"Jen Hsu smiled as she handed out roses made of packaged condoms, red cellophane and green pipe cleaners to passersby in Newcomb Hall at the University of Virginia.

“Happy Valentine’s Day,” said Hsu, a third-year UVa student. “Be safe tonight!”

Hsu and her fellow members of UVa’s peer health educators club passed out around 300 of their “roses” Thursday and wore dark red T-shirts emblazoned with the names of various sexually transmitted diseases, spelled out phonetically. Hsu’s shirt read: “Kla-MID-ee-uh.”

Many UVa students are marking Valentine’s Day this year by hosting educational - and frequently sensationalized - events as part of UVa’s first-ever campus-wide Sexual Health Awareness Week.

The week began Monday with the opening of “Focus on Living,” an exhibit of photo portraits of people with HIV and AIDS. Local artist Gerry Mitchell, who was diagnosed as having AIDS in 1981, delivered a keynote address.

Tuesday evening, students gathered in Cabell Hall for an outreach fair titled “SexFest.” The next day, another fair was held to focus on sexual assault issues, as well as sex health.

On the Lawn on Valentine’s Day, Hannah Green passed out contraceptives, displayed a pink papier-mache phallus and held a contest where students had to guess how many condoms filled a Nalgene bottle. She also offered “safe sex mixed tapes” that featured music by artists such as 50 Cent and Marvin Gaye.

“‘Let’s Get It On’ is probably the key song on the mixed tape,” said Green, a UVa student and member of the AIDS Service Awareness and Prevention club.

The week finishes today and Saturday with two performances of the play “The Vagina Monologues” and an accompanying event titled “Vulvapalooza.” Vulvapalooza will mix the serious (diseases, unwanted pregnancy and so on) as well as the light-hearted side of sex (such as sexual pleasure and an auction for a cake shaped like a certain part of the female anatomy).

“We want to offer a more complete vision of people’s sexuality that is more informed,” said organizer Brenna Lynch, a fourth-year UVa student. Proceeds from “The Vagina Monologues” and Vulvapalooza will benefit a women’s charitable organization in Bosnia.

Del. Robert G. Marshall, R-Manassas, had not heard about the week’s festivities at UVa, but said he thought it sounded “adolescent.”

“I have not seen the current degradation being performed at the University of Virginia in the name of education,” said Marshall, who has criticized similar events on Virginia college campuses over the past five years.

“You do not need to be sensational to impart information, unless you’re imparting that information to an idiot. And I don’t think there are many idiots who can get accepted by UVa.”" (Bryan McKenzie, The Daily Progress, February 15, 2008)