essentially a motorized phallus
"We can rebuild him -- we have the technology."
Who was demonstrating this and why? A vibrator salesperson? somebody who felt deeply that a bunch of people in their late teens and early 20s needed to be taught how to masturbate? Does not compute.
He estimated at least 20 students began "trickling out" due to the warning.
Think about baseball stats! Think about baseball stats! Aww, crap.
2: It was to demonstrate female ejaculation.
I don't think the comparison in the original post is fair. How do we know that woman isn't married to the fucksaw?
does the fact is was a female make them more alike, or less.
"Everybody's blowing it out of proportion," Wilson said. "It's one small thing. It's an intense thing, but it's a small thing."
I'm sure a larger size is available.
Gives new meaning to the local SLC paragliders' references to "flying off the Y," am I right?
Fine. When I read things like "Davies, a sophomore from Provo High School, acknowledged his transgression to BYU officials on Monday," I think of a college kid, alone in a room with a bunch of cheap suits, hearing threats that he doesn't know they can't back up, like "no school will accept you as a transfer" and "you'll have to repay the value your scholarship immediately if you don't sign this."
no school will accept you as a transfer
They told him no other school would want him, now that he's not a virgin?
9: They probably busted his chops to the tune of "other schools really respect the BYU honor code; they totally don't laugh at us and our modestly-dressed sorority girls from their Heliogabalan orgy porches."
Fun to say aloud: "orgy porches"
I teach at a Religious College, and while it's not as strict as BYU, it is even more culturally isolated. For many of my students, I am the first person they've ever really spoken to who isn't a devout member of their religion. They ask me all kinds of questions about what it's like to be me. None of them seems to be jealous, but they're definitely completely unaware of the extent to which other people consider various behaviors normal.
How do we know that woman isn't married to the fucksaw?
She is engaged to the person manipulating the fucksaw.
While I am all in favor of live sex in front of undergraduates, everything I know about Michael Bailey tells me he is a crappy scientist.
re: 11
My wife works in London, with ostensibly cosmopolitan Londoners, but she gets asked a surprising number of awkward questions of that type by employees from cultural backgrounds where girls/young-women aren't allowed/supposed to ask those questions.
11: "We wanted a wraparound orgy porch, but the historic preservation board would permit only a three-quarters sex deck."
Speaking of widely mocked and hedonistic professors of the social sciences, this piece about Darryl Bem is quite interesting.
...completely unaware of the extent to which other people consider various behaviors normal.
The things considered normal in my environment at the point where I was figuring out sex, love, and romance were so constrained that cunnilingus was considered extremely racy.
15: I knew someone would put that in a comment here.
Anyone else have any idea how the BYU officials first got wind of Davies' sex-life (particularly, that he had one with another person), what the evidence was of it, what led him to acknowledge it, etc.?
One possibility is that he's a believing Mormon who agrees that he should be kicked off the team and just confessed, I suppose.
16: In this environment, making physical contact with a man who is not a family member, or being alone in a room with an unrelated-to-you man is very, very racy. (Male teachers hold office hours with the door open.) Kissing is way out of the question.
So when a student does go beyond that somehow, they really feel they have nowhere to turn, and it usually is a sign they're trapped in abusive relationships of some sort. A few of them come from less isolated communities, but most of them would never dream of, e.g., kissing before marriage.
I've always imagined that orgies would just replicate the awkward social dynamics of regular parties. Like, you'd be stuck dry-humping someone who is really quite boring and looking for a way to politely extricate yourself and sidle up to the cool people, but you know if you did that the cool people would just all decide they need to get drinks or lube or something because as far as they are concerned, you are the boring person, and you don't really want to hurt the feelings of the boring person, but this just doesn't do it for you, and well maybe I should just go home.
22: Yes, 100%, this is why I never go to orgies. My girlfriend and her husband used to go rather often, and there were all-girl ones she wanted me to escort her to, but I have my limits. It sounds totally awkward.
I had an excellent first-time group sex experience, which led me to hope for great things, but nothing since has been as fun or cool.
21.last: Wow. At least the Amish have Rumspringa to let off a bit of pressure.
re: 21
Yeah. My wife has a work colleague who is in her 20s, and about to get married, but who has never kissed a man, and whose only knowledge of sex came from high school sex education classes which seem to have rather freaked her out. This despite living in London, and working an ordinary job. She's not a socially isolated person, and not abused. She's quite excited about getting married, and likes her husband to be, but completely freaked out and ignorant about almost everything to do with relationships and sex. I suppose in many ways it's not that different from most people, but she's going through it older.
23.last: Charlie Sheen just went off the rails for a bit. He'll be back.
22: And loitering nervously over by the pretzels and chips doesn't work nearly as well.
22: yes!! And the food is bad but the drinks are good, and somehow you find yourself still there as it dwindles down when you really should have escaped hours ago...
I had an excellent first-time group sex experience
I'm with your students, I too have awkward questions about what it's like to be you.
Also, office hours with the door open has always seemed like a good default to me - male or female students.
I just got very lucky is all. Or not lucky at all, since it set up a series of expectations for my life that were completely inaccurate.
I have awkward questions about local bond financing (how much various swaps are costing) and why one of my neighbors keeps an immovable car in a street parking spot instead of their own driveway.
why one of my neighbors keeps an immovable car in a street parking spot instead of their own driveway.
Same reason the person who lives upstairs from me parks their Merc SUV diagonally across two parking spaces rather than bother to reverse into one, I expect.
You can see how that would be awkward for her to state in response to my question.
(Male teachers hold office hours with the door open.)
I would never have a student in my office with the door closed, unless only for the length of the discussion of something with sensitive content. Or another faculty member, for that member. I don't think it really matters, but it would feel strange to close the door.
32: Because they really want someone to key it and slash the tires?
34: Even when you're having sex with them? Hot!
35: I did make her get it inspected and licensed last year by threatening to call the city. Once the tags expire, they will tow.
OT: Yglesias's spelling is turning into what has to be intentional comedy:
Jackie Calmes NYT piece on Bill Daley and David Plouffe is obviously a beet-sweetener
Even when you're having sex with them? Hot!
I've never had sex with a student in my office with the door open.
I am a little annoyed by the Northwestern class, insofar as: why isn't there also a man showing what it's like to penetrate a fleshlight? I'm being serious, actually. Also, was the woman talking during the presentation and interacting with the group, or was she treated like a prop?
or was she treated like a prop?
The motor was way too strong if that was the case.
40: I'm guessing that anyone who can have an orgasm and ejaculate in front of an audience probably gets off on having an orgasm and ejaculating in front of an audience. It's probably easier if you don't also have to interact with the audience. I sure couldn't do it.
Too bad. Your RateMyProfessor score would go through the roof.
and why one of my neighbors keeps an immovable car in a street parking spot instead of their own driveway.
You should call an irresistable tow truck and answer an ancient conundrum.
Do some professors still meet with students with the door closed? I can't even imagine such a thing. Colleagues, yes. Students, no way.
Also, through the years unfogged has introduced me to goatse, two girls one cup, and now the fleshlight (such a fantastic name from the guys in marketing). I thank you all (well, Apo and now heebie) for broadening my horizons.
This MeFi post was brought to mind by some of AWB's comments above. (I can only assume that the thread is godawful; I'm just talking about the post and its links itself.)
45 Don't forget the Human Centipede! Though I'll warn you now, in all seriousness, you want no part of One Man One Jar.
Some background on the NU prof. I'm sure he's a fun teacher, but he doesn't strike me as a particularly good guy.
Wow. I assume 46 refers to the last link in the MeFi post, which is totally totally fascinating.
46: I was just going to post a link to that. (In particular, to this post on the blog linked in that post.)
Oh, pwned by 12. Sigh.
Back in Deutschland; I'm really not impressed by the rigor of the border controls here.
51: Do the French keep out the pwned?
I'm guessing that anyone who can have an orgasm and ejaculate in front of an audience probably gets off on having an orgasm and ejaculating in front of an audience. It's probably easier if you don't also have to interact with the audience.
That doesn't make her not a prop. There should be a male prop as well.
everything I know about Michael Bailey tells me he is a crappy scientist.
Oh, it was Bailey who did this? Well, the Fucksaw wasn't the biggest dick in the class.
54: I don't know anything about it, but back in 4, peep says that the point was to demonstrate female ejaculation. If that was the point, making the demonstrator female-only makes sense.
Your point still stands, in that the next week's demonstration should probably have been some dude demonstrating being brought to orgasm by stimulation from a vibrating butt-plug alone. And I doubt that happened.
"The Fucksaw" is still available as a pseudonym.
There isn't much controversy/curiosity about the existence of male ejaculation.
57: Not if you're going to go spoil the mystery for everbody at the Harris Teeter.
I think 'fucksaw' should be a verb, part of a college culture debased far beyond hook-ups; "you run into Stephanie?" "oh, yeah, I fucksaw her at the party yesterday."
I mostly spoil the mystery at Kroger, because I'm a feminist they're a union shop.
Heebie gets it right in 40 and 53.
I've been around here way too long to suggest that the live sex demonstration seems over the top. A video wouldn't do?
61.2: You've got to figure that more than a few university administrators are looking to see if they can't put, "No touching genitals in the classroom" into the rule book.
I'm not sure about the number of ways NW could get sued over this, but the risk is clearly not trivial.
61: I don't know anything about the professor that I didn't just learn during this thread, but here's his statement about it.
When I read things like "Davies, a sophomore from Provo High School, acknowledged his transgression to BYU officials on Monday," I think of a college kid, alone in a room with a bunch of cheap suits, hearing threats that he doesn't know they can't back up, like "no school will accept you as a transfer" and "you'll have to repay the value your scholarship immediately if you don't sign this."
More likely they already knew the details from the other party and told him something they could very well back up, such as "be honest in your interview and it might mean probation rather than expulsion".
Anyone else have any idea how the BYU officials first got wind of Davies' sex-life (particularly, that he had one with another person), what the evidence was of it, what led him to acknowledge it, etc.?
Either got ratted out by the girl when she got all guilty and confessed or was ratted out by one of their roommates who knew they were banging and disapproved. I know the roommate thing sounds nuts but it happens all the time. In addition to adhering to the code students are told it's important to report violations by other students to the administration.
66: I'm thinking it was all a plot by a rival team.
67: Crock-Pots have developed the ability to field NCAA-quality teams! Run.
61: Wait, "right" about what? We don't know how the woman was treated or what other demonstrations were done.
True, we don't, but I like judging people, and this prof seems like someone who uses others for voyeuristic thrills / fame. So I'll assume that's what we're dealing with.
70: That was kind of my thought. If you want to use sex to get the paper, drop your own trousers.
Wait, "right" about what?
If not right, then wrong about what?
64 just looks extraordinarily dumb to me. The professor brings this guy in for a lecture/discussion, and at the actual event, the guy offers to perform a live sex demonstration with a woman who's come with him. There's no prior planning or deliberation about it, and the professor goes ahead with it because he can't, in a few moment's thought, come up with a good reason why not?
Doing a demonstration like that after thinking about it and informing students what was coming might have been reasonable. Doing it off the cuff like he did seems really dimwitted.
When I say 64 looks dumb, I mean of course that the prof's statement linked in 64 looks dumb.
The statement in 61 contains this great line justifying the performance:
The demonstration, which included a woman who enjoyed providing a sexually explicit demonstration using a machine, surely counts as kinky, and hence as relevant.
Personally, I think this smells like a totally bullshit college class, but what do I know.
73: If he had said no, he would seemed like a total square. He had no choice.
this prof seems like someone who uses others for voyeuristic thrills / fame tries to identify students he'd like to date by observing which ones attend a live demonstration of a fucksaw.
73.last is my take.
There's a certain kind of academic who's so wedded to notions of academic freedom and free expression that they lose all contact with reality. This guy seems to be one of them.
76 take 2: If he had said no, he would have seemed like a total square. He had no choice.
64: That makes it sound as though the decision to provide a live-sex demonstration (rather than a video) was rather spur of the moment, when KenMB made the proposal on his way up to the stage. Or am I misreading that?
It's a little unclear: apparently this was the first time Bailey provided a live-sex demonstration rather than conversations/panel discussions and presentations. And he incorporated it into his syllabus, as it were, after 5 minutes' thought.
