I’ve been impressed with the conversation this week about sexuality and sexual interactions, and I thought it might be interesting to explore this material (and meet another part of our Gen Ed requirements) through another mode of writing: the advice pamphlet. I’m sure you’ve come across many of these, perhaps with a medical focus, safe driving tips, nutrition or exercise – maybe even a pamphlet on sex, sexual relationships, sexual orientation, or safer sex practices.

Writing a good pamphlet requires knowing clearly what information or position you want to convey and a clear sense of who your audience is and their level of reading proficiency. Sentences and paragraphs are usually short, and the active voice(Links to an external site.)Links to an external site. is typically used. So for this kind of writing, you need to have a good sense of what you want to say – maybe outline, diagram, or map this out before you start writing – and then you need to find very clear ways to state your thoughts and edit your text carefully to make sure that your word choices are clear, the sentences aren’t too complex, the tone is polished and professional, etc.

Assignment. Your exercise is to write an advice pamphlet about how to negotiate gendered interactional dynamics in order to have a healthy sex life.

Your targeted audience is the college student. You can focus your pamphlet on a strictly female audience, strictly male audience, or a mixed-sex audience – or you can even have a part addressing women and another part addressing men. You can also focus your pamphlet on heterosexual relationships, homosexual relationships, or just have a general focus.

If you want to format your submission like a pamphlet (multiple columns, bold headings, images or graphs, etc.), you are certainly welcome to do so, but this is not a part of the exercise or the grading. The focus of this exercise is how you argue and support the advice you give in negotiating gendered expectations in the context of sexual interactions.

Parameters. Please following the following guidelines. Before turning in your work, please edit your paper for proper punctuation, grammar, spelling and usage.

Saving your work as a PDF is easy. For Microsoft Word users, just select “save as” and then change the format type to PDF; for Apple Pages users, select “export to” and then choose PDF.

Due Date. Please upload your work to this Canvas page by the end of the day on Sunday, 17 June.