Feminist Majority Alliance hosted Condom Carnival Wednesday in the Recreation, Fitness and Wellness Center. The event was originally planned to be hosted on The Quad, but due to weather conditions, it was moved to the RFWC.

Condom Carnival included a mechanical bull ride, temporary tattoos and booths from campus organizations such as the Student Government Association, RFWC and Health Professions Center. The carnival also included free popcorn, stickers, condoms, pregnancy tests and sexual education pamphlets.

Katelyn Runyan, president of Feminist Majority Alliance, said Condom Carnival was a sexual-education event.

“I feel like it’s not talked about enough on campus, and I feel that it needs to be educated more with other topics, like Sexual Assault Awareness Month,” Runyan said.

Runyan said the event was funded through grants. She said Condom Carnival has been discussed for three years.

Runyan said she hopes attendees learned more about sexual education.

“I hope people get a better grasp on what sexual education is and all the resources that are provided, and the resources that are available on campus,” Runyan said.

Catherine Champagne, assistant program director for Student Wellness, said she attended Condom Carnival to represent the RWFC. 

“I was invited to attend Condom Carnival by Feminist Majority Alliance and thought this would be a really good opportunity just to share with students information about sexual health and some of the resources that we have on campus,” Champagne said.

Champagne said she hopes anyone who attended the event learned something new. 

“Sexual health is one of the things that people don’t talk a lot about,” Champagne said. “Just being here and seeing how open everyone is, I think is gonna really help everyone learn and hopefully just take away something.”

Champagne said college students do not talk much about sexual health.

“I think, just in our culture, it’s not something that we spend a lot of time talking about, and so I think when students get to college, sometimes it’s almost the first time that they have an opportunity to talk about it,” Champagne said. “I’m so glad that we can provide that space.”

Lori Reynolds-Thomas, LPN lead for the University Health Center, and Haley Wade, practice manager for the University Health Center, presented a booth at Condom Carnival.

“We’re from the Health Center, and we are always preaching safe sex, trying to get people to understand what to do, what not to do,” Reynolds-Thomas said. “Any chance we can get out and teach them, that’s what we’re doing.”

At their booth, Reynolds-Thomas and Wade had a game consisting of true or false questions for attendees to answer, female condoms, dental dams and male condoms of different sizes and colors. The booth also had a display featuring a variety of male condoms to show attendees that condoms fit all males. 

“It shows that during any color, any size, can’t any guy tell me it does not fit,” Reynolds-Thomas said. “I know it will go over my arm.”

Reynolds-Thomas said she hopes attendees took condoms during the event because “they need to use the condoms.”

Wade said many college students think they only need to use birth control to prevent pregnancies and STDs, but that is not the case.

“I think a lot of college-age students feel that birth control and stuff will do enough to prevent STDs, and we also see quite a bit of that, Evansville particularly has a high rate of STDs,” Wade said. “I just think there’s a stigma that if they’re on birth control and things, they don’t need to use a condom, but they do so much more.”

Students who attended Condom Carnival said they liked it. 

“I saw Condom Carnival and I was like, ‘Heck yeah’, and then I saw it was hosted by the Feminist Majority Alliance, and I was like, ‘Oh, absolutely,” said Kye Klemczewski, sophomore pre-social work major.

Klemczewski said the event was “awesome.”

“It’s so inclusive. I told a booth I’m allergic to latex and she was like ‘Oh, we have latex-free, here you go,’” Klemczewski said. “I told one I’m an RA, my friend has a bunch of people coming to her and asking, and then they handed me a bag of condoms and stuff so that I could give them to the friend and residents.”

Natalie Niehaus, freshman exercise science major, and Emma Harris, freshman marketing major, said they saw Condom Carnival as they were playing volleyball in the RFWC and decided to attend.

Niehays and Harris said Condom Carnival was interesting.

“They’re just all very welcoming,” Niehaus said. “It’s good to know that people are talking about it.”