I think my questions about the live-sex demo aspect have to do with, as Heebie said, the gender disparity (really should have had another demonstration featuring a man), and, to be honest, specifics about the female and male performers: were they hott? Was she fully shaved? The line between educational demonstration and porn is thin if you don't pay attention to questions of the woman's (and/or man's) physical attributes. It would be lovely if such questions were irrelevant, but I don't think they are. As Heebie said, if the woman was essentially a prop, there's a problem to my mind.
Also did she actually ejaculate? The original article said she was repeatedly brought to the point of orgasm (without reaching it). I don't get what the students were supposed to be learning: that there's such a thing as female ejaculation? Well, yes there is: here's a video showing it.
Plus! Using sex toys isn't kinky, and neither is enjoying being watched. This guy's argument totally fails!!!
Er, 64. Also, "Fucksaw" is a great metal band name.
80 pwned by 73. I was working myself up into exclamation points.
Are we still not allowed to bring up Monty Python? Because this is starting to remind me of the John Cleese sex-ed class in The Meaning of Life.
80: Something can still be porn if the performers are not fully shaved or "hott." I'd hate to think we live in a world where a fat woman masturbating is clearly a "demonstration" while a thin woman masturbating is "porn."
The question is whether a pornographic performance is always inappropriate. I am not a good person to ask because I teach pornographic literature pretty frequently, not for the purpose of stimulating my students, but in order to discuss the relationship of sexuality to aesthetic representation.
I teach pornographic literature pretty frequently, not for the purpose of stimulating my students
Don't you want to stimulate your students?
Or is that what office hours are for?
"Fucksaw" is a great metal band name
I teach pornographic literature pretty frequently
I have a copy of Lady Chatterley's Lover that has mastered "sit" and "play dead." I've been having trouble with "fetch."
Moby, stop trying to make fetch happen! It's not going to happen!
Using sex toys isn't kinky, and neither is enjoying being watched
Maybe I'm getting old but something like "guy watches girlfriend in their bedroom with a vibrator" doesn't really seem to be on the same level as a live demonstration of a fucksaw on a college campus.
Because this is starting to remind me of the John Cleese sex-ed class in The Meaning of Life.
So exactly right.
Actually I'm pretty sure using sex toys during sex and enjoying being watched having sex are both kinky. What's wrong with that?
I now want to work the word "fucksaw" into every conversation.
Yeah, I'm afraid I side with gswift in 89 against Parsimon. We're talking about a Fucksaw here, for christ's sake, and in front of 600 undergrads. How high do you intend to raise the kinkiness bar?!
Actually I'm pretty sure using sex toys during sex and enjoying being watched having sex are both kinky. What's wrong with that?
That students are watching?
91 is confusing things. If somebody doesn't think it's wrong, than it's not kinky.
fucksaw' should be a verb
There's actually a German cognate with a separable prefix.
with a separable prefix.
Detachable fucksaw?
I teach pornographic literature pretty frequently, not for the purpose of stimulating my students, but in order to discuss the relationship of sexuality to aesthetic representation.
That seems fine and like it could be educationally very useful, though obviously it needs to be done really, really well and with a lot of sensitivity. Having a not-for-credit speakers series in which you demonstrate physical ejaculation on a "fucksaw," and which you haven't planned beyond saying "why not?" when asked if it's cool to put on the performance, not so much.
94: Parsimon's charge was that it is entirely unkinky to use sex toys during sex or enjoy being watched. I'm not trying to be an asshole here, but I find it troubling how intensely people who engage in queer or kinky practices attempt to relinquish solidarity with the queer community by claiming whatever they're into is perfectly normal. Presumably this is not Parsi's intention. I just got in an argument with a friend about this recently, as she explained that her new boyfriend definitely does not want to be seen as some kinda queer just because he enjoys bondage, toys, and videotape. What's wrong with defending the rights of queer people?
Er, 64. Also, "Fucksaw" is a great metal band name.
Googling, it appears that "Fucksaw" is indeed a band, and you can view them performing their song "Ass to Mouth" here.
AWB, do you teach pornographic literature to the same students that you discussed in 11? That sounds challenging!
100, cont'd: likewise the denial that what one finds stimulating could possibly be called "porn" because it doesn't fit one's stereotype of what porn is because porn=bad.
Also, just so we're all clear about what's what, this is a Fucksaw (the page spells it "Fuck Saw," but that's crazy.):
84.1: I'd hate to think we live in a world where a fat woman masturbating is clearly a "demonstration" while a thin woman masturbating is "porn."
I know what you mean, and I'm not sure what to say about it, to be completely honest, except that I think people (some people, a lot of people?) do make that distinction. It's not necessarily to do with thin vs. fat, but with conventionally attractive vs. not conventionally attractive. Also, I'm not sure if this matters, but she wasn't masturbating: she was being fucked.
84.2: The question is whether a pornographic performance is always inappropriate.
I'm going back and forth on where the burden of defense lies: with those who'd avoid live-sex performances if they're not necessary for pedagogical purposes, or with those who'd argue that they shouldn't need to avoid them them and don't need to be on the defensive in the first place.
I guess there's a tension between "everyone does this [bondage/sex toys whatever]"! "it's totally normal!" "no worries" and "sure, I'm into weird stuff, but it's totally cool to be weird." The former seems to be just pushing out the edge of the line-drawing for acceptable sexuality, rather than giving up on it completely.
Still seems like this particular demonstration is a mistake for a college class. I mean, I don't really care, but this does seem like a fairly bullshitty thing for a college course to be doing. Although, I got college credit for a wine tasting course.
That does make things clearer for me, x. I had been assuming fucksaw was something you did to get eyebabies.
102: I don't go quite as far. I definitely teach plenty about queer desire, and texts that use sex and sexuality as key plot points, but I tend to avoid literature written for the purpose of representing in great detail, say, the sensations of orgasm. I've had a few students express reservations about a few texts, but mostly they're grateful to be treated like adults who are capable of reading things they don't do themselves without fainting away.
Call in the next 15 minutes and you'll receive two Vac-U-Lock Adapters at no extra cost.
"Fucksaw" is indeed a band
From Wisconsin!
conventionally attractive vs. not conventionally attractive
Even very mainstream porn doesn't really maintain this division. There are some very pretty girls and boys, but I think there's quite a bit of variety nowadays. This may be relatively new?
http://www.myspace.com/fucksawusa
she was being fucked.
Fucksawed.
At least they were using a safe professional fucksaw instead of the unfortunate DIY variety.
This thread is tearing me in half between my native prudery ("Fucksaw"? I hate this godless culture) and my conviction that college students shouldn't rat one another out for a little fun. Cheating, plagiarizing, stealing: no one loves an informer, but defensible to bring to the attention of the authorities if the offender, confronted, refuses to confess. A spot of orgy-porching? Snitches get stitches.
100: Parsimon's charge was that it is entirely unkinky to use sex toys during sex or enjoy being watched. I'm not trying to be an asshole here, but I find it troubling how intensely people who engage in queer or kinky practices attempt to relinquish solidarity with the queer community by claiming whatever they're into is perfectly normal. Presumably this is not Parsi's intention.
It's not. I'm completely confused now, actually. I really didn't think using sex toys during sex was kinky outside the realm of downright vanilla, missionary-position views of sex. Enjoying being watched is a little more uncommon, but more in the sense of being a redhead rather than a blond or brunette: just fewer people in that category, but not bizarre.
I didn't realize this was a political issue at all. Consider me educated.
The couple didn't disclose to the professor that they're both paid reps for Fucksaw.
I now feel defensive and inadequate about how vanilla and unexciting my classes are. Thanks, Unfogged!
(I always meet with students with the door open.)
119: later that day they performed the same demo at three bars, two lumber yards and a farmer's market.
Parsimon, now I'm wondering if you're just having us on. You really don't see wanting to be Fucksawed in front of 600 college kids as kinky? This is my incredulous stare; try to refute it!
Don't be too harsh on the DiYers. From a coffee-table book roundup by a friend of mine:
Timothy Archibald's Sex Machines: Photographs and Interviews(Daniel 13/Process, 112 pages, $24.95) is a surprisingly touching glimpse into the "mom-and-pop" sector of the sex industry, profiling about two dozen independent inventors and the machines they've developed, usually in their own garages. From the self-described "divorced Christian guy, not promiscuous at all" who requires proof of marriage from all prospective clients, to the Virginian couple who commissioned a machine to maintain their otherwise "open and ambitious" sex life after the husband developed multiple sclerosis, to the 45-year-old voyeur who uses his machines to entertain hired 19-year-olds in his Kansas City home (because at his age, he says, you "gotta have a hook"), they're a diverse lot sure to challenge any blanket presumptions.
Which model Fucksaw was it? I could see doing this demo with the 8800 model. But if it was the Fucksaw 9490, well... thats just disgusting.
I mean, I get that neither sex toys nor exhibitionism really qualify, at least not separately, at least not usually, but I think this should be taken as something of a reductio to the view that the inferences hold for anything you can squeeze into those categories.
125: I'm not trying to be judge-y but I think the guy who accidentally sawzall'd his girlfriend's insides may have taken his hobby in a socially non-optimal direction.
128: Haven't you heard of individual sacrifices for the greater good?
Don't be too harsh on the DiYers.
Right. Always use a fine grade of sandpaper.
I am not really bothered by this. Halford is no doubt correct that this is somewhere in the universe of bullshit college classes, but that is not a particularly small universe as universes go. It sounds like it was put together and announced somewhat hastily, but the correction is give people a minute to leave the room.
Like all good defenders of the faith, I will bemoan the day when Maya Angelou and Fucksaw are taught instead of Shakespeare and Milton, but unlike my quicker-to-anger fellowes, I don't believe that day is yet come.
128: Since when do i have to click on a link before rebutting it? You people and your pre-Angelou-Fucksaw standards.
I Know Why The Fucksaw Catches Fire
133 also made me laugh out loud.
118: I know your attitude is different from my friend's boyfriend's, of course, even though the argument comes in the same form. You don't see what objection anyone might possibly raise to certain sexual practices, while the BF is terrified that someone might associate him with "those people." While I'd agree that a lot of people seem to enjoy things in bed that used not to be part of the standard vanilla menu, I think they are still marginal as a part of discourse about sex. (Mr. Smearcase cracked me up for like 15 minutes a few weeks ago by declaring that "Gay guys are those who like anal sex. Straight guys are those who LOVE it.") It's a political issue for me because the fact that the same people who practice all kinds of queer sex are the same people who front political movements against it says to me that there's a dangerous disconnect between practice and discourse, and that declaring whatever *I* do as normal implies (whether I mean it to or not) that there is a "queer" over there that is excluded.
A friend of mine has a table saw, the failsafe auto-stop sensitivity is such, he claims, that one could safely touch the spinning blade with one's finger and be unharmed. This feature is, typically, demonstrated with hot dogs.
unlike my quicker-to-anger fellowes
It's spelled auger.
The fucksaw thing makes me feel squicky for the same reasons Heebie and Parsimon note: wow, a woman used in a sex display, how novel and enlightening.
This is from the comments on Gawker, so take with a grain of salt, but:
Currently in this class right now. He's giving personal sex advice later. I'll keep you all posted.(Also: the woman was held down by another woman. A man on a microphone called her a slut and a whore while a fat man with a greasy ponytail went to town with the saw. They were trying to show off female ejaculation, but after five orgasms, she couldn't produce anything)"
In a following comment, the same person said "She said her kinks involved "being given away and used," and "having it done in front of a large crowd.""
But I'm sure those kinks were not at all influenced by the patriarchy.
136: Those are circular saws, at least all of them I've seen. The reciprocating saws didn't have that feature, last time I looked at them.
I thought the idea was that image is more important than action-- extramarital or gay sex is OK as long as you hate yourself for it, or at least maintain a public stance of self-loathing. Public appearance is first, private action is nothing.
Fuckseen?
Fucksawn.
My recip saw is the model pictured in the link in 115, and now I'll never be able to look at it without thinking about...urgh. Thanks, Mineshaft.
122: You really don't see wanting to be Fucksawed in front of 600 college kids as kinky?
