Now, before I begin, I just want to say that, in my opinion, this issue is not about Professor Bailey. My interest in this event has nothing to do with Professor Bailey as a person. I do not think he is a human sexuality revolutionary (in fact, I strongly disagree with things he has said in the past) nor do I think he is a pervert corrupting the morals of our youth. My goal for this post is to highlight the events of what happened for those who are not aware and to present the three most common arguments against Bailey’s demonstration (along with my comments).
On February 21, 2011, Professor John Michael Bailey conducted an after-class sexuality demonstration and discussion for his psychology of human sexuality course at Northwestern University. This demonstration was not his first one. He has conducted many of them, inviting various individuals (sex therapists, a plastic surgeon, gay men, two convicted sex offenders, etc) to talk and present various things related to the topic of the psychology of human sexuality. For this particular demonstration, he invited Ken Melvoin-Berg and his colleagues to talk about fetishes and kink after his lecture about sexual arousal. These demonstrations were always after class and optional. No extra credit was ever given to students who stayed behind. The students were told repeatedly that this demonstration was going to be about fetish and kink before the presentation and during the presentation, they were warned repeatedly that it would be graphic and that they could leave at any time. Out of the 600 students who are enrolled in the course, only 120 students stayed for the entire demonstration. A movie was shown that Mr. Melvoin-Berg’s colleagues believed was too clinical and unrealistic and they wanted to prove that the female orgasm was real. After asking Professor Bailey for permission, the woman took off her clothes and laid down on a towel. Her fiancé then penetrated her with a sex toy called a “Fucksaw” (a dildo attached to a power tool base) and brought her to orgasm in front of the class. Professor Bailey, in his official statement, admitted he was hesitant to giving his permission, but states: “Student feedback for this event (I routinely collect feedback for all events) was uniformly positive. Although most students mentioned the explicit demonstration—which they enjoyed and thought was a singular college experience—most also said that the most valuable part was engaging in a dialogue with Ken MB et al.”
Apparently, the events only became controversial once the news spread around campus to students, who did not see the demonstration, and parents. Different articles reported different things. One article says the college supports Professor Bailey and another says the college’s President condemns the demonstration. The school’s own newspaper, The Daily Northwestern, supports Professor Bailey.
While doing some research for this blog and discussing these issues with others, I have come across three main arguments against this sexuality demonstration.
1. This isn’t appropriate for a class – A Moral Issue
This is the argument I have seen and heard the most. Whether it was fellow students who said they would not be interested in this after-class demonstration or parents who were scandalized that their offspring would be exposed to such a thing. To the former, my response was “Well then, you’d be apart of the majority who just went to their next class then.” No one was forced to stay. The 120 students who saw the demonstration stayed of their own will – no external motivation needed. To the latter, your “children” are now adults, who have the power to make other various choices, like smoking, driving and dying for their country. If all of them agreed that this demonstration was far too obscene, no one would have stayed there long enough to see it. To be honest, I am not at all sympathetic to any argument that turns sexuality into a moral (right and wrong based on various personal religious values) issue. Personally, I believe that sexuality should not be observed from a moral standpoint. Everyone’s morals are different. Some people believe that all sex before marriage is immoral while others believe they can have multiple wives. It’s too subjective and it is unfair to impose one’s morals upon someone else. If a parent is uncomfortable with the existence of these sexuality demonstrations, maybe they should talk to their young adult who decided to stay and see it. These demonstrations continue because the students encourage it. They are not forced to see anything. I am sure if the students actually believed the demonstrations were morally wrong, they would no longer go to them and the professor would be forced to stop conducting them.
2. This isn’t appropriate for a class – There are better outlets for this, i.e. Porn.
Pornography is obviously not the best way to learn anything of value. It is not realistic and shows a skewed view of sexuality. I am not trying to condemn pornography. I am just simply pointing out the obvious: Porn is for entertainment, not for education. We learn things in classes and for the most part, we trust that what we learn in college courses is correct so why can’t one learn about various kinds of sexuality in a college course? Sexuality is a valid topic of study. Pushing the issue aside and allowing the sole outlets for the study of sexuality to be pornography, Hollywood and the one or two vague, and often incorrect, required health classes in middle and high school are not sufficient ways to learn about and study human sexuality.
3. Where is my tuition money going?!
This argument actually made me pause and think for a minute. According to his personal statement, Professor Bailey states: “I arrange them [the demonstrations] at considerable investment of my time, for which I receive no compensation from Northwestern University.” Someone has argued to me that tuition indirectly paid for the demonstration because the money presumably came from Professor Bailey’s salary. I personally think that this is a stretch, but for the sake of the argument, I am willing to think about it: Not every person who pays tuition to Northwestern University would agree to or want their tuition money to go to something like this. But then, I thought about tax money. Do we as a people really know where all of our tax money goes? Maybe not, but we do know one place where our money is being funneled into: The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the “non-war” in Libya. I think it is pretty safe to say that the country as a whole does not agree with these foreign military excursions and yet, our money is being used to fund them. What is the difference between these two instances? In both instances, there are people who are for and against the events in question and the events are both very controversial. I don’t pretend to have all of the answers, but how can someone be this upset with a professor at Northwestern University for allocating money to this sexuality demonstration, which bothers the sensibilities of some individuals when our government allocates our tax money to fund wars in which thousands have died?
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