For students curious about erotic books, DVDs, lollipop condoms, finger cots and safe- sex Barbies, the Educational & Referral Organization for Sexuality may be a nice place to visit.

Named after the Greek god of love, EROS has been promoting responsible and tolerant attitudes toward sexuality among the campus community for almost 37 years.

Founded in 1972, EROS is one place on campus where students can go to get up to three free condoms a day. They also have a variety of free safe-sex material and a lending library with books ranging from sex education to fetishism, as well as informational and entertainment sex videos.

Additionally, they run a peer counseling program and sponsor various events throughout the semester.

Pardis Esmaeili, a 22-year-old psychology major, is the director of the student-run branch of Associated Students, Inc.

"Every student pays $46 to student government, and the government body allocates some of that money to us," she said of EROS' funding. Students should use that money, she said, to take advantage of all EROS has to offer.

"Everything is safe-sex positive and promotes safe sex," Esmaeili added. "Most of our services are not offered anywhere else on campus."

Morrie Pauline, a 22-year-old BECA major, has been taking advantage of those services for years. His favorite thing to do at EROS is to sit on the couch and read books from their library. He loves the book about intimacy with men.

"It's really crazy," he said, "It's a men's studies book, like women's studies for men."

EROS' atmosphere drew Pauline to the organization and kept him coming back. He recalled a condom-ordering debate.

"They couldn't decide on lollipop condoms or condoms in a special plastic case," Pauline said.

The discussion wavered on novelty versus practicality.

"That's the kind of thing that goes on there," he said.

While most students stop by EROS for the free condoms, many others come simply for a safe place to discuss sexual issues, said Nataly Gomez, EROS' assistant director.

Just being present can influence a student without them knowing it, said Gomez of the plethora of informational material littering the office.

"We have as much [informational] material as we can [place] near the condoms for them to just see," she said, and it often pays off.

"People come in here just to say thank you."

That welcoming ambiance is why SF State student Jermaine Wilkinson chose it for his peer counseling skills class.

"I want to focus on wellness and human health," said the 38-year-old economics major and counseling minor. "EROS was more interesting to me because of the liberty to spread awareness."

Wilkinson also picked EROS because of his belief that it can help increase the spread of awareness. National Black HIV/AIDS Awareness Day was celebrated on Feb. 7, and Wilkinson cited its lack of attention on campus as one of the reasons he is getting involved.

Two of SF State's counseling classes, Counseling 650 and 606, were developed by Michael Ritter and Ann Auleb, professors at SF State.

"We wanted to develop a curriculum that really could train people to do peer-counseling and peer-education," Ritter said, and since the classes' inception, EROS has been involved with training the students in peer counseling.

"I think that one of the very powerful things about working with EROS is that the students sponsor this group," Ritter added. "[Safe sex] is such a huge issue, especially for college students."