Uh, no, that 's not what I'm saying. The Prof's statement said that
The demonstration, which included a woman who enjoyed providing a sexually explicit demonstration using a machine, surely counts as kinky, and hence as relevant.I see there's a problem with the parsing here: I read that as saying that a woman who enjoys the use of sex toys, and a woman who enjoys being watched, is kinky. BUT! I see perhaps it means that a woman who enjoys being fucksawed in front of 600 students -- actually 120 -- is kinky. I may have misunderstood what's being described as kinky.
The gawker comments sound hard to believe, but it brings up a question I have which is, can female ejaculation really be demonstrated in front of 120 people? Like given that she's got a vibrating fucksaw between her legs and another person standing there holding it, it's hard to imagine any ejaculation being visible to the audience sitting at some distance. Unless female ejaculation really is more spectacular than I ever knew.
after five orgasms, she couldn't produce anything
If they had some scrap lumber handy, they could have made a birdhouse or something, but I'd have been pretty tuckered out too.
But I'm sure those kinks were not at all influenced by the patriarchy
If something is influenced by the patriarchy, does that mean it's not a real human experience? I totally get why two non-gay girls kissing to turn on a boy is bad, because they're not even acting on their own desire to kiss each other, but what about in cases where that is an actual sexual drive? Aren't all heterosexual drives influenced in some way by the patriarchy? Does that mean it's wrong for people to act on heterosexual desires?
Also: the woman was held down by another woman. A man on a microphone called her a slut and a whore while a fat man with a greasy ponytail went to town with the saw.
That's it? Totally not kinky. (I'm going to go scratch my eyes out now)
very mainstream porn doesn't really maintain this division
tough to do with all that professional surgery that's so conventionally unattractive...
it's hard to imagine any ejaculation being visible to the audience sitting at some distance.
The lab fee is for opera glasses.
Here's a (work-safe) picture of the Fucksaw couple.
Unless female ejaculation really is more spectacular than I ever knew.
"Now that's inch think steel plate, folks, and look! The hole goes clear through!"
The lab fee is for opera glassesgoggles.
I'm with AWB in not being sure how much origin really matters in evaluating sexual desires/behaviors. That said, if the Gawker commenter is representative, the performance may well have reinforced certain problematic gender ideas for the audience, etc. Heebie ftw.
some dude demonstrating
Also, wouldn't you love to know how many out of a class of 600 would attend this optional after class event?
150: a work-safe picture doesn't help much--we need to know if she is fully shaved. The line between educational demonstration and porn is thin, after all.
If something is influenced by the patriarchy, does that mean it's not a real human experience?
Whuh? If something is influenced by the patriarchy, then a teacher should put thoughtful consideration into demonstrating it in front of a class.
157: I guess I'll quit teaching the history of literature then.
157: That's why when I taught world politics, I just stood silently at the front of the room for the whole hour.
Well, that can be easily misread.
If something is influenced by the patriarchy, does that mean it's not a real human experience?
[Inserts "authentic" for "real"; starts popcorn popper; puts feet up.]
Melvoin-Berg said he met Prof. Bailey through a swinging couple who previously spoke to the class. Melvoin-Berg runs the "Weird Chicago Red Light District Sex Tour," which has participants playing games like "spot the ho" as they travel the city looking for prostitutes.
Charming.
I guess I'll quit teaching the history of literature then.
Are you kidding? How on earth are you misreading what I'm saying so badly?
Aside from the fact that 157 can be misread raunchily. But I don't see how 157 can be read that AWB shouldn't teach anymore.
Also: the woman was held down by another woman. A man on a microphone called her a slut and a whore while a fat man with a greasy ponytail went to town with the saw.
Sounds like an outtake from The Simpsons.
Speaking of hos, I saw the first obvious streetwalker I've seen in years the other day driving home from work. So sad. I assume this is a combination of cracking down on Craigslist and the shitty economy.
163: Melvoin-Berg is also a psychic. Along with sex tours he also does ghost tours.
157: I guess I'll quit teaching the history of literature then.
Why, haven't you thought about any of it?
I saw the first obvious streetwalker I've seen in years the other day driving home from work. So sad.
What, you want them to walk home?
Speaking of hos, I saw the first obvious streetwalker I've seen in years the other day driving home from work. So sad.
Can't walk all the time.
If I'd gone with my first joke I would have been the pwner. It still wouldn't have been funny, though.
authentic
I really don't know what this means. One has experiences. One can really only know anything about one's own experiences. They are by nature subjective and respond to psychological and social stimuli as well as physical ones. BDSM sex helped me deal with and process some patriarchal damage. Then it got boring. Afterward, I had a much healthier and more independent attitude toward my life; I felt less needy to please, especially men. Was it BDSM or just getting older? Don't and can't know. But it definitely felt to me like BDSM was a symptom, not a cause, and it felt like a relief to deal with that stuff rather than ignore or repress it as if those anxieties and resentments about patriarchy didn't exist and weren't "real."
146: No, I don't mean that her desires are not valid. I am not trying to criticize the woman or her kinks, nor argue with you about sexual desire in general. (That is to say, I like you and generally don't like disagreeing with people I like.)
It just strikes me as a really typical sex show, administered by men and for men, with the help of a willing woman. I'm sure she was willing and I'm sure these were her authentic desires. I'm sure there were female students who enjoyed the show.
It's just, as kinks go, this one strikes me as the most typical male-gaze-appeasing kink they could find, and didn't bother to look for any other kink that might make the straight guys uncomfortable. For example, I doubt that next week they'll do a show where a guy gets fucksawed in the anus. That would kinky, but not titillating to the straight guys, so it's right out. Even though I'm sure there's a guy out there who would authentically enjoy it, and also list public sex as one of his kinks.
150: I can't believe I'm the first person to pick this up:
When she arrived, she thought she just would be answering students' questions and showing off sex toys they brought, including whips, paddles and a clown wig.
I don't have to say it, do I?
I was going to respond to 175 with a link, and then I was like "oh, wait, I totally shouldn't google 'wig made of dildos' while at work."
It's just, as kinks go, this one strikes me as the most typical male-gaze-appeasing kink they could find, and didn't bother to look for any other kink that might make the straight guys uncomfortable.
Do we have evidence from somewhere that the entire semester on human sexuality was focused on women with a kink for public-humiliation demonstrations? I didn't take human sexuality in college, but a friend of mine did and they really did seem to discuss a very wide variety of sexual behaviors.
IIRC the last time Bailey was in the news, it was because he flirted with some transsexuals in bars, wrote up his notes from the conversations as evidence for the hypothesis that transgender people are sexually aroused by thinking of themselvs has being the other gender, and then published it in a book without his subject's permission or even knowledge.
If he loses tenure over this one, I will not mourn.
178, cont'd: that is, it would seem odd if the entire semester was about a single topic.
180: This seems to be the only live demonstration, though.
179 just made me think about how one would best write up a IRB application for a study involving public fucksawing. This is a good thing to have thought briefly about, I think. You never know.
Probably needless to say that I agree entirely with 174.
Well, I agree entirely with 174 and 173. Comity!
She is engaged to the person manipulating the fucksaw.
I wonder where they registered. Macy's?
174 seems right to me, too. I can imagine circumstances in which a public sex display would be educational, but Bailey hasn't even begun to ask the basic questions you need to ask before you engage in any experiential learning project, including especially what exactly you are trying to teach.
Experiential learning is almost entirely about affective outcomes, not cognitive ones. How are you influencing the student's emotional development? I can't see this as having anything but negative results.
188: To be fair, though, he had only brought them in for a Q&A session.
a Q&A session
There's a joke in here, but I'm not going to be the one to attempt it.
180: I don't know what the rest of the semester was like. It is just this particular demonstration that has me nettled. It's no big deal in the grand scheme of things, to be sure.... I'm not going to write my congressman about it.
It just struck me as another way to validate the male gaze under the guise of teaching. Lesson: Women like to be called whores and fucked with machines! We learned it in class.
Again, there are women who like that, and I am not judging them. I am just saying: This one, very memorable, live demonstration could've been used to a greater, kinkier good, I think. But instead they put a naked woman on the stage and called her a slut. Okay. I'm glad she orgasmed, but that's the only real positive thing I see here.
If the teaching point was simply that women could orgasm, well... it must be a pretty remedial class.
I agree with 185. The kinks in question aren't really the, er, question, though, are they? It's whether the kinks displayed had educational value for the assembled students, beyond just: Look, some women like this sort of thing.
If I were the professor, I'd feel it incumbent upon me to hold a subsequent class or three about the issues we very smart people here on this blog have discussed regarding the matter. (Seriously. There's the patriarchy. There's that-which-informs-desire. There's the line between instruction and porn. There's conceptions of kink and the political ramifications of normalizing or rejecting it.)
why one of my neighbors keeps an immovable car in a street parking spot instead of their own driveway
My neighbors bitched about me having an immovable car in my own driveway, so really, you just can't win.
190: Well, to the extent that he didn't *plan* to stage a live sex show, but perhaps didn't think through all the implications when put on the spot, yeah, I think it is somewhat mitigating.
"These events primarily comprise speakers addressing interesting aspects of sexuality. This year, for example, we have had a panel of gay men speaking about their sex lives, a transsexual performer, two convicted sex offenders, an expert in female sexual health and sexual pleasure, a plastic surgeon, a swinging couple, and the February 21st panel led by Ken MelvoinJBerg, on 'networking for kinky people'."
195: No, that's what makes it completely insane. Deciding to go for an extra example in math class when put on the spot? Sure, why not. Deciding to go for the live fucksaw demonstration, on the spot? No, go ahead and request an afternoon to think it through.
Listen, I'm just wary of making ill-informed judgments about the ideological poverty of someone's course halfway across the country from where I am that I read an article and a half about in sources that pumped up the potentially-outraging aspects of it, especially when there's academic freedom as the issue. Fine, this guy might be a totally irresponsible dick. I can't tell that from here, and he's also not my professor, my colleague, or my employee. Anyone writing a news article about my class last night could very easily describe it as a 75-minute discussion of genital anxiety, anal sexuality, erotic uses of excrement, and furries. We talked about all those things in great detail. And if someone a thousand miles away read that article and decided I should be fired, I could be, on that basis, because I don't have academic freedom.
197: See 79.
Being exposed as a square is the worse thing that can happen to a sexologist.
198: Damn! I knew I shouldn't have skipped class!
Anyone writing a news article about my class last night could very easily describe it as a 75-minute discussion of genital anxiety, anal sexuality, erotic uses of excrement, and furries.
And here I was nervous because I told my students that a goal of a critical thinking course is to "sharpen your bullshit detector."
196: Well, in that line-up, fucksawing certainly isn't an outlier. BUT, two notes:
1) "Networking for kinky people" requires a live fucksaw demo? Really??
2) Everyone else was fully clothed and talking about their sex lives. The gay men, the transsexuals, all those other folks who are not pleasing to the straight male gaze: No live demo for you.
Whose idea was this, anyway? Both the prof and the woman agreed to it, apparently, but I'm not clear on who said, "Hey, I know what would be fun and educational..."
Lastly, I want to be clear that I'm not condemning the class or the professor, or saying that human sexuality shouldn't be studied in the classroom. I think it should, absolutely! And that no one should be shamed for their desires or their consensual acts. Not at all. But this particular demo was bound to be controversial, and any prof who didn't see that coming [hee hee] is being disingenuous at best.
(Wow, the blog linked in 46/50 is really poignant.)
"Networking for kinky people" requires a live fucksaw demo?
Maybe it was a Bluetooth fucksaw.
Anyone writing a news article about my class last night could very easily describe it as a 75-minute discussion of genital anxiety, anal sexuality, erotic uses of excrement, and furries.
Isn't part of the point here, though, that discussion and exhibition are two very different things?
198: That's a valid fear, that people could paint your course and his course with the same brush and not see the educational value in the explicit discussions in your classroom.
Maybe it's just because I know you and so give your classroom the benefit of the doubt, but the educational potential seems clear to me in the case of your classroom.
I'm actually not even against using live people here. I'm just annoyed that it's a woman as prop, showcasing titillating sexuality, and no other kind.
Doing a demonstration like that after thinking about it and informing students what who was coming might have been reasonable
"[W]hat" just really seems to reinforce Heebie's argument that this woman was being treated as a prop.
I'm actually not even against using live people here.
Or anyone, really, as long as they've filled out their necrocard.
