<p>Gee, I don’t know about that, LoremIpsum. I consider myself pretty mainstream, as this place goes. And knowing as much as I do about Michael Bailey, I’m definitely more mainstream than he is. Plus, as small as the trans community is, I suspect that more people know a trans person (whether they’re aware of it or not) than have ever viewed a live sex demonstration with a you-know-what-saw.</p>
<p>(I’m trying my best to give you the benefit of the doubt here, and not assume you were being deliberately insulting.)</p>
<p>Rationalize the intellectual value of a live demo? </p>
<p>Take a read at Brown University’s website. </p>
<p>Seems 1 out of 3 women have orgasm problems to the point on not having achieved one. And the Brown University website has links to sex toy sources. </p>
<p>Remember, the power tool allowed the young woman to achieve orgasm in under 3 minutes. Seems it was both effective and efficient time management. </p>
<p>Unless a person places no value on a woman having an orgasm, a “how to” demo may be helpful.</p>
<p>I am certainly not being deliberately insulting, but controversial people by definition always offend SOME special-interest groups, whether they are trans, fat people, midgets, or what have you. I just don’t see the trans community as owning the moral high ground in this matter – their approval or dislike is irrelevant, just as approval or dislike by Pat Robertson and his fellows is irrelevant.</p>
really?..no problem with a saw sex tool bringing someone to orgasm while 100 students look on, on university property…in the name of research?..come on…</p>
<p>“their approval or dislike is irrelevant, just as approval or dislike by Pat Robertson and his fellows is irrelevant.”</p>
<p>Your point really makes no sense. He’s a bigot towards trans people. He wrote what’s almost certainly (with the possible exception of some of Germaine Greer’s hateful rantings) the most notorious, flagrantly contemptuous, transphobic book in the last 30 years. And he’s a homophobe to boot. If he were spouting racism or anti-Semitism, would you say that the opinions of African-Americans and Jews were irrelevant, and that they didn’t own the moral high ground? Of course, if you’re one of those people who agrees with him, I suppose there’s no point discussing this with you further.</p>
<p>You know what? Forget it; I’m bowing out. I can’t have this kind of conversation anymore; it’s too degrading. It was bad enough on the old E&P forum, and the last thing I want is to do it here.</p>
<p>At least we now know the length of a teachable moment: 3 minutes.</p>
<p>CNBC tomorrow morning: “Wall Street flooded with requests for Black & Decker futures…”</p>
<p>MSNBC tomorrow afternoon: “Former President Clinton cites Northwestern research in call for Americans to engage in 3 minutes of vigorous exercise daily.”</p>
<p>Journal of American Medical Association a year from now: “Power tool accidents up; Carpal Tunnel down.”</p>
Don’t just the whole institution by one or two individuals. It’s not like the University can legally fire tenured professors just because they hold controversial belief. The Holocaust denier became tenured in 1974 and never got promoted to full-professorship (he’s been stuck in the associate rank for almost 40 years!). Clearly, the administration has been doing something about it and that’s the best the school can do legally.</p>
<p>Donna is correct about Bailey and arguing about trans people being out of the mainstream has nothing to do with it. Even leaving out his theories (his basic contention is that trans people, specifically m to f, are either crossdressers on a major fetishistic high or effeminate gays who can’t deal with being gay, both of which are basically crap; trans folks don’t just do what they do on a whim and the evaluation process they go through screens out those kind of things) his research methodology wasn’t out of the norm, it was outside all kinds of ethical boundaries. Sleeping with subjects of a study is a no no, and worse, he was accused I believe of sleeping with them and then using it as part of his study. If you don’t believe he violated any boundaries, then ask yourself why he was stripped of his department chair.</p>
