Fallout from Northwestern 'Sex' class sparks memories
That controversial, spur-of-the-moment sex-toy demonstration after a class at Northwestern University has critics and the talk-radio circuit abuzz with the sort of bawdy viciousness and mocking generally reserved for Charlie Sheen. The story just brings back fond memories for me.
As a college senior who had completed all the mandatory classes required for graduation from Northwestern University, I had room on my schedule for one elective sociology class just for fun. I chose “Sex.”
Didn't know what the class was about. Didn't care. Just knew that while some of my classmates had to finish up a math requirement or take a class that would look good on their law school application, I was among a collection of students that featured lots of sorority women and a few journalism majors free to enjoy “Sex.”
“Sex” remains one of the most memorable classes of my college career, but not for the reasons I envisioned.
Going to college during an era of sex and drugs and rock ‘n' roll, I wasn't exactly a triple threat. I learned that watching “Deep Throat” with a bunch of sorority women wearing trench coats during a university-sponsored “porn night” is surprisingly boring, and I regret passing up a chance to see The Ramones because the $12 ticket was just too pricey. When my roomie (we were matched through our status as drug virgins) hauled our sheets to the Laundromat most every Friday afternoon to make sure they would be clean in the event of an unexpected weekend guest, it was the equivalent of Cubs brass spending time mapping out parade routes for all those World Series celebrations.
But I had great expectations for my “Sex” class, which turned out to be a tale of two studies. Initially, the class fulfilled the sophomoric longings of my senior self. One of our first homework assignments required us to read a Playboy magazine. Being the scholarly type, I remember studying parts of the magazine the professor hadn't even assigned.
I laughed when our classroom poll revealed that the one thing women overwhelmingly envied about men wasn't our power and status throughout history, but our ability to urinate standing up. The female students, suspecting men would envy their ability to give birth, laughed harder when they discovered the one thing we envied about them was their ability to have multiple orgasms.
We broke into small study groups once a week. Mine included one other guy I knew from journalism classes and a half-dozen sorority women who chatted so frankly I worried they might scream when they realized I was in the room. The women would talk openly about their love lives and express fears that they weren't good enough at some sexual acts. The erotic became the informative.
During one class, a prostitute came to explain her typical work day. She talked in great detail about the services she provided to her married clients. Her assertion that some clients needed to pay her because they had about as much chance of finding free sex as a blind man led to the only complaint _ from a blind student who assured her he wasn't as desperate as she thought.
But the professor, a woman who had been in the first class of females to graduate from Yale, knew what she was doing. While giving us the steady dose of titillating sexual topics, she also made us read Betty Friedan's “The Feminine Mystique,” Alix Kates Shulman's “Memoirs of an Ex-Prom Queen” and essays that put everything in perspective. Our “Sex” class brought together males and females, gave both genders empathy and understanding about the opposite sex, and set the foundation for me becoming the feminist I am today.
Admittedly, it's difficult for all of us second-guessers to see the educational value of what appears to be an ill-advised power tool/sex-toy demonstration at Northwestern now. But three decades after my “Sex” class with porn and a prostitute, I've really come to appreciate what that surprising class taught me.