Student Life

About Yes Means Yes

Yes Means Yes is a positive sexuality discussion seminar developed from a 2009 graduate’s senior thesis focusing on a sex-positive culture and the prevention of sexual assault. It is a non-credit seminar that consists of five 1.5-hour weekly sessions addressing issues of healthy relationships, positive sexuality, sexual attitudes, and decision-making skills. About 30 students and 2-3 faculty/staff facilitators meet over dinner for discussion, activities and presentations. Each week has a different theme based on a chapter from the book Yes Means Yes! Visions of Female Sexual Power and a World Without Rape (Friedman & Valenti, 2008).

For more information about YMY, contact Dawn LaFrance by email or by phone at (315) 228-7385.

Yes Means Yes!: Visions of Female Sexual Power and A World Without Rape

Co-edited by Jaclyn Freidman and Jessica Valenti, Yes Means Yes! is a compilation of essays on sexuality and sexual culture. The basis for Colgate’s Yes Means Yes! seminar series, this book argues how the "no means no" concept (sexual consent equals the absence of no) should be replaced by a "yes means yes" mentality: the idea that consent is when partners affirmatively participate in a sexual act with each other. Other topics include: public perception of sex, queer issues, body image and self-esteem, incest and more.

Guide To Getting It On

Written by Dr. Paul Joannides, the Guide To Getting It On covers any and every sex topic in an informative, frank and hilarious manner. It has received high praise all around, from Rolling Stone to the Oprah Magazine to Playboy and Cosmo. The Guide was named the 2009 Book of the Year by the American Association of Sex Educators, Counselors and Therapists.