University of the Fraser Valley (UFV) students are getting a better understanding of sexual health. Masturbation May provided a three-day pop up shop that explores and encourages sexual health and a safe space to talk about experiences, and safe ways to understand those urges we can get from time-to-time.

“We started out with condoms in the bathroom and trying to have like little snippets of sexual health smattered throughout,” says Ashley Ward-Hall, the Sexual Health Educator at UFV. “There's very few schools that offer any sort of sexual pleasure products and I've always thought it would be really cool to bring that to the ‘Bible belt of Canada’ in Abbotsford.”

“Having the sexual health education behind me to help sort of boost and back up this idea of pleasure based sex education, we were able to buy some products that are good for all bodies, all sexualities.”

Jada, a fourth year Social Work student is also in the same boat of wanting to see more of these on campus, especially in Abbotsford, a school district that for a long time had repressive sexual education policies. 

“​What this is about is breaking stigma and normalization. So even if people aren't comfortable seeing it on campus, seeing like the word ‘masturbation’ around campus or like just seeing that toys are a thing and that people use them. It's just kind of normalizing it and then it makes people feel a little bit more safe to talk about it.”

“Especially for those who are not heterosexual, who identify with basically any other sexual identity. They've had very, very little representation when they are learning about sex.”

Masturbation May is the fourth sexual health pop up shop UFV has hosted, and the pop up shop’s first anniversary. Student Wellness hopes to have more shops this fall.