<p>Seems to me that the fact that 1/3 of all women have a problem achieving orgasm makes the understanding of ways for a female to achieve orgasm worthy of study. And, yes the cost of laundering one towel if it helps even one female NU student. </p>
<p>BTW–what real “value” is there to a non-participant NU student from laundering all the towels of the NU jocks (male and female)?</p>
<p>Similarly, as my post to the US 5th Circuit case overturning a Texas law against the sale of sex toys indicates, all these alternative methods to orgasm can be (and sometimes are) used by people to avoid intercourse before marriage (and perhaps even afterwards for people who have prohibitions against birth control). If one thinks that delaying marriage and/or delaying intercourse until marriage are good ideas, then a display of how to achieve orgasm is worthy on these additional bases.</p>
<p>*to me that the fact that 1/3 of all women have a problem achieving orgasm makes the understanding of ways for a female to achieve orgasm worthy of study. *</p>
<p>You have bought into the common misconception that what is most important about the sex act happens between the legs.
You are looking in the wrong place- try between the ears.</p>
<p>Well, the mind may assist or interfere, but there is a physiological aspect. Perhaps I incorrectly asumed that a female student in a human sexuality course might want to understand all aspects to be able to fully engage.</p>
<p>07DAD – My guess is that those whose religious beliefs include delaying sex until after marriage and not using birth control (btw, only about 2-3% of American Catholics follow the teaching against birth control) would be highly unlikely to be looking for sex toys to find alternative paths to orgasm. The Catholic Church teaches against masturbation (see the Catechism #2352). Also, I believe someone posted about the Church teaching that sex is for procreation alone. Not true. (See the Catechism #2331-2400 for the current Catholic teachings on sexuality.)</p>
<p>07DAD,
You also presume a lot by assuming that watching a woman be fornicated with a power tool will have any positive effect whatsoever on another woman who has an orgasm issue. This show could be and probably was, a major turn-off for a lot of women.</p>
<p>The very fact that 500 of the 600 students, when told “in a few minutes, there’s going to be a demonstration of an explicit sex act”, chose to get up and go rather than stay and watch tells you that most normal people don’t really care to watch other people’s sexual demonstrations. Or that if they do, they prefer it to be a bit more intimate and behind-closed-doors than in an auditorium with 100 other people.</p>
<p>I don’t care what people do sexually behind closed doors – but ugh, no, I really don’t want to see it. I don’t care if it’s Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt going at it, much less this couple. Blech.</p>
<p>Pizzagirl–your answer is quite clear. You don’t want to see it. But I haven’t read your posts to speculate that just because you don’t that 1/6 of a group might not feel the same way.</p>
<p>In other words, you do not seem to assume that just because you feel one way that others cannot feel a different way.</p>
<p>BTW–I spoke to the buyer of a major business that buys used books and magazines for resale. The top two types of materials are religious and porn.</p>
<p>The woman involved said she liked to be used: "“One of the students asked what my specific fetish was and mine is being in front of people, having the attention and being used,” she said. “The students seemed really intrigued.” "</p>
<p>There’s a difference between learning about exhibitionism/sadism and enabling it. There were 100 kids in the classroom? I bet there would have been a lot less than 100 if they had been given the complete facts a day ahead of time and their role as voyeurs explained. I’m sure the exhibitionist couple would have had no problem coming back a day later. The professor should not have approved this sex act on the spot - the fact he couldn’t think of a reason to say no (when the live act was suggested) doesn’t speak well for him.</p>
<p>I looked at the box office stats for Black Swan. The largest weekly sales came starting 6 weeks after it was released and the graphic sex scene was common knowledge. Using domestic ticket sales only and an average of $10 a ticket, 10 million people were willing to watch it in a public setting.</p>
<p>Right. However, NU is not in the business of “providing what people want to see.” They are in the business of providing an education, in this case in the field of human sexuality.</p>
<p>Take the freaky-saw stuff out of the equation for the time being. Suppose the professor had indicated or approved (or at least not un-approved) a “vanilla” mainstream sex act between two consenting adults. Would that change the discussion here any? I don’t think it would – it’s not necessary to watch a sex act live in order to have a discussion about human sexuality, any more than it’s necessary to watch someone urinate on stage to learn about the urinary tract in biology class.</p>
<p>It’s really immaterial whether the students “wanted” to see it, enjoy seeing similar demonstrations on their own time and dime, and / or were “turned on” or “turned off” as a result. Was it an appropriate pedagogical tool (no pun intended) for the learning objective? If so, then why isn’t / wasn’t “vanilla” sex on the menu for demonstration purposes?</p>
<p>I completely fail to see how the popularity of porn (whether on the internet, in peep shows, in magazines, etc.) has anything to do with whether it was good judgment for a professor at a leading university to have students watch a live sex act (and yes, I get that it was optional, they were warned, blah blah blah). NASCAR is popular too, that doesn’t obligate NU to bring NASCAR to campus.</p>
<p>Here is the University of Texas Lecture Series. It states that its purpose is to bring forth controversial topics. One area that is going to be explored is indecency on the airwaves.</p>
<p>College is about provoking students to address issues outside their experience and comfort zones.</p>
<p>As I understand it, the after class discussion was announced as focusing on fetishes, etc. This live presentation is 100% within that description. Read the quote by the female participant of why she did what she did.</p>
<p>Please explain how provoking those students to address these issues can be achieved by a presentation of “vanilla” sex?</p>
<p>BTW–this kind of argument of appropriate use of academia has gone on forever. I seem to recall some people burned at the stake for teaching anatomy using cadavers.</p>
<p>Presentations on capital punishment, radical feminism, gay and lesbian issues, non-mainstream political agenda (Angela Davis spoke at UT in 1970-71 and there was an up-roar) are just a few areas where the teaching “value” was questioned at the time.</p>
<p>If you were referring to my post, I didn’t say that Catholic teaching was that sex was only for procreation, they finally updated their catechism in the 1970’s to one where sex was considered an important part of the relationship between a married couple, this was in stark contrast to went on before, where couples were for example counseled that once reproductive years were behind them, that sex basically was no longer important and so forth. It wasn’t official dogma, but when the vatican issues clarifications back in the 70’s about sex and marriage, they acknowledged that the church through its clerics and such had had a long history of clouded and often negative views of sex and sexuality, and this can be traced back to the church fathers going way back…however, the fact that Catholic teaching insists that the sex act has to be something where procreation could happen (i.e vaginal sex), and the ban on artificial birth control, says the attitude hasn’t changed all that much, in the sense that they refuse to acknowledge that other forms of sex other then reproductive based sex is part sexuality in a loving relationship, they still insist it has to be tied to procreation…which is kind of weird, because unlike most animal species, mankind has a very complex sexual world, we don’t have heat cycles, and it is very much tied into our brains as well as our instincts…</p>
<p>O7-</p>
<p>You don’t have to go that far, the fact that porn has been the biggest seller in terms of media for a long time tells the story…for both VHS and DVD, porn used to outsell ‘legitimate media’, and on the net, well, you get the picture. Not defending what happened in the class, I have my problems with what happened, I don’t think it was really appropriate to a class setting. I think sexuality classes are wonderful things, but this one struck me as the couple using the class to do their own thing, which I have objections to, not because I am a prude (I am not), just in the context of this being a class.</p>