the first three days it was offered," Rintamaki said. "By the fourth week, 800 to 900 people would show up [to hear the lectures]. It turned into the most popular course on campus."
COM 492 is open to all majors and has no prerequisite courses. Rintamaki requested for the class to be offered this way, as it is "not a topic of interest just to communication majors."
The course focuses on three groups of sexual communication, which are factors that affect sexual attitude; belief and behavior; sexual communication itself; and related special topics, such as sex and illness, according to Rintamaki.
"[COM 492] is not How to Pick Up Chicks 101. It is a class on the science of sexual communication and behavior," Rintamaki said.
This course comes in part of a movement across college campuses to introduce classes that are relevant to the changing student body. Rintamaki encourages students to sign up for the class early, as he hopes it will be as big of a success as when it was introduced at the University at Illinois, if not bigger.
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Photo: Courtesy of Laron Fomby
