Sex is a touchy issue. Although many say college is the time in a person’s life to become liberated and experimental, many still feel lost in the mythos of everything that is sex. Graduate assistant Erin Chapman hopes to qualm some of those fears by teaching human sexuality at Iowa State. Pulse had a chance to talk to Chapman, dealing with touchy issues and – yes – even “meat curtains.”

Samantha Hedum: What is it like to teach one of the most popular classes on campus?

Erin Chapman: It’s fun. I like teaching this class. It’s busy. There are a lot of students, so I have to be organized and I’m not always an organized person, so that’s sometimes an issue. It’s a fun topic. Of all the classes I could choose, this is probably the most fun to teach because it’s very easy to keep students captivated. The subject itself lends it to interested students.

SH: Does your job description help you in your social life?

EC: (laughs) My friends like to give me a lot of crap about teaching sex. My family laughs at it, too. It’s a fun topic when we go to big family events and I see my old aunts and uncles and my mom will be like, “Tell Auntie Ruth what you’re doing at Iowa State, Erin!” and I’d be like, “Uh, grad student and teaching.” “Tell her what class you teach!” and my aunt would be like, “Oh!” It’s hilarious. Also, a lot of people want to know what I actually teach in sexuality, like how do you teach sexuality? I wouldn’t say it’s been a huge benefit to my social life, particularly since I’m still single, but it’s a fun conversation topic with my friends.

SH: What is some of the weirdest sex slang you’ve been introduced to as a teacher?

EC: That’s the one thing about teaching, nothing surprises me anymore. The first semester I taught it – are they going to let you print some of this stuff – there was a reference for the female sexual anatomy that I had not heard, but a guy friend of mine had heard it, and he said, “I bet nobody will come up with this term.” I was getting ready to do [an activity that consists of everybody yelling out terms for male and female sexual anatomy parts] the day before, and I always need to have some prescreened [terms] that I can throw out to get people going. I was thinking of nice ones like “punani” or “hoo-hoo,” and he’s like, “I bet nobody will say ‘meat curtain.'” And I just looked at him like, “What?” since I had never heard of that term. Then I get to class the next day and we’re going through it and a girl raises her hand and yells out “Meat curtain!” and I was like, “Oh, god.” So that one shocked me, because I had never heard it and a student had said it right away, so it was funny.

What usually trips me up is when people come up with names of different positions and everybody can make up a different name for the same position, and I don’t know all the slang names. I usually try to research questions, and that’s been interesting because the Web sites bring up all kinds of things. I hope the university doesn’t track these Web searches – ’cause I’m doing it for work! (laughs) It’s for my job.

SH: What is your favorite lecture and why?

EC: Probably the anatomy lectures. I know some students don’t like those because they are biological, but I really think that those are important lectures to give you a good foundation since students need to know what is going to be talked about. Also, that’s one of the first lectures in the semester and I try to be more interactive during it, like yelling out the terms.

The hot topic issues are usually lectures that are a little more challenging, like sexual orientation and gender. Those two are a little bit more heated. Social control of sexuality is a fun one for me, because it’s not necessarily in the textbook and I pieced together different texts from different books and articles I’ve read.

SH: Do you think college students get adequate sex education during their middle and high school years?

EC: I don’t think so, but I’m a pretty strong advocate for early and often sexuality education. I don’t necessarily think that little kids need to know all the ins and outs, but I think they need to start early with relationship issues. Letting kids know that the things that are going to happen to their bodies when they go through puberty are normal, and all of that is related to sexuality.

I’m not saying we should be teaching kids about intercourse at an early age, but they need to be OK with their bodies. I don’t think [sexuality] is talked about enough in high schools; it can be expanded greatly.

SH: What is one of the biggest misconceptions students have about the class?

EC: One misconception about the course is that [students think] they’re going to see dirty videos and we’re just going to talk about actual sexual behavior all the time. It’s much more than that. In the human development and studies courses, I try to discuss social issues regarding sexuality. I try to make it broader than just “doing it.”