The Union Ballroom will offer a taste of sex and New Orleans on Friday night.
Danny Roberts and Melissa Howard, from the MTV show “The Real World” New Orleans, will join MSU sex and relationship experts.
Sex In the Real World, a Loveline-style event, will be held from 9 p.m. to 1 a.m.
Director of Union Activities Jodi Roberto-Hancock said the event, which began last year, drew a large crowd hoping to meet Janet from the Seattle cast and Teck from the Hawaii cast.
“It was packed last year,” Roberto-Hancock said. “There was a huge line of people and we ended up having to turn people away.”
She said the popularity of the event led the Union Activities Board to host the event again. Also sponsoring the event are Olin Health Center, the ASMSU Programming Board and the Women’s Resource Center.
Participants will be able to ask relationship questions for the first hour, and Roberto-Hancock said the experts will leave and questions will be open to any topic, including Roberts’ and Howard’s experiences on the show.
Roberto-Hancock said starting at 8 p.m., there will be an informational sexual health fair in the concourse outside the ballroom. There will also be a dance following the event until 1 a.m.
Olin Health Educator Dennis Martell will join the cast members to answer questions about sexuality. He said he is eager to be on the panel for the first time.
“Any time we can get people together at a venue where they can ask questions and get the real deal,information about sex is exciting to me,” he said.
He said he knows the stars will attract people to the event, but he said getting people to come out is one of the biggest challenges.
“Most of the time people don’t get a chance to ask questions like this,” Martell said. “Sometimes they are afraid to ask questions they have always wanted to ask.
“This will give them a more comfortable way to do that.”
Martell, who is somewhat familiar with who Roberts and Howard are, said last year “The Real World” cast members gave some information he feels was misleading.
“My job will be to provide accurate information and possibly correct any information they might give that is not correct,” he said. “We will provide the real knowledge to the real world experience.”
Kristen Rocca, co-chairperson of the event, said “The Real World” stars travel to schools around the country talking to students about various topics. She said the Union Activities Board came up with the idea for a sex forum last year.
The merchandising management junior said she thinks Roberts and Howard will offer good insight.
“They are from the most recent episodes so many people will be familiar with who they are,” Rocca said. “They also offer some sort of diversity that will allow more people to identify with them.”
Roberts is gay and Howard is half black and half Filipino.
Rocca said she expects this year’s event to attract at least as many people as it did last year.
“I know the people that came last year really enjoyed it and they will all tell their friends,” she said. “There are a lot of people who are going to be interested in seeing people who were on TV.”