AWB, I have no objections to talking about furries, fucksaws, erotic uses of excrement, or any of those things.
If, however, you showed your students a live reenactment of 2 girls, 1 cup, I would probably object. Not enough to get you fired, but I'd voice doubts to the educational validity of it. In the comments on Unfogged. As one does.
Anyone writing a news article about my class last night could very easily describe it as a 75-minute discussion of genital anxiety, anal sexuality, erotic uses of excrement, and furries.
Which is why you teach the best Milton class ever.
The professor's response to 197 doesn't sound insane:
I hesitated only briefly before saying "yes." My hesitation concerned the likelihood that many people would find this inappropriate. My decision to say "yes" reflected my inability to come up with a legitimate reason why students should not be able to watch such a demonstration. After all, those still there had stayed for an optional demonstration/lecture about kinky sex and were told explicitly what they were about to see. The demonstration, which included a woman who enjoyed providing a sexually explicit demonstration using a machine, surely counts as kinky, and hence as relevant. Furthermore, earlier that day in my lecture I had talked about the attempts to silence sex research, and how this largely reflected sex negativity. I have had previous experiences with these silencing attempts myself. I did not wish, and I do not wish, to surrender to sex negativity and fear.
212: That addresses prudish reactions (like my initial response), but it ignores Heebie's prop argument.
212: Right, I'm using "insane" rather lightly. It sounds like terribly rushed classroom planning.
So what I left out that was also discussed was erotic dismemberment, suicidal desires, bondage, gigantism, pony play, adult babies...
Everyone else was fully clothed and talking about their sex lives. The gay men, the transsexuals, all those other folks who are not pleasing to the straight male gaze: No live demo for you.
I can't speak for the professor, obviously, but if you take 212 at face value, he's have probably allowed live demos in any of those cases, if they were offered.
And cannibalism! I knew I forgot a big one.
198: I haven't seen anyone (here, anyway) saying that Bailey should be fired or stripped of tenure -- except for Helpy-Chalk upthread, but that was on the basis of Bailey's academic research. I'll go out on a limb and say that everyone here's agreed that academic freedom trumps a hell of a lot; that doesn't mean we can't ask questions.
he's have probably allowed live demos in any of those cases, if they were offered.
Yes, he might have. Yet he should think through the implications of this being the only demo he's being offered.
220: and what are the implications of that? I'm confused.
214: First, at least part of what he's saying is just untrue:
After all, those still there had stayed for an optional demonstration/lecture about kinky sex and were told explicitly what they were about to see.. If the demonstration wasn't planned, the students weren't told explicitly what they were about to see.
Also, his argument that applies equally to literally any exhibition of kinky sex -- there's no indication that he considered any possible factors that might weigh in the direction of it being a bad idea. Would his argument have been any different if the proposed demonstration had been bukkake? Simulated gang-rape? That's all kinky, and therefore relevant. Without some indication that he had a sense that there would be anything inappropriate for a class demonstration, his argument still sounds pretty loopy.
"Surrender to Cannibalism" is a great name for a Fucksaw album.
and what are the implications of that? I'm confused.
What Wrenae's been saying. That the only live demo the class sees is one that totally titillates the straight male gaze.
So what I left out that was also discussed was erotic dismemberment, suicidal desires, bondage, gigantism, pony play, adult babies...
Those must be some lengthy class periods you have at your institution if you can fit all that in.
Some of my best friends are straight males with eyes.
Sometimes even I'm titillating.
I haven't seen anyone (here, anyway) saying that Bailey should be fired or stripped of tenure -- except for Helpy-Chalk upthread, but that was on the basis of Bailey's academic research.
The combination of his research ethics and his teaching ethics, really. I think he's been consistently irresponsible. Its not for me to decide, though. I shouldn't just yell "off with his head" based on the few things I know of him.
229: those all kinda got rolled into one case study. Once you've chopped the legs off, the diaper soaks up some of the blood, and once the guy's tied to the miniature horse he can at least get around until he bleeds to death.
the only live demo the class sees is one that totally titillates the straight male gaze
It could have been the first live demo, but I'd say the reaction probably ensures that it will be the only one.
"My grandma was like, wow, Northwestern is a little bit different then [sic] when I went there," said NW senior Justin Smith.
From the Sun-Times article to which apo linked. Prof. Bailey: encouraging intergenerational dialog.
If the demonstration wasn't planned, the students weren't told explicitly what they were about to see.
Huh? The students were told explicitly what they were about to see. And a few dozen then chose to leave before seeing it. What am I missing? Did they need more notice, in order to make an educated decision?
NW s/b NU, apparently. Sorry, Wildcats.
Did they need more notice, in order to make an educated decision?
Yes. What about students who are embarrassed to get up and leave, or just taken aback, or slow to react, etc, etc, etc?
236: I'd think the main need for greater notice would be to be certain the demonstrators were really consenting willingly. Greater planning would help for other things.
I'm sympathetic to the argument in 238, although I'm not sure I would ultiamtely agree with it, but I don't see how that makes it "just untrue" that they "were told explicitly what they were about to see."
Would his argument have been any different if the proposed demonstration had been bukkake? Simulated gang-rape?
Should it have been?
236: It's not clear to me how well in advance or how clearly the students were informed. From the link in 150:
"I didn't expect to see a live sex show," said Justin Smith, 21, a senior economics and political science major who was in the after-class session. "We were told we were going to have some people talk to us about the fetish world and kink."
Smith said it took him awhile to process what happened, but he doesn't object to the way the material was presented.
236: They didn't make the choice to stay for the optional demonstration/lecture on the basis of having been informed that they were going to see a woman penetrated with a fucksaw. Instead, they had chosen to stay for a lecture, and had the demonstration sprung on them. Dollars to doughnuts there were at least some people who wouldn't have chosen to stay for the sex show if they'd known about it ahead of time, but felt conspicuously wimpy leaving in the middle.
Whoops, sorry about the formatting error in 242. Everything after the colon should be a block quote.
243: And others that would have stayed for the lecture, if they had known there was going to be live sex demonstration.
Everything after the colon should be a block quote.
Live sex demo in typesetting class!
240: But you're right -- I read the sentence as saying "This was my thought process as I considered whether the demonstration was a good idea. First, I thought, the students have already been told explicitly what they are about to see." At that point, when he was making the decision, they hadn't been, so under that reading, what he's saying is untrue.
It didn't click that you could also read it as "Before the demonstration actually took place, the students were told explicitly what they were about to see."
Dollars to doughnuts there were at least some people who wouldn't have chosen to stay for the sex show if they'd known about it ahead of time, but felt conspicuously wimpy leaving in the middle.
I'm sure there were. I thought the prof. was acknowledging this when he said: "My hesitation concerned the likelihood that many people would find this inappropriate. "
I thought "My hesitation concerned the likelihood that many people would find this inappropriate. " referred to people noyt in the class.
But ethical consideration aside, can we at least agree that the fucksaw is a significant technological improvement over the fuckaxe?
250: let alone the sharpened fuckstick.
241: I'd think that either of those would probably be inappropriate live demonstrations in an undergraduate human sexuality class, yes. And so I'd think that a thought process not addressing any possible negatives of such demonstrations would be seriously incomplete.
249 seems maximally uncharitable. Although, based on some of the other comments in this thread, maybe that's the best way to interpret this professor's statements. I don't know anything about this guy. But still.
252: care to elaborate? I'm asking because I'm genuinely not sure I see a clear line between either of those and a fucksaw.
254: Or making a roast chicken while wearing a clown wig and pantsless. All pretty much the same.
18: I was really confused about how BYU found out about Davies, but a little poking around on the internet found a rumor that his girlfriend is pregnant. That's the first suggestion that really made sense to me.
254: I'm not sure I do either -- that was kind of my point, trying to come up with something that would be an easy call as 'not really appropriate for a live demonstration in an undergrad class,' and then noting that the professor didn't seem to be drawing any kind of distinction between the demonstration that he thought was appropriate, with the fucksaw, and something that might be inappropriate. In the absence of consideration of such a distinction, it doesn't sound to me as if he thought about this enough.
45: What about graduate students? I definitely was in professors' offices with the door closed in graduate school.
For starters, simulating rape would very certainly require a great deal more notice to the students. The odds that it isn't a personal issue for at least one of them are very small. And anything where body fluids switch people in an academic setting requires forms, forms, and more forms.
258: I never was. I think it would have felt slightly weird to me. I did go over to my advisor's house from time to time, though.
And anything where body fluids switch people in an academic setting requires forms, forms, and more forms.
Sounds like the voice of long bitter experience.
I've never really thought whether the door was open or shut.
It's not a big leap from fucksaw to a fucksawhorse.
simulating rape would very certainly require a great deal more notice to the students. The odds that it isn't a personal issue for at least one of them are very small.
I'm not sure that this qualifies as a distinction, though. In this demonstration, you had a naked woman being held down and penetrated while being called a slut. Despite the fact that I take it as given that it really was her thing, and was totally consensual, if we're worried about students in the audience with a history of sexual violence being triggered, I'd think there's a real risk there.
267: True, which moves me even more to the "he didn't think things through" camp.
258: I never close the door when I meet with students. Ever. I will, if the matter under discussion is unusually sensitive (Just don't, apo, okay?), close the door most of the way. But even then, I leave it open a crack (Seriously, apo, there's no need.).
I'm sure I have no idea what you're on about, Fuckwafer.
The whole close the door thing is bizarre. I mean, I get the desire to signal that no inappropriate behavior is going on, but really? Aren't students going to have to encounter situations in which they are ALONE with OLDER PEOPLE WITH POWER in rooms with CLOSED DOORS in the future?
I haven't read the linked stories. Did they close the door during the class exhibition?
if the matter under discussion is unusually sensitive
There's a cream for that.
When I was in grad school, I met with professors behind closed doors quite a bit. One of them would shut the door because he was smoking with his head out the window.
257: unless I'm missing your point, you seem to be confounding arguments about whether he should have given this more consideration before allowing it and whether he should have allowed it at all. Your 55 and 73 seem basically fine with a fucksaw demonstration, if appropriate warnings were given to students. But you're not seeing any clear demarcation between this and bukkake or simulated grapes, which you seem to think are clearly inappropriate? Yet your primary criticism is that he didn't take enough time to consider the implications of the fucksaw? So you seem to be implicitly drawing some distinction, that I'm not understanding.
The only professor I had as an undergrad who made it very explicit that there were things he thought were inappropriate for him to do (like attend plays students were performing in) was also the professor who told me he wanted me to climb over his desk and seduce him. I.e., I'm not sure I link being told "I can't close my door because what if I accidentally try to fuck you?" and feeling safe from sexual harassment.
I also would never have a student, male or female, graduate or undergraduate, at my house without other people present. I mean, I have graduate students (plural) at my house from time to time, but never only one of them. And when we do our recruiting weekend -- as we're about to -- for prospective graduate students, I refuse to allow any of the prospectives to stay with our current PhD candidates or even to allow them to share hotel rooms with the other prospectives who'll be in town. Well, I can't police what they do on their own time and with their own money, of course, but I refuse to allow such things to happen officially. The potential for abuse is just too high, I think.
265:It's not a big leap from fucksaw to a fucksawhorse.
Demian. Sybian!
I need to stay out of this thread.
The potential for abuse is just too high, I think.
This applies to having them in your home, too? You're afraid you might abuse them? Or that they might try to grape you?
271: I totally agree that it's sort of weird. But it doesn't seem weird enough to me to risk making someone feel uncomfortable.
273: you mean, like, ghosts?
I'm a door closer. And I'll do it almost anytime someone comes into my office to talk. And there are some people who are clearly freaked out by this, and become uncomfortable, which is always weird to me.
269: The thing is that with certain professors (who are good at hiding from people), if the door is open they'll get interrupted all the time and so the meeting won't be very productive. Professors with open doors at Berkeley was relatively rare (it's much more common here). For what it's worth, I'm pretty sure I've been in closed door office visits with both straight female and gay male faculty while I was a graduate student.
279 sounds insanely paranoid to me, as well as unlikely to create a comfortable environment for anyone, but I'm not in academia.
they might try to grape you?
I love that skit.
So, this is proof (as if any were needed) that my career has killed my ability to think like a normal person. But don't you need special zoning or something for live sex shows?
