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History junior Ryan Haecker hoped to discover how American views on sexuality have changed through the years at Wednesday's panel discussion on sex, hosted by the student organization Longhorns Speak.
He left frustrated with the lack of concrete answers.
"I learned all about how much we don't know about sexuality," Haecker said.
Longhorns Speak, voted last year's best new student organization, has been around since 2005. This was its second panel discussion this year.
"We saw an incredible need for an organization that would get individuals to come together and talk about important issues," said Mohini Madgavkar, president of the organization and Plan II senior. "We want to get people to come together and engage in a constructive dialogue over polarizing issues like the death penalty and abortion."
The members of the organization wanted a break from the political issues they had been talking about and decided to approach a more social topic, Madgavkar said.
"Nothing is more important than how we interact with each other, and sex is an important part of that," she said. "We wanted to draw in students and about why we think about sex the way we do, how that has changed and what that means for society."
Neville Hoad, an associate professor in the English department, said there have been many sexual revolutions in past centuries - all in various locations.
"The '20s were equally as counterrevolutionary as the '60s. Wherever there is a demographic preponderance of young people, there will be more change."
Hoad said he believes there may be more sexual openness, but only in certain sectors of society, and finds many of his students are more conservative than those in his day.
"I think there are many places where there is not an openness about sexual health or sexuality," Hoad said. "I think that to think about U.S. culture as a monolith in which your experience represents the whole is difficult."
However, talk doesn't necessarily mean change.
"We have become very selective in terms of what we can talk about when it comes to sex and sexual freedom," said Gloria Gonzalez-Lopez, an assistant sociology professor.
Lopez mentioned HIV, sexual identity and reproductive health as topics people can talk about, but other issues remain invisible.
"It's not that easy to make sex that easy," Hoad said.
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