It’s Time We Spoke About LGBT+ Sex – ALL The Cheeky Titillating Details

The evening entertainment will be hosted by the infamous G-A-Y night clubs, culminating with a party at G-A-Y Heaven whose phenomenal performances from the likes of Adele, Lady Gaga and Ellie Goulding continue to set national entertainment headlines. As one of the most popular night’s of the year at the club, we’re expecting yet again, to have a queue just as long as Kylie’s performances.

What happened last year?

Our core 2016 theme, the difficult, but vital discussion of Mental Health showed that despite 2017 being the year the UK celebrates the important 50-year milestone since gay sex was decriminalised between consenting men over the age of 21 years – LGBT acceptance has far to go.

A host of LGBT personalities spoke on our panel debates, including Will Young on his addiction to porn, Radio 1 DJ Adele Roberts on the radio industry suppressing sexuality on air and Union J’s Jaymi Hensley on music industry officials insisting coming out would not help their careers.

The discussion on stage showed time and again, a large part of the struggle young people have in coming to terms with their sexual and gender identity, is wrapped up in the British taboo of not talking about sex.

This Years Theme – #LetsTalkAboutSex

That’s why this year, we’ll be putting Sexual Education at the core of our event – blasting the cupboard doors open and putting the bedroom front and centre.

From love and relationships to the rising levels of HIV, racism in the LGBT community and how apps are vastly changing the sexual landscape of a community that has long been seen as one that embraces sexual freedom – along with so much more.

Our daytime event will be starting a national conversation about sex. It will be looking towards the Education Secretary Justine Greening, whose office has this month said the time is right “ to look again at how schools deliver high-quality personal, social, health and economic education including sex and relationship education ”.

In a year that saw the largest mass killing in America at Pulse in Orlando, with reports suggesting that the attack was driven by the toxic shame of his sexuality, we want every LGBT child should grow up knowing they are truly welcome in society.

We’ll call for sex education to include all narratives, beyond the reproductive to safe same sex, body image and in a month yet another sex scandal has rocked the national institution of football – we look to consent being at the forefront of our conversation.

Chair of National Student Pride Emma Costello said, “After 50 years since the legalisation of gay sex, it’s time we truly took seriously the power that sex and relationship education has.

The government has an opportunity to liberate the young generation it says it champions by lifting the toxic shame barrier thrust upon LGBT people who grow up in a world where our rights are protected, but being LGBT is still not embraced as something normal which, the life affirming power of the word should not be understated.”

Other details

A host of media sponsors has already confirmed coverage of the event including Headline media sponsor Huffington Post as well as longstanding partners Attitude magazine, Gay Star News, Talent Media, and QX magazine who have never shied away from talking about sex.

As a pride of conversation and nodding to the audio medium that does this best, we also see Gaydio and audioBoom as welcome partners.

The Rest Of The Weekend

The whole event starts with an opening night party on Friday 24th with drag kings and queens galore, including the fabulous Mary Mac hosting to get everyone going and involved.

This to kick start a weekend that for many, is their first pride – and one that is open to all. A Sunday morning event, the perfect way to see the weekend off, will soon be announced following the success of the Milk and Boy Meets Girl screenings.

Careers Fair

The proudest aspect of our event is the careers fair, which keeps the daytime event free and is now the largest LGBT student Careers Fair in the UK. Last year, EY, Google, IBM and Clifford Chance took on graduates they interviewed and met at the event. Already confirmed are Ford, Fujitsu, RAF, RBS, Teach First, Ditch the Label and Inter engineering We expect to exceed last year’s roster of 55. Follow our social media for more big announcements of stalls. (@StudentPride)

Sponsors

National Student Pride is being platinum-sponsored in 2017 by EY for the seventh consecutive year. Liz Bingham (Managing Partner for People, UK & Ireland at EY and Student Pride ambassador) said: ‘We are very proud to support National Student Pride for another year. At EY we are passionate about enabling people to come together in an environment where they feel included and respected. National Student Pride enables LGBT students to do just that’. Law firm Clifford Chance and 02 are gold sponsors. Aviva, Enterprise Rent-a-car, GE Capital, IBM, Lloyds Banking Group and Thomson Reuters are silver sponsors.

History

The event began at Oxford Brookes University in 2005 as a response to the Christian Union’s ‘Homosexuality and the Bible’ talk. Student Pride continues this mantra in its 12th year choosing to hold its 2017 event at on campus because the fight Students face remains just as prevalent, if not more complex, than when we first began.

Tickets

Tickets launch on December 8th in conjunction with this embargoed release. We would be
grateful if you are able to include a link in any coverage you produce. www.studentpride.co.uk/tickets
£5 early-bird price, covers entry to all NSP club events