Elite Liberal Arts College Subjects Freshmen To Mandatory Graphic Sex Show
Amherst College required incoming freshmen to sit through a graphic, sexually explicit performance during orientation inside the school’s historic chapel, the Washington Free Beacon reported Friday. The mandatory show…
Amherst College required incoming freshmen to sit through a graphic, sexually explicit performance during orientation inside the school’s historic chapel, the Washington Free Beacon reported Friday.
Known as “Voices of the Class,” the scripted event uses excerpts of new student admission essays to craft the performance, which is reviewed and approved by Amherst staff. The program stands in stark contrast to Amherst’s original mission as an institution founded to educate young men for Christian ministry.
One junior at the nearly $93,000-a-year school said she was so shocked by the “grossly sexual” skit that she nearly walked out, according to the Free Beacon.
“I thought about leaving 10 minutes in. I’m not someone who breaks rules or skips mandatory events, but it was disgusting enough it almost forced me to leave,” the student told WFB.
Reactions flooded the anonymous campus app Fizz, where posts calling the show a “sex performance” and a “scarring experience” drew hundreds of upvotes, according to the outlet.
Despite the blowback, Amherst’s Office of Student Affairs insisted in an email to the Free Beacon that the performance is “not graphic,” and emphasized that staff review and approve the script every year.
“‘Voices of Amherst’ has been part of New Student Orientation since 2007 and is coordinated by New Student and Family Programs in Student Affairs. Each year, the script is newly written by junior and senior students using excerpts from the incoming class’s admissions essays,” the Office of Student Affairs told the Free Beacon, adding that the “final script is reviewed and approved by staff before the performance.”
The college’s “director of health and wellbeing education” also told the outlet that the skits are “part of our broader commitment to promoting wellbeing and sexual respect on campus,” and are meant to “encourage conversations about topics that can sometimes feel difficult to discuss, from sexual health and communication to harm reduction and self-care.”
The student told the outlet that the administration appeared uninterested in concerns about the sexual content, saying there were feedback forms for all the orientation events — except the most grossly over-sexualized ones.
“It was almost like they were avoiding feedback, actually, because they didn’t want to be told that this isn’t normal, or useful, or funny,” the student said.
Amherst hosts a year-round lineup of sexual programming, including “Sex in the Dark” sessions held in complete darkness, polyamory workshops, drag shows with explicit routines, and events promoting “relationship anarchy,” swinging and other non-traditional sexual lifestyles, according to the Free Beacon.
One student told the outlet that the school’s fixation on sex culture is “disturbing and dystopian,” while another said she often feels pressure to keep her views to herself to avoid backlash.
Amherst did not respond to the 🏢Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.
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