<p>If some idiot off the street wrote this, it wouldn’t matter much, nobody cared what Germaine Greer or some other of the hard loony feminists said, but people like Bailey do real damage, when you have a tenured professor at a noted university making claims like this it is used by all sorts to try and hurt the trans community, whether it is the religious right or insurance companies using that as justification to prove that treating trans people is ‘unproven’ treatment. Unfortunately, a lot of people believe that because someone is a professor at a noted university they must ‘know’, rely on some cuckoo clock theorist, and in the end it causes damage. Holocaust deniers might be seen as cranks, but give them distance and time from the actual events, and they can start gaining ground, which could also be the path to another one happening; a psych professor at Johns Hopkins claimed he could cure pedophile priests, put together the program the church used (despite the fact that most professionals decided long,long ago you can’t cure a pedophile) and you see the results of trusting that.I have seen what people like Bailey do in their arrogance and stupidity, and having had a couple of trans acquaintances and friends, I also could see what morons like him, because some university was dumb enough to give them tenure, end up doing. Knowing what Bailey did, I was amazed he wasn’t fired, his theories are not enough to get him canned, but gross misconduct can get tenured teachers fired, the same way they could for plagiarism or falsifying data.</p>
<p>Oy. Lorem Ipsem isn’t enough; I have to deal with this too? Mr. Lee, given that my mother was a Holocaust survivor, yes, I do really care about the Holocaust, your snark notwithstanding. I’m hardly stupid; I know perfectly well what tenure means. Not that you could possibly understand, but I simply didn’t like the idea of my son’s being on the same campus with those two. It’s rather silly that you’re taking it so personally. Why would you possibly care?</p>
<p>Besides, I’m quite certain that my son’s been much happier at the University of Chicago than he could ever have been at Northwestern if he’d applied there and gotten in.</p>
<p>In the news this week, from WSJ site: (not the full article)</p>
<p>Associated Press</p>
<p>"Apparently, fewer American teens and young adults are having sex, according to a federal study which offers numbers but doesn’t examine the reasons.</p>
<p>Why is it decreasing? “That’s the $100,000 question,” said Bill Albert, chief program officer for the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy.</p>
<p>Some experts say an emphasis on abstinence may have played a role. Some say concern about sexually spread diseases may have been a factorperhaps instilled by parents who watched the AIDS crisis unfold. Still others suggest this is a generation of kids who are less inclined to experiment with drugs and sex than their predecessors.</p>
<p>The study, released Thursday, is based on interviews of about 5,300 young people, ages 15 to 24. It shows the proportion in that age group who said they had had some kind of sexual contact dropped in the past decade from 78% to about 72%.</p>
<p>There are other surveys of sexual behavior, but this is considered the largest and most reliable. “It’s the gold standard,” Mr. Albert said." </p>
<p>(My local paper suggested that teens are too busy with homework, jobs, and EC’s to even think about having sex. My theory, after reading this thread? Maybe they are grossed out by TMI?)</p>
<p>DonnaL, Musicprnt, I don’t personally know any people from the trans community; I did once meet a couple of amusing and provocative ladyboys on the streets of Bangkok trying to sell a “novel experience,” but I doubt this is quite a representative sample of the community. I do know that males and females often exhibit healthy traits from the other gender – the tomboy and the metrosexual are some examples – and that mental maleness or femaleness is a range, not a single point.</p>
<p>I nevertheless do not see that some random professor who teaches sex to undergrads HAS TO adhere to the politically-correct view that the trans community would like to portray to the public. He’s not their spokesperson, he’s entitled to his own opinions and his own theories and should have the right to express them — although I would hope that he is willing to allow active and spirited debate from students and others with alternate points of view. </p>
<p>I’ve known a couple of women’s studies teachers who would not accept discussion of alternate points of view in their classrooms. THIS, censorship, I find offensive, not their own radical views — everyone has biases and prejudices, some blatantly obvious and some more subtle. I think a class can learn more from two bigots with opposing views each arguing their positions than from one person sticking carefully to the politically correct agenda.</p>
<p>Now breeches of ethics (sleeping with test subjects) should probably be grounds for dismissal, but that’s a different issue entirely from the professor’s view of the trans community. I think we need to turn the original statement on its head: Would all of the professor’s actions be suddenly acceptable if he was instead a strong supporter and advocate of the trans community? If that makes no sense (and I don’t think it does), than neither does the reverse argument.</p>
<p>Substitute “gay,” “black,” “Jewish,” etc. for “trans” in your post, and anyone can see how ludicrous your viewpoint is. Sorry, but bigotry isn’t debatable.</p>