282: The prospective students are completely freaked out during the recruiting weekend. Some of them have never traveled or stayed in a hotel before. Most of them have never been over to a professor's house before. And so, I'm afraid that a current student or a prospective student might find her or himself in an unwelcome situation where the power dynamic is totally fucked.
But don't you need special zoning or something for live sex shows?
Generally just commerical establishments, I would think.
277: You are missing my point. I got off on this tangent after your 212, responding to heebie's 197, in which she said that the impulsive on-the-spot decision to go forward with the demonstration was insane. You quoted the professor's statement about what he was thinking in 212, as evidence that he wasn't insane ('insane' in all cases used colloquially to mean 'really very ill-advised').
I'm saying that the fact that this demonstration shares a lot of kinship with things that would be a very bad idea to spring on students unexpectedly (even if warnings were given immediately before), means that the on-the-spot decision to do it was a bad one, even if it's possible that with planning ahead and a balanced program overall (to address the "how come the only live sex demo is the one the straight boys find titillating" problem) the same demonstration might possibly have been an appropriate part of the class.
286: Really? You think not having people -- some of whom are very young and not at all worldly -- who are in town on our dime for business reasons share rooms with other people that they don't know is insanely paranoid? I really don't. Again, the potential for something lousy happening strikes me as both quite high and largely avoidable.
289: OK, but I'm trying to figure out what the danger is. If you know you're not planning to sexually violate anyone, and they have no reason to sexually violate you, why is it inappropriate?
I'm currently in academic environments where students and faculty are not often close, so people do think it's kind of strange that I go to professors' houses, stay late, drink, talk about personal stuff with them, etc. But at my undergrad/MA school, it was normal. My profs and colleagues were even sort of flirty, and I often found myself home alone having a glass of wine with a prof on my couch, or alone at a prof's house doing the dishes with him after a party. I wasn't worried that any of them were going to do anything that I couldn't say no to if I liked.
I thought the open door policy was to avoid the appearance of impropriety, more so than to avoid accidentally fucking someone.
Open doors actually encourage accidental fucking. By making it easier to fall across the threshold onto someone's vagina.
Aaaaaaa just got an email from a student who I gave a stern warning and a second chance to revise after his first draft was too short saying, "Yes, love you, I will get it done." English is not his first language, but I thought it was good enough to know that's probably not the best way to address a professor.
I think the Illinois definition of misdemeanor public indecency could easily encompass this.
279.1 makes some sense to me, having several students over sounds qualitatively different to me than having only one student. I've been in a few professor's houses, but never without other people there too.
279.2 on the other hand sounds crazy to me. First off, you want them to spend time outside of the dept. with current students so that they can know what it's like, second I just don't see the same sort of problematic power dynamic with prospective and current students the same way that there is with professors, third for most students it should be easy to find a host where there won't be sexual tension involved, and finally as long as there's the option to stay in a hotel people who are uncomfortable can take it.
282: I suppose I should answer your question directly, just for the record. No, I don't worry about abusing them or having them grope me. But thanks so much for asking!
I'm saying that the fact that this demonstration shares a lot of kinship with things that would be a very bad idea to spring on students unexpectedly ... means that the on-the-spot decision to do it was a bad one, even if ... the same demonstration might possibly have been an appropriate part of the class.
I can only repeat that you seem to be implicitly drawing some distinction between grapes and fucksaws, and that I'm not fully understanding the distinction. One is a very bad idea, and the other isn't, necessarily, if properly planned, but I don't understand why. This was the basis of my questions in 241, 254 and 277.
Urple, do you keep typing "grape" because you are at work and "fucksaw" is just fine with your Netnanny, or are you just really into making me giggle?
300: Can we agree that the impulsive, on the spot decision to spring it on the class was remarkably ill-thought out for the reasons given above? Because that's what I've been trying to argue, and I'd like to get to agreement on that, if it's available, before moving on to something that I haven't been considering the primary point and need to think through if I'm going to argue about it.
301: 277 was a typo. 300 was just for you.
293: Just because you were confident that you could say no if you liked, doesn't mean they couldn't get fired if you said yes. The situation you're mentioning sounds to me like playing with fire, and is a situation that I would want to avoid as a professor.
293 (and others): I guess I'm not sure what's complicated here. I want to minimize the risk that a prospective student will find him- or herself in any kind of uncomfortable situation, ranging from a lousy futon to unwanted sexual advances, while visiting us. Putting them up in their own hotel rooms seems to be one way to do that. Then, if they want to go over to a graduate student's house (for sex or for another reason), or if they want to spend the night in another prospective student's room (for sex or for another reason), that's entirely their business. But I want that to be their choice, not because we've made arrangements that force them into that situation.
292 -- Not having individuals over to your house alone, in any circumstances, seems quite genuinely paranoid and somewhat sad (and, if it only applies to female students, unfortunate for other reasons, but I'm assuming you have a blanket rule for both sexes).
And for a recruiting weekend, these are adults (all 21+, right?) who presumably are capable of sharing a house or, if they decide to (I'm assuming you'd present it as a lodging option, not a requirement), a room with other adults.
Again, my views on this are probably distorted by not being in academia or dealing with 19 year olds.
finally as long as there's the option to stay in a hotel people who are uncomfortable can take it
When we had this argument here, I mostly agreed with this point. But in the same way that some students would feel uncomfortable opting out of the impromptu sex demonstration, I worried that some prospectives would feel uncomfortable costing us the money for their own hotel room. So, better to say to them, "We're putting you up in your own hotel room. If you want to share a room with someone else instead, nobody is going to force you to stay in the room we've rented for you." (We actually don't make the second part of that explicit.)
It's like the old joke about baptists on fishing trips; VW's worried if he only has one grad student over they'll steal his bikes and escape to Mexico. If there's more than one they'll shame each other into vocally insisting that they have no desires other than the life of the mind.
Our lab travels en masse to a conference every year where everybody (from professors down to undergrad RAs) stays in shared bedrooms in shared rental beach houses. It sounds... a little more casual than what VW is describing.
304: I actually don't think that a prof at that school could get fired for consensual sex with an adult student. It happened fairly often and wasn't a big scandal. I thought some of the profs who did it were sleazy, but not terminably so. It never occurred to me to try to get the prof who propositioned me when I was 19 fired. I just thought it was a gross thing to do, so I went home. I still got an A. My MA adviser propositioned me at my graduation party, and we had a good laugh about it. IME, I was far from alone in having these kinds of experiences with professors.
I wouldn't have sex with a student, but I do feel somewhat constrained by the environment that says you're just asking for something world-endingly bad to happen to you if you talk to a student in any kind of extra-curricular way.
At my old firm, we had a retreat where the youngest lawyers were forced to share a room with the most senior partners (of the same sex), in an environment with near-unbelievable amounts of alcohol being consumed. That was unfortunate for many reasons, but as far as I know no one was sexually assaulted.
306.1: Again, why? I spend a great deal of time with my graduate students in groups: at my house and at the office. And I spend a great deal of time with my graduate students as individuals (albeit with my office door open a bit). I can't see how anyone's life is impoverished by my decision not to spend time with a graduate student alone at my house. As for paranoia, maybe. But since I don't really feel like I'm missing out on anything, I actually think I'm just following the path of least resistance.
I guess it makes sense that a tenured professor might become paranoid about the one thing that could cost them their job, and take neurotic steps to avoid the possibilty.
I mean, if you don't want to invite a student to come over alone, of course that's fine; I can only think of maybe 2 or 3 times when I did that as a student, as someone's research assistant, and it wasn't a life-changing experience or anything. It's the blanket rule against it in any circumstances that seems paranoid to me.
311: That may be the first thing I've ever heard about life in another firm that sounds unequivocally much, much worse than anything at anyplace I've worked.
293 (and others): I guess I'm not sure what's complicated here. I want to minimize the risk that a prospective student will find him- or herself in any kind of uncomfortable situation, ranging from a lousy futon to unwanted sexual advances, while visiting us.
I think the legions of misguided people accusing you of insane paranoia is referring to your personal policy of avoiding such contact at all costs yourself, not your departmental policy.
Can we agree that the impulsive, on the spot decision to spring it on the class was remarkably ill-thought out for the reasons given above?
Given that he's been teaching the sex class for decades and running these extracurriculars for years, my guess is that the decision was less "on the spot" than his quote is letting on. The sex show in question wasn't planned, but I'd be surprised if he didn't have a pretty well formed prior opinion about whether that sort of thing would be acceptable.
When I was teaching I was alone with students all the time. That's basically how teaching works at my institution. So it's expected. That said, I wasn't one of those tutors who'd sit down and share a sofa with a student like some would. Strictly decorous body space.
As an example of how far some take it, I was once sitting talking to a student at a social event and an older American woman -- who knew the student -- was vocally shocked to discover that the bloke talking to her (me) was her tutor. Which was fucked up. I mean she had a proper pearl-clutching fit of: 'Should he be talking to you? Why is your tutor here? Is this appropriate?' etc. Especially since we were both graduate students of the same age at the same fucking college, and I was only her tutor because she was doing a a bunch of undergraduate courses as a sort of revision/precursor to changing her 'major' for her graduate degree. She may even have been older than me, I can't remember.
314: Ah, that makes sense to me. The blanket rule only came about when I became the head of the graduate program. It seemed to me then, because I'm in control of the purse strings, that it could easily be misconstrued if I had this or that student over as an individual but not all of them. That decision had nothing to do with worries about charges of sexual misconduct, in other words. The office door thing is just easier, as far as I'm concerned. And actually, as far as I know, faculty here are allowed to have sex with graduate students, though it's not the done thing (any more).
Listen, I'm just wary of making ill-informed judgments about the ideological poverty of someone's course halfway across the country from where I am that I read an article and a half about in sources that pumped up the potentially-outraging aspects of it,
Agreed. We should be wary about making these sorts of conclusions on scanty evidence.
I fairly routinely was over my adviser's apartment on my own for a lunch/discussion meeting. I don't think I've ever had a meeting with a prof in their office with the door open. The idea seems a bit strange. On a number of occasions we even drank together in their offices, not too mention illegally smoking cigarettes if the prof was a smoker. I also had a prof crash at my place when I was in Warsaw. And I'm with pause endlessly in saying that worrying about the potential for abuse between prospectives and existing grad students seems utterly bizarre. Do you also object to grad students crashing with other grad students for conferences? And do you pay for the prospectives' hotel rooms?
319: that makes much more sense. It's the purse strings!
The last two sentences of 321 seem to have been pretty thoroughly addressed.
I used to babysit professors' kids as an undergraduate (one professor regularly over several years and daily during a summer), another professor a few times. I don't think it ever occurred to me (or them, it was a pretty regular practice among other professors and other students too) that there was anything potentially inappropriate about being alone together.
I can't remember if we met with office doors open or shut usually, but for sure both as an undergrad and grad student I would/did shut the door myself if I wanted to talk about something without being overheard/overseen.
All the doors in our department now have big windows in them (maybe for reasons related to this discussion) but in order to have privacy, almost everyone has covered the window with something opaque.
FWIW I think Von Wafer's policy is smart. It's conservative in the good sense. Over the course of hundreds of prospective student visits the chances of something bad happening are quite large, and it makes sense to try to at least minimize the opportunities for bad things. Having a clear and conservative policy that the less powerful people can abandon is far superior to having a default policy that requires actively opting out in order to get the more conservative option due to the implicit pressure to conform being extremely strong for young people in transitional situations. The people most vulnerable to being exploited are exactly the ones least likely to assertively buck the norm in those situations.
320: Different when you actually know something about the people involved I think.
also,
I can only repeat that you seem to be implicitly drawing some distinction between grapes and fucksaws, and that I'm not fully understanding the distinction.
is my new motto.
317: The sex show in question wasn't planned, but I'd be surprised if he didn't have a pretty well formed prior opinion about whether that sort of thing would be acceptable.
For the reasons given in, among others, 267, I still think it was a bad decision because of the lack of advance warning given to students. If his well-formed prior opinion didn't include a distinction between something the students had been given advance notice of and something that happened unexpectedly, I don't think it was very well-formed.
utterly bizarre
Yes, well, join the chorus. That said, please do note that it's not just sexual abuse (your wording, by the way) I worry about. For the umpteenth time, these students find themselves, for the most part, in a very unfamiliar setting. I think it's important, then, to try to make them as comfortable as I can. Sharing a room with someone else isn't necessarily all that comfortable for some people, I've found, so we book them their own rooms.
