'Eco-friendly sex toys:' Public university sponsors workshop

A public university has invited the owner of an “eco-friendly” sex toy shop to teach students about “fetish gear” and a pole dancer to teach students how to talk about what “turns [them] on.”

University of Maryland (UMD) is partnering with The Garden, a sex toy shop in Washington, DC, to host the workshops next Tuesday as part of its sex week, which runs from October 15-18.

The Garden has a “commitment” to “eco-friendly products,” according to its website — and the school has invited the owner to teach students “why it is that you should look more carefully at what you buy” in terms of “lubes, condoms, accessories and fetish gear,” according to the event description.

Another workshop, titled “Asking for It: Finding your Words for Better, Sexier Communication in the Bedroom,” promises to “teach each of us how to talk about what turns us on and feels good,” according to the event description on the college’s health center website.

That workshop’s teacher, Bianca Palmisano, is the executive assistant of The Garden, “self-professed sex geek” and “also a pole-dancer,” according to a biography listed below the event.

All events are sponsored by U of MD, which receives both federal and state tax dollars.  

The Garden offers a whole host of other workshops, including “Different Strokes, Flogging 101,” and “Yes, Sir? Exploring Domination and Submission.”

Neither The Garden nor U of MD responded to requests for comment from Campus Reform in time for publication.

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