Corrupt Education
Berkeley Class Explores 'Gothic Porn,' Sex
Toys, and 'Self-Castration'
by Sara Russo
"Male Sexuality,"a University of California-Berkeley course,
has provoked criticism from California State Senator Ray Haynes
who believes that its X-rated content, which encourages students
to rent pornographic movies and asks that they discuss the
use of whips and "strap-ons" for credit, constitutes an unwarranted
expenditure of public funds.
"If the taxpayers knew that we were teaching students essentially
what they used to learn in fraternities without taxpayer dollars,
the taxpayers would be unhappy. We don't send our kids to
these colleges for teachers to do what fraternities used to
do for free," Haynes told Campus Report. "My argument is not
'don't do this.' My argument is 'don't force the taxpayers
to pay for it.' They can say whatever they want, but we don't
have to give them the money for it."
According to Cory Abshear, a student who took the class last
semester, topics studied in the course included the socialization
of gender, erotica and pornography, partner sex, contraception
and sexually transmitted diseases, masturbation, and the "castration
debate" faced by transgendered males who feel they are meant
to be female.
During the section of the course devoted to self-pleasure
and self-exploration, students were asked to write papers
on their first masturbatory experience. "If we had not yet
masturbated then we were to write about why we chose not to,"
Abshear reports. "All the papers were anonymous and passed
out for the class to read. We talked about masturbation and
its taboo place in society. We discussed how we feel there
is nothing wrong with self-exploration."
The study of pornography in the course was extensive. "We
watched multiple clips of porno ranging from soft porn to
gay porn to gothic porn. We also had a guest lecturer who
is a porn star [Nina Hartley] come in and talk to us," Abshear
explained. The movie Fight Club was also viewed, because "it
has been seen as an epitome of macho men."
Matthew McBride, a class lecturer, argues that studying porn
is warranted. "We encourage them to go out and rent porn movies
and other sexually explicit stuff," he said, "so they might
witness other people having sex in ways they're not accustomed
to and to come back and talk about that."
Guest speakers frequently addressed the class, including
representatives from a local sex shop, Good Vibrations, a
member of NOHARM, which opposes castration, and sexologist
Carol Queen, who discussed "the world of sex, ranging from
anal to oral."
Final group projects for the course were conducted on a large
variety of topics. One group staged fake fights in public
to see if bystanders would intervene. Two ex-navy officers
discussed masochism in the navy's initiation rituals. One
individual spent the day in drag and recorded people's reactions
while another group of students tested the effect of alcohol
on the rate of orgasm.
"Haynes objects to the inclusion of these topics in the
classroom on the grounds that they don't constitute legitimate
education. "The college needs to have substantive stuff like
history and philosophy and mathematics and things that are
focused on academics, he told Campus Report. "There are a
lot of things that go on in the university that have absolutely
nothing to do with preparing someone to think in a free society."
Abshear, who took "Male Sexuality" this past semester, is
quick to defend the course. "It wasn't just about sex toys
and porno. It was about sexuality and [the] male psyche,"
Abshear explained. "It covered such diverse fields as transgendered
people in society and the debate on castration. This class
served as the next step in Sex Ed, taking up where pitiful
high school classes left off."
The impetus for creating "Male Sexuality" came not from Berkeley
professors, but from students. Through a program known as
de-cal, which stands for "democratic education at Cal" students
are able to devise their own class and receive credit for
it, as long as they can find a faculty sponsor willing to
sign off on their proposed curricula.
Berkeley readily admits that most of these "democratically"
arrived at courses are unconventional, "reaching beyond the
academic mainstream." A website devoted to describing the
program states, "Many de-cal courses focus on questions of
race, language, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation and
other important issues that face us all."
While Berkeley's guide on "how to start a de-cal class" does
attempt to dissuade students from forming classes lacking
in academic content, critics point out that they have done
a poor job policing the courses. The official instructions
given by Berkeley's website state, "While we at the decal
program encourage all students to develop their course ideas,
it is also important that courses contain academic value in
order to maintain the integrity of the program and ensure
faculty participation. A class designed to study the fine
taste of imported ales, for example, or to swoon over the
greatness of Joe Montana may not be added to the decal roster."
While this year's list of decal courses did not include the
clearly prohibited topics of beer and football greats, "B-Boyin,"
a "theory and dance performance course focused around the
Hip Hop dance of b-boying (breakdancing)" did make the cut.
"Comic Books: The Bastard Child" made the cut too. "Seinfeld"
is a course aimed at enabling students to "compare and contrast
Seinfeld's comedic formula with those of other popular humorous
mediums."
"Male Sexuality" is not alone among de-Cal courses in featuring
porn. "Female Sexuality" attempts to provide "a safe environment
for women to learn about their bodies and their sexuality"
by studying "anatomy and physiology, orgasms, masturbation,
partner sex, fantasies, and sexual diversity," and "The Erotic
as Power " seeks to explore "sexuality and the nature of desire."
Haynes' response to the use of the de-Cal program to create
courses like "Male Sexuality" is adamant and succinct: "We
hire administrators who are supposedly very smart guys, very
smart men and women, with very expensive degrees in just this
kind of stuff to oversee and make sure that the dollars aren't
wasted and that administratively, the place runs correctly.
Obviously they've abdicated their responsibility."
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