Do you also object to grad students crashing with other grad students for conferences?
Of course not. First, it's not my business. And second, why would I?
And do you pay for the prospectives' hotel rooms?
Yes, of course we do.
...and of course 324 rendered moot by comments between my last refresh and posting it.
Something just occurred to me: the office door is now the norm around here. I don't actually think it accomplishes anything meaningful. But I don't buck that norm because I worry that doing so might make a student feel weird.
Anyway, I'm off to swim ride my bike.
The prospective students are completely freaked out during the recruiting weekend. Some of them have never traveled or stayed in a hotel before.
Do you have to provide shoe-use tutors for the incoming class?
At my school prospectives had to stay over at another grad student's apartment or pay for their hotel room (or in my case crash at my girlfriend's room who was a grad student at the same school, though in a different program). The conference thing was sometimes informally arranged by profs who would send out e-mails to all their grad students to see if they would be willing to host. Hotels are expensive and funds for grad student conference travel are limited.
Sharing a room with someone else isn't necessarily all that comfortable for some people...
Me, for example. I need to know the person fairly well in order to be comfortable sharing a room. Being thrown into a situation with a complete stranger would be tolerable but I'd feel awkward the whole time. Quite a few foreign grad students I talked to about this (in the context of sharing rooms at conferences) feel the same way, at least if the roommate isn't of the same nationality or background.
The closed doors thing is totally alien to me too. Not least because for most of my tutors offices, it wouldn't make any difference if the door was open or not. The entrances were usually off the side of a staircase or behind another door, so having them open wouldn't make it any more visible if something inappropriate was happening. More to the point, though, it's the opposite of the norm. If you're having a private conversation with someone, you shut the door.
Hey wait I'm technically a prospective grad student right now! I should go into my boss's office and close the door and see if he gets all uncomfortable.
Some of them have never traveled or stayed in a hotel before.
I guess the Dutch Cookie is off being SWPL riding his bike, but this also seems somewhat improbable to me. Aren't these 21 year old (at least) prospective grad students? I mean, never staying in a hotel room is somewhat plausible, but didn't almost all of these folks spend time at a 4 year residential college?
335: probably best to leave the fucksaw at your desk.
336: some people go to college near their parents and live at home. Lots of people, even.
All this talk of sharing rooms at conferences reminds me of the time I bought two plane tickets for me and another recently married graduate student with the ticket her maiden name, and then shared a hotel room for two days. It's always good to know you can have convincing conclusive proof of an affair that is not actually happening.
338 -- yeah, I know, but never traveled at all? Doesn't strike me as likely to be a large subset at all of the folks who are applying to the school VW is at in the discipline VW is in, but what do I know.
If his well-formed prior opinion didn't include a distinction between something the students had been given advance notice of and something that happened unexpectedly, I don't think it was very well-formed.
See, this is a criticism that's much more understandable to me than your argument in 226, which I read as roughly: "If his prior opinion didn't include a distinction between something appropriately educational, like the fucksaw, and something inappropriate, like bukkake or simulated gang-rape, I don't think it was very well-formed."
330: Although it mostly doesn't accomplish anything, I still think it's a good norm in that it would give students advanced warning of professors who are breaking the norm before they progressed to something more inappropriate.
310: Hrm, I think the emerging new norm at schools is that prof/undergrad sex is banned, but sex with graduate students is ok if they're sufficiently removed from direct supervision. But it's probably going to take a while for that to be adopted everywhere.
343: sex with graduate students on whose part? The undergrads or the professors?
344: Grad students can go both ways. Unless they got married or go to BYU.
Assuming the didn't pick up a machine fetish during undergrad.
Once you've chopped the legs off, the diaper soaks up some of the blood, and once the guy's tied to the miniature horse he can at least get around until he bleeds to death.
New mouseover text, please!
Silly fleshlight story - a friend of mine sells toys and craft stuff on the internet, including through Amazon. There's a Fimo shade called Light Flesh, which for some reason recently on Amazon got changed to Flesh Light. She'd noticed it and chuckled, as there was some interesting stuff in the "customers also bought" section. And then a few days later she got an email: "What is this exactly? I thought I was buying a male sex toy, but it appears not to be!"
I'm in agreement that a male getting off would have been better, but i think it needs to be explicated a bit more. Because the reasoning seems to be 'it was bad because it titillated the straight boys' - the active/passive observer/observed distinction set seems important here. Should the point be to make that set more uncomfortable?
For those only familiar with the common law, Grape is the combined codified offense, that can become aggravated grape under some conditions. This was from the influence of the way they do things on the continent, with Cox in Corpus Juris.
Sharing a room with someone else isn't necessarily all that comfortable for some people
I wasn't fazed by room sharing with other prospectives expect for during the MIT prospective weekend, when the Club Quarters assigned me and the other dude a room with just one bed. Mildly awkward, it was, but I think by the time we made it back from our respective parties we were too drunk to care where we were sleeping.
aggravated grape
We call that 'grappa'.
Okay. I just read the OP. WTF?
353: He had premarital sex, so they kicked him off the basketball team.
354: 'Cause, yeah, weird Mormon school being weird and Mormon-y it what was unusual about the OP.
. . . but I think by the time we made it back from our respective parties we were too drunk to care where we were sleeping.
Sharing rooms with drunk people is the worst . . .
aggravated grape requires proof of wrath, right?
[W]e were too drunk to care where we were sleeping.
"I'm an F-18, bro. And I will destroy you in the air. I will deploy my ordnance to the ground."
I know Annelid Gustator linked it before, but no such discussion could be complete without consideration of The Grapist.
||This seems like the most [horribly in]appropriate thread in which to note that tomorrow Leo and Rory shall meet.|>
I can only repeat that you seem to be implicitly drawing some distinction between grapes and fucksaws, and that I'm not fully understanding the distinction.
"In that case, can I bring you some fruit?"
Now that I look at 302, I suspect that "302" in 363 was a typo. Never mind.
Anyhoo, speaking of academia, this apparent con to collect application fees is funny.
And when we do our recruiting weekend -- as we're about to -- for prospective graduate students, I refuse to allow any of the prospectives to stay with our current PhD candidates or even to allow them to share hotel rooms with the other prospectives who'll be in town. Well, I can't police what they do on their own time and with their own money, of course, but I refuse to allow such things to happen officially. The potential for abuse is just too high, I think.
Huh. Our recruitment depends absolutely on the willingness of grad students to host prospectives, and the opportunities this gives them to talk about the program and demonstrate the fucksaw so on.
It is true that a subset of widely-admitted prospectives end up on a weird sort of round-the-country tour. They seem to have a fine old time.
We depend absolutely on the willingness of our graduate students to help recruit the prospectives in all sorts of ways. But we're not so financially constrained -- yet -- that we need the current grad students to put the prospectives up. This may change in the coming years, of course, but for now we're lucky to have the cash to warehouse the newbs in a local fleabag hotel.
Huh. Our recruitment depends absolutely on the willingness of grad students to host prospectives
Same here. Amazingly, the one prospective I ever hosted still decided to come to Steinford. (Nowadays, of course, I absent myself from these affairs so as not to be a downer.)
Our recruitment depends absolutely on the willingness of grad students to host prospectives, and the opportunities this gives them to talk about the program
So it was in my grad school department as well. O the stories you'd hear! (About the nature of the department and so on.) The department viewed it as quite valuable.
As a grad student, I met with professors behind closed doors, and at their apartments/homes, fairly often. No big deal. I did hear several years later that 'people' thought I was having an affair with my advisor, which made me marvel, and chuckle, mostly. Oh, no, we're just good friends!
374: Di's very own Leo, and for God's sake, man, the word is spelled whose.
In 370, "fucksaw" s/b "the effect of comps."
Nowadays, of course, I absent myself from these affairs so as not to be a downer.
Everyone loves Dennis Hopper in Apocalypse Now.
It is true that a subset of widely-admitted prospectives end up on a weird sort of round-the-country tour. They seem to have a fine old time.
One of our RAs is in the midst of this; she was having a crisis today as she considered whether to visit [ really good school in a place with lovely weather ] even though she had already gotten into [ really good school someplace with better weather than here, not like that's hard ] and had promised the professor she hoped to work with at [ RGSSWBWTHNLTH ] that she would attend if admitted.
That's why you only apply to one school, I say. Or you apply to a dozen in beautiful, tropical locales and string them along.
382.last: I hear good things about Carribean medschool. Immight be persuaded to attend if Neptune would guarantee a 4 near hiatus from hurricanesz. And cholera. Though the latter is probably not his gig to begin with.
Neptune? Bonus: you get to meet Veronica Mars!
On Unfogged, all your thread iz about grad school ... eventually.
I mostly leave the door open with students so that I can laugh with the secretary later about the freakish and annoying things that they occasionally say.
Now that I'm home and can safely google the fucksaw, I can't believe no one has commented on:
The six speeds are variable and go between 0-2500 SPM (strokes per minute)
2500 strokes per minute?! Hot damn. Now I wish I'd seen the demonstration.
282: The prospective students are completely freaked out during the recruiting weekend. Some of them have never traveled or stayed in a hotel before.
This is the weirdest thing I have read in this thread. Fucksaws, pshaw.
Pshaw may not be the word I'm actulaly looking for.
Fucksaws pshaw, McGraw. Caw, caw! Macaws, swayze.
I've told the story about how I personally cost my graduate program an entire year's worth of grad students? Somehow I was the last grad student to stay after dinner with the admitted students. One of the potential students asked how I liked my program, and I couldn't find words. Instead, I stared at my plate and started to cry. Oddly, none of them chose us that year.
392: they stopped involving me with that stuff after my 3rd year. I told the truth. Weirdly, *every* student I personally spoke to about the drawbacks joined our group.
392: Next time, try that when you want to be speaker of the house.
This is the weirdest thing I have read in this thread.
You know, I was okay with repeatedly being called incredibly, unbelievably, shockingly paranoid and with being accused of wanting to fondle my students, but this shit won't stand. There are, believe it or not, essear and Halford, some people who manage to go to college and then get admitted to graduate school without ever leaving the city in which they grew up. (In fairness, this may be more true in California than other places. I really don't know.) Even more shocking, some of these people, especially the ones who aren't very affluent, are so desperately benighted that they live at home while in college. It's stunning, I know, that none of them have ever been to Tahoe to ski or to Paris for the spring shows or even, apparently, to San Francisco to see the big city. But don't worry: we admit them and immediately issue them a stand mixer.
384: Heh. My parents used to do annual lecture gigs at the famous (invasion-related) one. I went with them once, and if the students were as good at medicine as they were at hedonism, I'd trust them with my life.
Also, I didn't stay in a hotel until I was in high school. And then the next time I stayed in a hotel was when I looked at graduate schools. My parents didn't have a lot of money when I was growing up. And what money they did have they saved so my sister could go to Oberlin and I could go to Wisconsin. As I recall, it wasn't until my junior year of high school that my dad got a huge (relatively speaking) raise and we went on a vacation that featured a hotel stay. It was pretty cool. Anyway, I still get a big kick out of staying in hotels, especially nice ones.
Von Wafer does have a point. Y'all. Admit your mistake! (Really, it's true, it's hard not to roll one's eyes at the apparent thought that it's just unbelievable that a college senior might not have experience of the world.)
[N]one of them have ever been to Tahoe to ski or to Paris for the spring shows or even, apparently, to San Francisco to see the big city.
Surely they summer in the Hamptons, though?
OK, fine, I'm being classist. But probably it's rare? I mean, even assuming family vacations are out of reach for some people, what about multi-day school field trips?
Surely they summer in the Hamptons, though?
Unless they have a country house on the water, we don't admit them.
what about multi-day school field trips?
You're killing me, man, killing me. But in an effort to find some middle ground, yes, it's relatively rare. There aren't more than two or three prospective students per year who need me to float them the money to buy their plane/train tickets to our recruiting weekend rather than getting reimbursed when it's over. And there aren't more than one or two who have never been in a hotel before. Again, though, that's every year.
