Students Health Services isn’t the health teacher from “Mean Girls”—it won’t tell new students that if they have sex, they’ll get pregnant and die.

Despite not taking an official “sex-positive” stance on sexual education, however, Washington University still makes sure to provide programming and supplies through SHS to increase sexual safety on campus.

Through programs like “Sex in the Dark,” a sex ed discussion led by residential peer health mentors, and “Bare Mail,” a new program that delivers sexual supplies to residents of the South 40 through campus mail, SHS hopes to ensure that students understand how to engage in safe sex.

Dr. Cheri LeBlanc, director of Student Health and Wellness, told Student Life that the University has designed its education plan to cater to a variety of upbringings across campus.

“The program is designed to appeal to students with a range of educational background and experience on the subject of sex and healthy relationships,” LeBlanc said.

According to a study published by New York University in 2014, usage of sexual protection drops significantly between freshman and sophomore years. The high levels of sexual contact on college campuses has led many schools to take a sex-positive approach in order to spread information, as compared to abstinence-only education.

LeBlanc noted, however, that the University does not have an official stance on sexual education for college students.

“I wouldn’t say our education is sex-positive. It is non-judgmental,” she said. “There is no formal policy regarding our sexual health education. We are neither encouraging nor discouraging sexual activity.”

The University hopes to keep students informed about the importance of protection and consent, and so, according to LeBlanc, events like Sex in the Dark work to incentivize students to stay longer and learn more by giving away free sex toys.

“We aim to educate students with medically accurate sexual health information that they can use when and if they choose to engage in any kind of sexual activity,” LeBlanc said. “We know from many students over the years that encouraging dialogue and promoting resources is appreciated.”

LeBlanc also noted that SHS will continue its “We’ve Got You Covered” partnership with the Student Health Advisory Committee, which provides condoms in the laundry rooms of buildings.

In a similar vein, Bare Mail was unveiled last semester in a pilot phase as a free and discreet delivery service to ensure that students have the supplies they need to engage in safe sex.

The program is backed by the City of St. Louis Department of Health and the Washington University School of Medicine initiatives Project ARK and Supporting Positive Opportunities with Teens (SPOT).

The initiative debuted in the Lee/Beaumont, Park/Mudd and Eliot residential colleges, and Student Health Services hopes to implement the program in all residential colleges within the next year. Options for each delivery include packs of five male or female condoms, five dental dams, lubricant and the “pleasure pack,” which features two flavored, ribbed and glow-in-the-dark condoms each.

Student Health Services also provides free condoms and lubricant in its offices located on the lower level of Dardick House.

The University’s non-explicit stance on sex ed mirrors the vast differences in sexual education that students have received before coming to campus.

Ayesha Harisinghani, a freshman from Lexington, Mass., received a more extensive sexual education than many of her peers but feels that Washington University shifts the emphasis away from knowledge-based education and toward personal accountability.

“I think it’s definitely similar, but I feel that like because you’re younger in high school, the teachers tell you all the bad things about [sex], which is good because they teach you about protection and stuff,” Harisinghani said. “But I feel at Wash. U. it’s moreso, ‘You’re an adult now; you can make responsible decisions.’”

In her health classes in high school, Harisinghani was taught how to use both male and female condoms and also discussed topics such as lubricant and birth control.

“Honestly, our school was very open about it,” Harisinghani said. “You could go to the nurse’s office and pick up a condom or something so I didn’t feel like it was much of a change from here to there.”

Freshman Deborah Rookey from Little Rock, Ark., said the majority of her sexual education came from her grandmother rather than the public school system.

“[My school] gave us these videos on puberty that gave some vague understanding that maybe eventually the penis might enter the vagina, but they didn’t even say the word ‘vagina,’” Rookey said. “They talked about the uterus and how the male might insert sperm into the uterus.”

During high school, Rookey took a health class provided by Brigham Young University. For one section of the final exam, she was asked to check boxes to indicate potential consequences resulting from sexual activities. The options, which listed sexually transmitted diseases and relationship troubles as possible consequences, also listed depression as a side effect of having sex.

Rookey noted that her education revolved solely around heterosexual activities, without discussing pleasure as a natural part of sex.

“Every bit of sexual education that I got was very heteronormative, ‘sex is only for the purpose of reproduction,’ and the word clitoris was never said. I really feel like the culture had a huge part in it. Definitely one of the things we only speak about if we have to,” Rookey said. “My church’s sex-ed class was supposed to be forward-thinking and that they actually taught you about birth control, but they still never said the whole ‘sex is for pleasure’ thing. It was still only for reproductive purposes. Of course, no clitoris.”

When arriving in August, Rookey was surprised by the openness toward sex and sexuality at Washington University, but she found it to be refreshing.

“I was taken aback by how open everyone was about it. I felt like it was definitely a vast improvement over the environment in which I was raised because [of the] lack of knowledge… [I] really I see it as a problem,” she said.