Northwestern's Fucksaw Sex Class Gets Axed

By Anna North  |  May 10, 2011 | 1:55pm
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The Northwestern professor who staged a live “fucksaw” demo for his students will not be teaching Human Sexuality this fall. In fact, the university won’t offer the class at all.

According to the Chicago Tribune, the university has said, “courses in human sexuality are offered in a variety of academic departments in other universities, and Northwestern is reviewing how such a course best fits into the University’s curriculum.” J. Michael Bailey, the prof who arranged the (optional, after-class) live orgasm show, will be teaching “Behavior Genetics and Evolutionary Psychology” and “Dangerous Ideas” instead — maybe in the latter he can tell students his theories on how trans people are fetishists and why gay men like doing hair.

In all seriousness, it’s too bad that one professor’s questionable decision has led to the cancellation of a whole class. The fucksaw demo may have had little academic merit, but it was hardly a crime (as I’ve mentioned, Bailey’s ideas about trans and gay people are much worse). If the university did want to remove him from a class in which he’d caused outrage, they could at least have reassigned it to another professor. As their statement makes clear, plenty of universities offer useful and fascinating human sexuality courses — it’s certainly possible to do it without causing a scandal. Maybe the course at Northwestern has been so tainted by Bailey’s reputation that nobody wanted to teach it, but hopefully by next year someone will step in. It would be a shame for Northwestern students to lose the opportunity to learn about real topics in sex and sexuality all because of a fucksaw.

Sex Toy Demonstration: Controversial Northwestern Class Won’t Be Offered Next Year [Chicago Tribune]

Earlier: Northwestern Professor Shows Class A Live Orgasm Demo
The Storied Past Of Northwestern’s Sex Professor

Image via Dmitry Melnikov/Shutterstock.com

 
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