Lynn Thompson, co-director of Womyn's Concerns, which sponsored Saturday's event, said her group had originally intended on restricting the amount of time anyone spent in the tent to prevent too much from happening.
"Two minutes kind of limits what you can do," she said.
On Friday afternoon before the tent idea was vetoed, Thompson explained the purpose behind the activity.
Inspired by a program at Oberlin College in Ohio, the tent was supposed to be a fun way to learn about what it means to give and receive consent.
Students would learn that — among other things — all persons in question need to be informed about what they're consenting to, sound in mind and body, and actively willing to say "yes." Once visitors prove that they understand consent, they would receive a hand stamp, which would have allowed them entry into the tent.
Two or more students would be admitted into the tent for two minutes, in which time they would be free to do anything they want as long as it was agreed to ahead of time. Two people staffing the door would keep track of time and call out warnings at 30, 15 and five seconds left, Thompson said.
"Somebody can tell you what consent is, or you can read what consent is and that's a lot different than having to put it into practice and actually (experiencing) . . . what it's like to do something when you know it's consensual," Thompson said.
In a private hour-long meeting Friday, Vice President of Student Affairs Bill Asbury met with representatives of Womyn's Concerns, Office of Residence Life and the women's studies program to give them an ultimatum: Close the tent or Penn State will encourage Pollock Commons to stop the entire event.
They chose the lesser of the two, but Tarah Ausburn, another member of Womyn's Concerns, said she was disappointed that the administration was sacrificing the further education of consent for positive media attention.
Students could still learn about consent without having time inside the tent. Instead, they were encouraged to write on a poster the best places on campus to participate in consensual activity.
Shortly after the Sex Faire started at 7 p.m., a group of students assembled another tent outside the west entrance to Pollock Commons.
State Rep. John Lawless, R-Montgomery, interrupted his critical tour of the Faire to find out who was responsible for organizing the outside tent.
Robyn Stephens (senior-sociology) said it was a group of concerned students who were fighting against what they saw as the censorship of the tent inside.
However, Justin Leto, a member of Students for Accountability and Reform, insisted that his group had arranged the protest.
In the Rec Room, Thompson got up on a chair to announce that the Sex Faire organizers were not associated with the demonstration outside.
Following an appeal from Lawless, Asbury went outside to ask the students to remove the tent, but gave up after being confronted by shouted complaints.
MacCarthy said the outdoor tent was not inside a university building, and thus represented a student protest that could not be controlled in the same way as the Tent of Consent originally conceived by Womyn's Concerns.
Stephens said she was most appalled by the state representative's attendance of the event. "Lawless is on a witch hunt for his own publicity," she said.
As a crowd gathered around Lawless outside, someone from the crowd yelled, "Let's see how many people we can fit in here," and the group of students rushed into the tent's hatch.
About an hour later, the protest was over and the tent was gone.
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