Sex In The Name Of Science

By Stephen Noble on March 18, 2011 in Society

I did expect more cocks. Not that I’m into that, I just expected more. It was a sex, drugs & rock ‘n’ roll night and for some reason I pictured more a mass orgy, with a few people in white coats ticking boxes with every bukake. This was a stupid thought.

It’s a science festival, an educational delight aimed to inspire and enlighten. No group sex.

Sex, Drugs and Rock & Roll was the last event from this year’s Science Festival, which has held over 30 events in 12 different venues. Designed as a ‘playful, experience-led festival’ it was all about the engagement, ranging from Maker Fair, which opened with an 8m tall fire breathing dragon (a robot, not Sean Connery’s Dragonheart), to last night’s scientific look at depravity, but my stupid logic failed and no drugs were on offer and no whores were in sight. But damn was it impressive.

Yet I remember Centre for Life from a school trip, not sitting in a planetarium with ‘inverted psychedelic fractals’ (acid based imagery) shooting me out, similar to what Mario gets to see when he flies through green pipes to save the Princess. I’m guessing. So where does this fit in to academia and kids?

“Centre for Life has always been experimental and it’s always pushed what engagement actually is, so on a weekend it’s very family friendly but it’s not just exclusively for families”, explained Festival Director Marissa Buckingham, “A lot of the art exhibitions that come here for adults are very experimental, so upstairs at the moment we’ve got 10 dresses by a world renowned designer called Helen Storey that tells the story of the first 1000 hours of life, and then we’ve got an exhibition called abnormal which explores what can happen if fertility goes wrong, so Centre for Life has always pushed the boundaries.”

Marissa added: “Everybody knows what Centre of Life is because it’s so prominent in town, but most people in the 18-35 age bracket, unless they have children, they’ll have got as far as digital but they haven’t actually gone through the turnstiles and come in, so the festival is a way of getting new people through to see what’s normally on, and to have a programme that’s not only for children.”

With a silent disco, talks like Mr Phipps takes a trip, and old sex ed films that make the act of love a ruinous event to be loathed and feared it certainly pricked some of my senses. The sex ed was phenomenal, apparently it’s a fact that most women find their own tits attractive, “and to a lesser extent, the male body”.

: When I got snap happy with the loathsome sex, a couple moved away from me. Fuck ‘em.

Oh the chuckles from the couples in the audience, although the rude bint and her fella next to me who moved 4 feet to their right when I whipped out the camera to take shots of sex while on my own didn’t make me feel loved. Judgemental fools.

And fortunately, nights where the kids can stay at home and the science can get dirty won’t be a full year away. Melanie explained: “Centre of Life will be doing late nights like this through the year, so if people liked it they don’t have to wait until next year to do it again.

“Science Festival has grown into a beast by itself, it has its own entity and especially through facebook and our followers there everyone feels a sense of ownership. Because it’s so interactive, it’s not designed for you to come, sit down and listen, it’s about having fun and taking part so even in the lectures there’s something you have to engage with as an audience member.”

It was something special, and here’s hoping they get a ‘scientific’ brothel set up by next year.