Valentine’s Day is a day of celebration and reflection on romantic relationships. Through games, activities, prizes and plenty of Red 40, Grinnell’s Sexual Health Information Center (SHIC) encouraged just that, in their event all about red flags held last Saturday, Feb. 15.
As SHIC co-leader Neva Zamil `27 described, red flags are warning signs, signals that should make a person stop and consider if they should continue with a relationship. Through the games and activities, participants discussed with their peers how they would respond to different red flag moments.
“We wanted an event focused on helping people self-reflect on what boundaries are important to them within relationships — and relationships can mean platonic, romantic, sexual,” Zamil said.
The games included relationship-themed Apples to Apples and “context matters” Jenga. For Apples to Apples, players responded to scenarios such as, “Your partner has not texted or reached out to you in two days,” with cards detailing common conflict responses. In Jenga, players tested different situations against one of sixteen different possible relationships, from “ex-on-bad-terms” to “Anne Harris.”
Activities included a laser maze that prompted discussions about how to address relationship difficulties like privacy and jealousy, word searches on types of manipulation, red flags and signs of love bombing, as well as sinking paper ships that allowed participants to determine the severity of different red flags.
The Red Flags Game Day event is part of SHIC’s broader mission to address the holistic sexual health of Grinnell students. As attendee Sophia Dorward `28 said, the event helped demonstrate that red flags are applicable to all types of relationships.
“We want our events to be accessible to everybody. We don’t want it to only work if you’re in a relationship or if you’re having sex,” Zamil said. “[Red flags] is one of those great topics where you can connect to a really wide variety of people, and everybody can take something away because they can apply it to themselves.”
Additionally, SHIC employee Sasha Fine `27 discussed how the event is part of the center’s work to break stigma around sex and sex education.
“It’s important to offer incentives,” Fine said. “Our food table and free sex toys are helpful in garnering support and breaking stigma. I think [SHIC] being student run is a really underrated aspect to breaking stigma.”
For Dorward, Red Flags was the first SHIC event she attended. “I feel like the event helped me understand how students are involved in [SHIC],” Dorward said. “It seems to be mostly students in charge of it, and I appreciate that.”
For Zamil, SHIC is a space to provide both scientific information and encourage conversation by uplifting personal experience. “We try to be a space that is open to people on any level of comfort with sexual health topics,” Zamil said. “Our goal at this point is to do whatever it takes to make sure students continue to trust us and have that positive relationship with SHIC.”
Beyond the Red Flags event, SHIC holds weekly office hours Monday-Friday from 5:30 to 9 p.m. in their office on the first floor of Main Hall, where students can talk directly to one of the seven trained sex educators on the all student staff. SHIC also sends out a monthly newsletter, holds panels on pertinent sexual and reproductive health topics and hosts other events where students can learn more about everything from anatomy to sexually transmitted infections and consent.