When I was visiting grad schools, most of them put me up with current students. This was a really stupid decision for a certain public school located closer to the coast than Ari's, which put me up with obnoxious sexist jackasses who dragged me to a bar where they spent the whole time ranking the "sorostitutes" and making skeevy jokes. The girlfriend of one of them participated in this. Then they talked in front of me about how childish I was for not taking part.
Another public school quite a bit further up the coast made me share a hotel room with someone. That made me really grumpy.
A couple of the others just involved a lot of awkward, we-really-have-nothing-in-common conversation. And at one I crashed on a friend's couch. That wasn't bad.
So, I guess what I'm saying is that I would have been really happy if places I had visited followed Von Wafer's policy of individual hotel rooms, even though nothing really awful happened during any of these visits.
I was okay with repeatedly being called incredibly, unbelievably, shockingly paranoid and with being accused of wanting to fondle my students
FWIW I was kind of surprised by the reactions. Maybe I'm jaded but we regularly take precautions not to be alone with female suspects or victims both to remove temptation and to protect ourselves from accusations from the occasional crazy person. I would assume those kinds of precautions would be SOP in any environment involving positions of authority.
Multi-day school field trips aren't a thing in most places? I mean, I guess they might have required our parents to pay something for them, but I think the school somehow scrounged up money to cover everyone. And I'm thinking of my not-at-all-UMC elementary school.
I remember when I was in high school and had a bullshit-ass summer job working for a law firm doing [ computers/napping ] and I invited one of my friends up to see my office. He had this weird, shell-shocked mien as soon as he got off the elevators; turns out that was the furthest off the ground he'd ever been (I think it was the eighteenth floor). I think he was 21 at the time? Very smart, but thoroughly victimized by circumstance. He was very unusual in our town, but of course our town was rich.
I would assume those kinds of precautions would be SOP in any environment involving positions of authority.
Gosh, no.
I always thought open office doors was just a universal norm. Unless someone's being really loud outside, or you're talking about sensitive things like job applications, or you're saying mean things about people and don't want to be overheard. Although the latter accounts for a large fraction of my conversations.
As I said to another commenter offline, I would be uncomfortable if my adviser closed the door when I was in his office, but only because I'd suspect I'm getting kicked out of the program.
The idea of a grad school paying for your expenses to visit the school is a little surprising to me in the first place. But then, I waited 3 years after college before going to grad school, and then applied based on faculty and curriculum; there was none of this courting and recruitment business you people talk about.
"offline" s/b "via an online channel that was not a comment thread here"
Off to run. I'll take my answer off the air.
405: In elementary school? That had not even occurred to me.
I never went on a multi-day school trip. That sounds incredibly expensive, wow.
412: Yeah. We went to the Space Center in Huntsville one year, and to the Pine Mountain Settlement School another. I think there was also a trip to DC one year -- but maybe that was when I was in middle school -- that I didn't go on because I had been there recently with my parents.
Is this really that unusual? Huh. I mean, it's not as if I was growing up in an affluent place.
Multi-day school field trips aren't a thing in most places?
Not in elementary school. Only one in high school, but that wasn't a field trip, exactly, but a selective student-government kind of program thingy -- half a dozen of us made the cut. Day trips were common; not multi-day.
Well, say, an individual club would go on trips somewhere.
Yeah, later on I had the orchestra trips and the quiz bowl trips and the math team trips and the science olympiad trips and the science bowl trips and the science fair trips and...
This is really off-topic, isn't it? The Science Olympiad trips never quite rose to the level of public sex toy demonstrations.
I don't think I ever went on a multi-day school trip. Some combination of public school and living someplace with lots going on? Dunno. I did a multi-day camping trip during my blessedly brief sojourn with the boy scouts, and I went to camp, but no multi-day field trips at school.
Though maybe someone should consider incorporating it into "Mission Possible".
it's not as if I was growing up in an affluent place
It seems possible that you might be mistaken about that, at least relatively speaking. I mean, I'm sure you didn't grow up in Cupertino or Scarsdale, but it sounds like you were much better off than the people of, say, Glendale (which might have gentrified a lost, for all I know) or Richmond, CA.
Which Glendale? The Glendale in LA? Or the one in Arizona? Or a different one? Wait, that's a really generic municipality name, isn't it? Are they all the same? I'm lost, lost.
I meant the one in LA. Which, as I said, might be much nicer than I remember it being.
I second 422 and am happy that I'm one person back on the list of who goes up against the wall.
I think it varies; a good chunk of the town is still basically Armenian, but they've done pretty well for themselves with real estate and then there was the real estate bubble and the studios... I dunno, I kinda hated it there but there's a good seafood place with a bar that shows football and has dollar oysters and okay bloody marys.
I'm comfortable that this entirely fails to answer the question.
I just remembered that during what should have been my senior year of college, I stayed in a hotel in Jerusalem for a night. So now I'm a liar, a spendthrift, and a Zionist oppressor. Move to the back of the line, Moby.
No man with access to a good Bloody Mary can really be called poor. At least that's how I see it.
It seems possible that you might be mistaken about that, at least relatively speaking.
Median household incomes around, but a little bit lower than, the national average? In my particular suburb. On the opposite side of the county from the "desirable" suburbs. Significantly lower fraction of people attending college than the US average. Not affluent in absolute terms, certainly. Maybe compared to the places you have in mind.
Anyway, I'm only commenting this much because I'm in a hotel right now and have nothing better to do.
The new mouseover text wins the internet. Also, we might have to rethink the contents of the fruitbasket.
Are they making you share a room with someone else?
I'd happily the share the room with anyone who could figure out how to make the fucking heater stop overheating the room.
This is really off-topic, isn't it?
We're also conflating the likely worldliness of a high school senior with that of a college senior. Von Wafer was talking about grad school prospectives, I thought. By the time I'd done with four years of college, I'd been on multi-day trips and everything! But I understand that not everyone had.
369: It's much funnier if you aren't a prospective student from a third world shithole where high school counselors doesn't exist and your only means of selecting a college is the meager pickings available in the underfunded library. That sounds pissier than I'm aiming for, as the insane running around and hair-pulling going on in Eliot Hall is no doubt entertaining as hell to watch. Still, it's worth bearing in mind that people with meager resources are getting ripped off for trying to improve their chances in life.
Also I want to endorse everything Von Wafer has said in this thread. This is not entirely unrelated to the first part of my comment. It's easy to lose sight of the fact that lots of people, the majority of humanity in fact, do not have half the experiences available to UMC westerners.
During my first year of grad school lots of people I talked to thought it was shocking and horrible that I had never been outside the country*, so I guess standards differ on these things.
* minor exception at Niagara Falls not really counting.
So now I'm a liar, a spendthrift, and a Zionist oppressor
I've never been, but I had tree planted. Or at least mailed an acorn to a guy whose name I pulled from the phone book.
It's easy to lose sight of the fact that lots of people, the majority of humanity in fact, do not have half the experiences available to UMC westerners.
Of course. But I guess I would say that it's more than just "UMC westerners", it's also "MC westerners" and even "LMC westerners", who tend to share these experiences not available to the majority of humanity, and I'm a little surprised that "having stayed in a hotel" is not an experience common to almost anyone who might be lumped into any of these categories. Not that I don't think having such an experience carries with it a degree of affluence exceeding that of most people in the world, just that I think that even a randomly selected person in America will tend to have had this experience an overwhelmingly large fraction of the time.
so I guess standards differ on these things
Well, this is uncomfortable, isn't it?
Thank god we're not at a fucksaw demonstration.
I wonder if a higher percentage of Californians who are working class or below go to college than in other states. Certainly that used to be the case because of the California Master Plan, and maybe, despite the best efforts of the state's Republican minority*, it still is.
* In fairness, our new Democratic governor also seems to hate the state's system of higher education.
I'm a little surprised that "having stayed in a hotel" is not an experience common to almost anyone who might be lumped into any of these categories.
essear, be surprised. It really isn't utterly common, not for the MC and LMC, and not by age 17.
This report says that there were repeated warnings before the demonstration. With so many witnesses, you'd think it would be clearer what happened, but I guess this is another case of crappy journalism. This BBC report links to statements from Bailey and the NU president. It's not clear how much actual question-asking and talking-to-people the reporters who've covered this story for various outlets have actually done. Also, this happened a couple of weeks ago, so it's probably in the news now because someone's grinding a fuckaxe.
I will now go back to being more interested in how BYU does in the NCAA tournament than in the NU story. By the way, the Northwestern men's basketball team has apparently never made it to the tournament. That's pathetic.
440 cont'd: Some of this may be geographical. If you live on the east coast, you can make day trips pretty easily, and may well have friends and relatives in the region with whom you can stay for overnights for any multi-day trips. That's almost always how my family did things. I can see that if you live in a more far-flung land, hotel stays might be more common.
439.1: yeah, I wonder that, too. On the other hand, it wouldn't have occured to me to wonder that when I was at [ not california ] state school and it was full of people who quite clearly had never left their (hick) towns before.
443: Right. Two people on my floor my first year in Madison had never left their hometowns before coming to the U. One of them, as I've mentioned here before, upon learning that I was a Jew, asked, without even a hint of malice, to see my horns.
One of them, as I've mentioned here before, upon learning that I was a Jew, asked, without even a hint of malice, to see my horns.
I hope you closed your door first.
I think I've also mentioned that she was some kind of Viking goddess, who ran hurdles for the U before switching to crew, whereupon she rowed in the national-championship-winning varsity eight. I was really scared when I had no horns to show her.
When This American Life did that episode where they spent 24 hours at a rest stop, they met a woman in her late teens/early twenties from West Virginia who was traveling anywhere (like, first trip on a road with a rest stop) for the first time.
437: In my entering gradschool class a sizeable fraction were not westerners of any stripe, and a couple were in the grey area comprised of recently liberated soviet bloc countries.
I bet you could locate a few foreign grad students at your institution without much effort. Mention that you were talking about fucksaws and the question of hotels came up. Ask if they've ever stayed in a hotel. Perhaps they would like to. Do they know what a fucksaw is? Have they ever shared a hotel room? Would they would like to? The only way to know is to ask. Let us know how they respond.
444: When my dad was about 9 he did that to a Catholic nun. It mortified my Grandmother. Serves her right.
444: When my dad was about 9 he did that to a Catholic nun. It mortified my Grandmother. Serves her right.
447: I'm fairly sure that every time I flew when we lived in Oklahoma, at least one person waiting to board the plane would exclaim, for all to hear, "This is my first time flying!" If I hadn't hated my life so much at the time, it would have been charming.
Is there and echo in this comment thread?
448.2 is making me chuckle. But it's kind of incredible, right? I mean, everyone knows what a fucksaw is.
250 is one of my favorite things so far. Back to reading.
I remember specifically realizing at some point that there was this large part of the population of the world that never traveled, and of course they were also the people you were least likely to ever meet.
In other news, I wonder if the "multi-day hotel field trip" thing might be a sign of midwestern middle class-ness, as opposed to something particularly signifying of U'ness. If you go to a high school in the middle of nowhere, one, what else are you going to do, and two, any place near enough to drive to will probably have cheap chain motels anyhow, so it wouldn't be crazy expensive. Whereas, when I was in high school my latin class took a field trip to new york to see the cloisters, but it was a day trip, because you're kidding somehow that public high schoolers will get hotel rooms in manhattan for the night?
I guess I like to think that my extended family is fairly representative of middle-American low-to-mid-MC, and god knows all my cousins and aunts and uncles and whatnot are always taking trips to Gatlinburg or Myrtle Beach or Orlando or some other godforsaken tourist trap (or "the beach" or "the lake" for some incomprehensible value of "the") and staying in hotels, as were most of my teachers in school, and my parents' coworkers, and my childhood friends and their families. I suppose it's possible that this set of people is actually really unrepresentative.
Probably, though, parsimon in 442 and Sifu in 455.2 are onto something and there's a lot of geographical dependence here.
On the current topic, I cost a school a fair amount of money by canceling a visit (that they had organized) at the last minute. I was sick, but not really that sick. But I was also sick in a place with nice weather and didn't want to fly to a place where it was windy and sub-freezing, possible snow in the forecast, and then go to a bunch of prospective student events around campus.
It also happened that between the time they set up the trip and the time the trip was to have happened, I was accepted at a couple of places that I knew I'd choose over the place I canceled on, so there was less urgency. Still, I felt bad about it.
