From nipple clamps and rabbit vibrators to “vagina hacks,” like inserting garlic cloves into the vagina to combat yeast infections, Laci Green’s vlogs have been watched over 100 million times on YouTube, and now the internet sensation is taking the show on the road.
Through her Sex Plus vlogs, a partnership with Planned Parenthood and as the host of Braless, MTV’s first original YouTube channel, Green has amassed a social media following and a devout fandom she lovingly calls “Babes.”
Green started vlogging in response to what she believes is a “nationwide failure of providing comprehensive sex education and to adopt healthy, realistic attitudes about sexuality,” her website states.
Now Green is bringing her Talking Down Rape Culture program to USI at 7 p.m. Tuesday in Carter Hall.
Junior social work major Danesha Shelton and senior psychology major Whitney Anderson said they found one of Green’s videos through Upworthy’s Facebook page – “a popular social just page,” Anderson said.
“One day in July we were just looking at her videos and we kind of looked at each other and said, “It would be really cool if she would come to our campus,” she said.
The videos led them to her official website, and that’s where Shelton saw it: a button that read “Bring Laci to your school.”
The “random idea” that started as a fun “What If?” scenario ended with Shelton filling out a contact information box on Green’s website.
“We weren’t really expecting anything,” Anderson said.
Roughly two weeks later, Shelton got a reply.
“It’s kind of complicated because she was in the process of changing from a manager to signing with an agency,” Anderson said. “But one thing led to another and we kind of just ran with it.”
Shelton and Anderson asked Tara Frank, assistant dean of students, if she would be their adviser on the project.
Now is the perfect time for Green’s visit, the girls said.
When they got the response in early August from Green’s team, Shelton said she knew the program was going to take place during the spring semester given the time it would take to work out the details of Green’s visit.
“We were like, ‘Why not April for Sexual Assault Awareness Month?’” she said.
Piggy-backing off the annual Walk a Mile event was also a way of bringing more attention to the month, Anderson said.
“It’s something that’s hardly ever talked about,” she said. “Throughout my four years here and (Shelton’s) three years, we hardly ever had the talk of rape culture on campus outside of when it comes up in classes.”
Rape culture is a relatively new term, Shelton said.
“It encompasses everything that goes on around us, like the cat calling, the girls in videos, the language that we use and the victim blaming,” she said. “Why not now? USI is a relatively conservative campus, so we wanted to be able to educate our peers on something that is happening all around us.”
Because rape culture affects everyone, organizers of Green’s visit opened the program to the public.
“I don’t think this is a topic that can just be pigeonholed to college,” Shelton said. “Anybody who wants to hear this, needs to hear this, can hear this.”
Carter Hall seats 500 people. Organizers have a back up room reserved if the Hall meets capacity.
“Even though our campus is kind of reserved and conservative, I’ve still been hearing a lot of buzz within different areas and organizations,” Shelton said. “We just want people to hear this talk. We want people to be educated on this.”
Green, Anderson said, is the perfect person to educate the students on campus.
“She’s educated, relatable because she’s only 25, hip and she educates in a non-threatening way,” she said.
She said she believes students on campus want to talk about the issue on a grand scale, it’s just that they don’t know how.
“It is a tough conversation to have, let alone get started,” she said. “(Green) can be that force that gets the conversation started.”
Organizers said Green’s program will be a conversation, not a lecture.
“It can be somebody’s helping hand,” Shelton said. “You can learn how to not be a bystander. Learn how to be proactive in talking down this culture instead of trying to normalize it where sexual assault is inevitable, because it’s not. Be educated. Help yourself. Inform your friends.”
But the program isn’t just directed at women.
“A lot of guys don’t want to be involved in this because they feel like they’re the target, like they’re the ones being blamed for this. They’re not,” Shelton said. “We want their involvement just as much because this can affect them just as much.”
One in four women and one in eight men will be affected by sexual assault in some shape or form in college alone, Anderson said.
“It’s not a like a man thing or a woman thing,” she said. “It’s an everybody thing.”
The program is sponsored by the Dean of Students Office, Student Government Association, Office of the Provost, Housing and Residence Life, the Counseling Center, the Recreation, Fitness and Wellness Center, Student Development, National Residence Hall Honorary and the Albion Fellows Bacon Center.