The McKelvy House Scholars invite the campus community to initiate a new semester of dinner discussions Sunday at McKelvy House, 200 High Street. The first week’s talk will investigate attitudes towards sexuality and its relation to reproduction.
Dinner will start at 6 p.m. Led by McKelvy Scholar Brendan Aidan O’Regan ’06 (Ringwood, N.J.), a double major in government & law and anthropology & sociology, the discussion will start at 6:30 p.m.
“[Sex] is an integral part of most human lives; it is what makes us. And yet, there is always apprehension, sometimes fear to discuss it in our society openly,” he says. “There are social conventions which place limits on what is ‘normal’ and what is deviant.”
The discussion will focus on varying approaches by contemporary societies.
“There are cultures where men and women are separated from one another and only visit each other for sex,” he notes. “In New Guinea, some Highlander groups are afraid of a woman’s menstrual cycle, and yet this is integral to the process of reproduction.”
He offers the following questions:
Why do we have sex, even though we know reproduction is either not possible at a given time, nor is it desirable at some points?
Dolphins have been documented to have sex simply for fun, in the same manner humans do. So why is it fun?
Why are there differences in humans and their attitudes towards sex and in some sense love?
Links to related articles, as well as further information about the McKelvy House Scholars program, are available on the group’s blog web site.
Since 1962, the McKelvy House Scholars program has brought together Lafayette students with a wide range of majors and interests to reside in a historic off-campus house and share in intellectual and social activities. Weekly Sunday and occasional Wednesday dinner discussions that engage the students in debate and exchange of ideas are the hallmark of the program. Most members also contribute to the annual McKelvy Papers, written on a topic of each person’s choice. McKelvy Scholars participate in activities together such as field trips to plays, concerts, and exhibits, and sponsor events for the campus as well.