<p>The woman is public about her behavior. She has her name newspapers…</p>
<p>google “reciprocating saw injuries.” You’ll wish you didn’t.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>This woman is quite “public” in her particular sex community, as is her partner, and explicitly says she gets off on having other people see and watch. Whatever gets you through the night. I don’t think this is an issue. This also strikes me as irrelevant to this issue – we all might regret things that we decided to do at one point in time when we were younger and foolish, but that’s really not anybody else’s problem or responsibility. There’s nothing different about sexual preferences versus anything else you might do publicly (support a given political or social cause, etc.). I mean, I’m not terribly proud of having been a Republican in the 1980’s, lol.</p>
<p><a href=“By%20the%20way,%20where%20have%20all%20the%20trenchcoat%20flashers%20gone?”>quote</a>
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Chatroulette.</p>
<p>
Binge drinking is detrimental both to one’s own health and to bystanders (cf. drunk driving laws). Pornography, and live demonstration by extension, is not physically or morally detrimental to anyone. That said, the NU professor didn’t provide much advance notice of the demonstration so that more conservative students could easily opt out. “Graphic” != live.</p>
<p>beyond stupid idea…university should be embarrassed.</p>
<p>Here is what the 5th Circuit had to say when it struck down the Texas law banning sex toys in 2008.
<a href=“http://www.ca5.uscourts.gov/opinions\pub\06/06-51067-CV0.wpd.pdf[/url]”>http://www.ca5.uscourts.gov/opinions\pub\06/06-51067-CV0.wpd.pdf</a></p>
<p>Note that the opinion explains that one reason people buy and use the toys is to avoid intercourse until after marriage. Conservative, moral values are in play. Noble purpose, right? Also, it noted that they are used in legitimate sex therapy. </p>
<p>So, a non-required and non-graded opportunity to have a “how to” learning experience seems to fall squarely within “education.” Is it wrong to offer this rather than have the students flailing around on their own in a hit or miss fashion?</p>
<p>I guess I’m pretty much where PizzaGirl is on this. I don’t think was illegal and it doesn’t offend my moral sensibilities, but I think it was a silly and distasteful stunt of dubious educational value that shows really poor professional judgment on the professor’s part, and to that extent it’s a public embarrassment to Northwestern. And as a parent, I’d certainly be embarrassed and a little indignant if this had happened at my D’s school.</p>
<p>It wasn’t an unlicensed “sex show” because no one was charged admission, and it wasn’t public lewdness because it took place behind closed doors within a private university, by definition a private and not a public space. I don’t think there’s any evidence the woman felt coerced. She’s over 21, well over the age of consent, there’s no evidence that her judgment was impaired by drugs, alcohol or mental illness such that she was incapable of consenting, and by her own admission she is an exhibitionist who wanted to do this and asked to be allowed to do it.</p>
<p>It wasn’t even the professor’s idea; he said he agreed after the couple proposed it only because he “couldn’t think of a good reason to say no.” That’s where the poor professional judgment comes in. This wasn’t something he had planned to do because he thought it had positive pedagogical value; he just couldn’t think of a reason to say no. Well, one reason might be: “I don’t see the pedagogical value, and it sounds to me like a cheap stunt that would make a circus of my classroom and perhaps in a way coarsen the discourse, undercutting my pedagogical purposes here. I understand you get off on exhibitionism and I’m happy to have you talk to the class about that because the students can learn something from engaging in that discussion on an intellectual level; that could have positive educational value in a class on human sexuality. But we don’t have live demonstrations of the other sexual practices we discuss in this class, nor have I ever regarded that as an essential or even a valuable part of the course, and I’m not prepared to make an exception for you just because your particular preference is for a public display. So I’m afraid you’re just going to need to find yourselves another audience. If any of my students are interested in searching out this sort of practice to gain first-hand experience of it, I’m sure they’re resourceful enough to find you or others to help facilitate that.” </p>
<p>Apparently, though, the professor is himself something of a publicity hound, who seems to enjoy being controversial. If that’s the case, he’s putting his own publicity-lust ahead of the interests of his students. Not that the students are irreparably harmed or anything, just that their interests seem to take a back seat here, and that’s inappropriate, and again to Northwestern’s discredit.</p>
<p>Another perspective: Jessica Bennett writing in The Daily Beast predicts Northwestern will suddenly be at the top of many 18-year-olds’ college wish lists.</p>
<p>Whether it’s legal or illegal, abhorrent or merely controversial, stunts such as this professor’s damage those of us who work in higher education. The value of some of what goes on at a university is not readily apparent to many people, especially those who have been taught that “common sense” is inherently better than asking difficult questions or rethinking taboos. Researchers into sexual behavior do important and very useful work. We had a legislator in our state who wanted a couple of UGA faculty fired because he seen that their areas of research included male prostitution and oral sex. He assumed that they were teaching prostitution and oral sex to students. Ironically, his most recent campaign platform had focused strongly on prevention of the victimization of women and children, and in his campaign he’d unknowingly used as relevant data some of the research of the very faculty members he wanted gone.</p>
