By Daniella Theis

Strath Union has launched a sexual health survey to gain a more comprehensive understanding of students’ experiences of sex and relationships whilst they are studying at Strathclyde.

The survey was partly inspired by Bristol Student Union’s ‘Let’s talk about Sex’ survey and subsequent report. Questions of the survey address sex education, sexual health, relationships, and sex work as well as students’ experiences of sexual harassment and sexual violence and all answers given are entirely anonymous.

Clodagh Halliday – last year’s Strath Union Women’s Rep – previously campaigned for a sexual health clinic at Strathclyde. She said:

“I truly believe that every student should have access to sexual health facilities and advice without feeling inconvenienced or stigmatised. Current resources, such as Sandyford, are amazing but are very saturated with long waitlists and are a great distance from the University itself. Having such a facility at Strathclyde would provide students and staff alike with this vital resource whilst also benefitting others’ health and wellbeing on campus.”

This year’s Women’s Rep Zoe Macpherson is continuing the campaign for a campus-based sexual health clinic and the survey was formed by VP Welfare Benn Rapson, alongside VP Inclusion Rachel Cairns, to support this campaign with empirical data.

“Student Parliament mandated the Union to gather data on the physical, mental and sexual health of students at Strathclyde,” Rapson said: “Maintaining good sexual health is really important. Looking after it is vital as poor sexual health can have a detrimental effect on an individual’s overall well-being. It’s not spoken about often enough within society and hopefully, our survey will give us the evidence needed to bring it firmly on the agenda at Strathclyde.

“The ultimate goal is to secure a permanent sexual health clinic on campus which, based on the initial data already coming in and the previous campaign, seems to be something students would really like to see.”

The survey will run until November 27th, 2020 and will take 15 – 25 minutes to complete. Findings of the survey will be compiled into a report due to be published in January, which will be available to all students and also shared with the University and the Principal.

Students who leave their email at the end of the survey will be entered into a prize draw for a £20 Amazon voucher.

More information and the survey can be found on Strath Union’s webpage: https://www.strathunion.com/voice/campaigns/sexualhealthsurvey2020/