<p>But the NU prof’s kind of in-your-face flaunting for little legitimate benefit is guaranteed to get picked up by the national media and it will confirm the suspicions of all the neanderthals such as the Georgia state rep. What’s more, they’ll extrapolate his provocation to all of us who work in higher education, painting us all as wildly irrational people who only waste the budget dollars invested in our institutions. </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>It is:</p>
<p>“I feel it represented extremely poor judgment on the part of our faculty member. I simply do not believe this was appropriate, necessary or in keeping with Northwestern University’s academic mission . . . Many members of the Northwestern community are disturbed by what took place on our campus. So am I.” - NU Pres. Morton Shapiro</p>
<p>so after reading the whole thread i’d have to agree with many of you here</p>
<p>though this action does not personally offend me since yes it was voluntary… blah blah blah (see other people’s posts for more info) but i’m not exactly quite sure why this professor allowed what happened… but ultimately it doesn’t matter
because it won’t happen again- not after this controversy.</p>
<p>ps. i applied to northwestern and this does not lessen my high esteem of the school.</p>
<p>One of the articles I read in the Tribune today referenced the fact that the professor’s own research is based on his observations of the reactions of the students to the topics he teaches. That makes it even more creepy, to me.</p>
<p>I think it is actually illegal to be drunk in public.</p>
<p>This was in Tuesdays headline.
*CBS) - Reports say Christina Aguilera was arrested by Los Angeles sheriff’s deputies on suspicion of public drunkenness while riding back from a West Hollywood club Tuesday morning.</p>
<p>Police say they pulled over a car at about 2:45 a.m. in which Aguilera, 30, was sitting in the passenger’s seat, reported The Los Angeles Times. *</p>
<p>I read in the Tribune today referenced the fact that the professor’s own research is based on his observations of the reactions of the students to the topics he teaches. That makes it even more creepy, to me.</p>
<p>Ewww.
Id love to know what sort of group is funding this.
or perhaps not. :p</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Call me old-fashioned, but I’m ok if students actually don’t receive instruction in sexual methods at their universities, but discover things the old-fashioned way, like in a dorm room with a tie on the door (or whatever the modern equivalent is), the back seat of a car, etc. Didn’t Meat Loaf write the definitive song about the joys of “flailing around on [your] own in a hit or miss fashion”? (Paradise by the Dashboard Light)</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>07DAD,
I wondered when you were going to weigh in on this subject.</p>
<p>Under your definition, pretty much anything can qualify as “education,” including as I mentioned earlier, the proper way to plunge your toilet. The question is not whether the demonstration was educational, but rather whether it was appropriate for a highly-ranked university to utilize its resources for the demonstration of a live sex act on its campus.</p>
<p>Did anyone else (particularly women) get the heebie-jeebies about inserting an electrical appliance into a moist cavity of the body? I thought one of the themes of this demonstration was “safety.”</p>
<p>Again, I’m just an old-fashioned girl – I think the factory-installed parts are sufficient for the purpose, no need for souped-up aftermarket parts.</p>
<p>
Well said…
Will it? How old are the participants? This is creepy and weird and may not be much more…</p>
<p>It would have been more interesting if it had been a psychology class that was studying deviant behavior & interviewed the participants on how they became interested in this practice & how they insured that innocent bystanders were not scarred for life.</p>
<p>I myself had the misfortune to witness a similar coupling, although not quite so extreme a few years ago, when I was at a art gallery show.
It was brief, but it was horrible & shocking.</p>
<p>deviant behavior??? sex toys??</p>
<p>UT Sociology department did a lot of the research for the President’s Commission on Obscenity and Pornography (1970). Porn, porn and more porn. Visual and written. Students were part of the test groups. </p>
<p>It was legit research and established that porn had no correlation to deviant behavior.<br>
But, President Nixon disavowed the Report. His statement is available on-line. The report results didn’t fit with his moral views. It reads like a lot of the posts on this thread. </p>
<p>College + sex research is nothing new. Where do you think the research is done?</p>
<p>How do you establish a control group for this sort of research?</p>
<p>I didn’t say sex toys were deviant- but someone who requires that her sexual practices be public- seems pretty outside the norm to me.</p>
<p>@07DAD: Except that this isn’t research. The professor warrants his behavior based on supposed educational benefits accrued to the students, not his own research interests.</p>
<p>Students who sign up as psych lab rats are often paid and are selected as valid test groups, not students who enroll in a course and then stay after class for a demo.</p>