91: When my dad was about 9 he did that to a Catholic nun. It mortified my Grandmother. Serves her right.
Still, it's worth bearing in mind that people with meager resources are getting ripped off for trying to improve their chances in life.
Well, yeah, that's definitely not funny, and if anyone got robbed, I hope the people responsible get graped in the mouth. What's funny is the form of the scam and its utter shamelessness, and what's more specifically funny is that the perpetrators evidently did a global find and replace for every instance of 'reed', resulting in Redwood University proclaiming its commitment to academic fredwoodom.
It mortified my Grandmother.
Mortification of the flesh?
I never went on a multi-day hotel field trip in school, but I did go to church camp that involved leaving my hometown, and a willingness to stay in shitty hotels meant that my family could do small trips to places.
It also does seem to change traveling standards when your family lives away from extended family; you take trips rather often then.
I haven't seen the new movie Cedar Rapids, which is apparently about the kind of adult who has never been on a trip anywhere before, but I've heard it's kind of funny and I admit I'm perversely fascinated by people who have never left home.
New York City outer-borough students often admit they've never been to Manhattan or other boroughs. It doesn't cost any more money than traveling within their own borough; they just don't do it. This strikes me as very strange indeed.
the fucking heater
Please - the word is "fuckstove".
456: god knows all my cousins and aunts and uncles and whatnot are always taking trips to Gatlinburg or Myrtle Beach or Orlando or some other godforsaken tourist trap (or "the beach" or "the lake" for some incomprehensible value of "the") and staying in hotels
That's a particular type of aspirational vacationing, it seems to me. Not everyone does it, or is a fan of it. It seems somewhat common in the US among a certain set, though, yeah.
The only all-class multi-day field trips I can remember involved camping, and that involved pooling equipment people already owned, since not everyone had camping gear. There was a school-sponsored trip to DC, but only a few people (relative to the size of the school) went and it was fairly costly, though some financial assistance was available. I think different student groups may have had other events like that, but I wasn't in those groups.
Oh, and sports teams in high school sometimes stayed in hotels.
Cedar Rapids is very good. It's like good Capra (not retro-Capra). It's produced by the same guys who did Election, but it's not satire at the core.
any place near enough to drive to will probably have cheap chain motels anyhow, so it wouldn't be crazy expensive.
Aye. We had about 1 multi-day field trip per year in each of grades 6-8. They were all geared towards exposing us to naturey things. On one I think we stayed at some chain hotel outside Duluth, which can't have cost much (but which still would have been expensive for much of the world's population, yes yes). The next year we went to Ely, MN in the middle of winter. They cut a large hole in the ice above the lake and offered us the chance to jump in, after we had baked in the sauna for awhile.
I confess I was one of those who were surprised that Von Wafer's program would regularly be hosting perspectives who hadn't been in a hotel before. And I think I was surprised because grad school for me has been a very UMC-linked experience--much more so than undergrad. We had near universal participation in the class ski trip our first year, for example. I guess I had started to suspect that dabbling in the life of the mind was something that primarily the children of privilege would be dumb enough to do.
In the spirit of reporting multi-day field trips: I went to a very gerrymandered, almost all-white public high school and did the hat trick of band, drama, and chorus (I was their drummer; I'm a very unconvincing baritone when it comes to singing). I went on trips to: NYC (three times), Boston, Florida (twice), and Atlanta. In hindsight, this seems crazy, and I'm sure the other kids' parents mostly paid for theirs. I paid for mine by working at the pizza place at the mall and going halvsies with my parents.
Both high school and college were a weird brush with How The Moderately Wealthy Live.
Should I keep to myself the fact that I went to England for a full week as part of a high school trip?
468: Yes. You're a terrible person, and everyone hates you.
First of all, Dutch Cookie, Glendale, California has always been a predominantly middle class and upper middle class town, if heavily Armenian, so I'm not sure why it's getting thrown into the mix. Also, precisely what is your connection to the Armenian Mafia and why won't you admit it?
Second, my surprise wasn't that there were people who had never been in a hotel before, which seems possible if likely to be somewhat unusual among a recruiting class given the SES of most people [I've encountered] who make the economically awesome decision to pursue a Ph.D. in the humanities, but the claim that these folks had never traveled at all, a la the guy in Cedar Rapids (mediocre but entertaining, btw). And we're not talking never having gone to Lamu Island or trekking through Northern Thailand or skinny-skiing in Argentina, but literally never having traveled to a different city within the United States at all.
Like, never seeing a relative in a different town, or going to the major state metropolis to run some administrative errand, or going on a camping trip outside of the town boundaries, or spending one night in a cheap motel, or gone from (for example) Glendale, CA, to San Diego to go to the zoo. And while that's obviously not impossible, it's a little hard to believe that this would be the case for a significant portion of the cohort of admitees at humanities Ph.D. program in secret university location x. But again, you know and I don't.
Kierkegaard - despair that does not know it is despair compared with living in Glendale.
I'm a little surprised that "having stayed in a hotel" is not an experience common to almost anyone who might be lumped into any of these categories. Not that I don't think having such an experience carries with it a degree of affluence exceeding that of most people in the world, just that I think that even a randomly selected person in America will tend to have had this experience an overwhelmingly large fraction of the time.
FWIW, I stayed in a hostel in Amsterdam when I was about 18, but other than that, the first time I stayed in a hotel, ever, was on a business trip at my first post-university job. Given that I applied for graduate school a year or so later, it's not beyond the bounds of possibility that I could have gotten all the way to graduate school without ever having stayed in a hotel. I'm not American, but it doesn't seem that unlikely that someone in their early-to-mid-20s who has gone high-school-->university-->graduate study, and who doesn't come from the sort of family background that takes holidays, might have never stayed in a hotel. That said, I'd also be surprised is staying in a hotel would be the sort of thing that'd freak out someone well into adulthood.
I am completely bemused by a concept of academic mores in which "meeting a student in your office with the door closed" is clearly, unambiguously unacceptable, but "live sex demonstration on stage using power tools" is probably OK.
I'm not American, but it doesn't seem that unlikely that someone in their early-to-mid-20s who has gone high-school-->university-->graduate study, and who doesn't come from the sort of family background that takes holidays, might have never stayed in a hotel. That said, I'd also be surprised is staying in a hotel would be the sort of thing that'd freak out someone well into adulthood.
You don't have to stay in a hotel on holiday: I think the only time I ever stayed in a hotel before I was 18 was on holiday with the family, when we missed a train connection and had to stay overnight. Otherwise rented houses, or camping.
"Never having travelled at all" is a bit different. Very difficult to believe, actually. But it does give me hope for the future of the human race, because long-haul space travel will depend on our being willing to spend our entire lives in extremely confined spaces, so it sounds like Glendale is showing us the way to the stars.
Even if you have never, ever, stayed in a hotel before, in your whole life, it is not exactly a difficult skill to master, is it?
476. No, but if you're a seriously infantilised teenager (which is one of the categories we're discussing here) who has never asserted yourself in your life, it could be an extremely intimidating one. You have to deal with a set of condescending people in suits that you're too naive to recognise as cheap uniforms; you have to trail off down long corridors which in which you become more and more isolated from the world outside, and once you get to your room you don't know where anybody else is; you have to answer a bunch of questions which are intimidating because they'd never occurred to you, like "Do you want a call in the morning?", "Do you want a newspaper?", "When will you want breakfast?"; your door card will likely not work, and you will have no idea how to get it fixed...
Not difficult, but stressful.
Count me among those who would be sympathetic to untravelled undergraduate candidates, but less so graduates, because you're meant to learn a few life skills at college.
Even given the challenges in #477, I would say that nearly anyone would be able to rise to the challenge of booking into a hotel room and sleeping in it. It's also not exactly a high-stakes challenge - if you fail at any of the stages mentioned, in my experience the hotel staff will allow you a second and even a third try.
I mean, I once introduced the concept of "toast" to a French guy who had never so much as seen an English loaf of bread (or so he claimed). Imagine how alien a machine the "pop up toaster" might seem to someone who had previously only known baguettes. And yet, within half an hour, he was making, buttering and eating toast like one to the manner born. Human beings are amazingly adaptable.
Many years reading anecdotes from the front line on the intertubes by younger academics have made me reluctantly convinced that there's a swathe of kids out there who almost literally can't wipe their own arses without adult supervision. I find it desperately saddening, and I entirely blame the parents, but when I said infantilised, I meant it.
This is a completely new phenomenon since I was a kid, but I'm an old man; you are somewhere in the middle, I think, but I suspect it's since your day as well.
Nearly anybody should be able to deal with staying a hotel, but there seems to be a whole cohort who have been trained with malice aforethought not to be.
Imagine how alien a machine the fucksaw might seem to someone who had previously only known baguettes. And yet, within a half an hour...
I will simply note that Von Waferstein did not specifically say that it was staying in a hotel per se that freaked the students out, but that they were freaked out the whole recruiting weekend, which given its nature probably involves a lot of other new experiences, emotional baggage and aspirational anxiety. I read the non-hotel savviness remark as merely a convenient marker of their relative unworldliness. But without uncharitable interpretations of other people's lives what would anybody talk about; so do carry on
This sentence is far more disturbing than any fucksaw: In addition to adhering to the code, students are told it's important to report violations by other students to the administration.
Did anybody ask the ethics review board before putting on a public, live-action demonstration as an additional class in Fascism 101?
I will simply note that Von Waferstein did not specifically say that it was staying in a hotel per se that freaked the students out, but that they were freaked out the whole recruiting weekend, which given its nature probably involves a lot of other new experiences, emotional baggage and aspirational anxiety.
Yes, when you put it that way it's a wonder that the human race has survived so long.
Because of winners like you, old chap.
(also, I am really not seeing the causal mechanism that goes "oh no! not only the emotional baggage! and after that the aspirational anxiety! and then the strange coffee-maker and the door key that looks like a credit card! then the interviews! I must immediately find someone 'inappropriate' and get myself sexually abused, because I am that unworldly!). Nobody's that fucking infantilised.
(I disagree with Chris btw - all these kids seem to function perfectly fine when they're doing something important to them, like organising a student fees protest. It's not learned helplessness, it's a strategy of agressive helplessness, familiar to any man who has pretended to be unable to operate a washing machine.)
(I disagree with Chris btw - all these kids seem to function perfectly fine when they're doing something important to them, like organising a student fees protest.
The protests are not organised by the students who (to take one example) cannot bring themselves to eat in the presence of a non-family member and therefore have to take all their meals in their rooms on their own.
And, coming in late, I think it's perfectly OK that a prospective graduate student - or indeed a prospective undergrad - should get a hotel room to themselves when visiting the college.
...I'm still thrown by the thought that most US universities force you to share a bedroom with another student or students when you're actually attending, a situation which seems equally open to abuse.
And, like Alex, I am even more thrown by the idea of an enforced honour code.
the students who (to take one example) cannot bring themselves to eat in the presence of a non-family member and therefore have to take all their meals in their rooms on their own
Please tell me you're making that up. Or that it's a specific example of somebody with a diagnosed psychological issue for which they're receiving treatment.
487: no, it's all true. But IIRC the student in question then spent three months in a cave over his first long vac, and when he came out he was fine.
I'm still thrown by the thought that most US universities force you to share a bedroom with another student or students when you're actually attending
Yeah, this always surprised me. Glasgow has a couple of halls of residence that still had shared rooms but they were seen even then [early 90s] as a massive anachronism.
re: 475
Yeah, it wasn't like I'd never been anywhere. Family dotted about the UK, camping, crashing on friend's floors after gigs in London, etc. And it'd have to be a pretty odd/fucked up individual to find hotels stressful when you are in your 20s, but just re: the idea that it's so amazing that someone would never have stayed in a hotel, it doesn't seem that amazing to me.
This is a completely new phenomenon since I was a kid, but I'm an old man; you are somewhere in the middle, I think, but I suspect it's since your day as well.
I'd guess that those of us born in the 70s [me, dsquared? alex? I've no idea how old ajay is] are all pre- the 'can't wipe own arse' era of child-rearing. I'm certainly from the 'fuck off out and don't come back until your tea's ready' school of family care.
479: I guarantee that academics have had that complaint since the dawn of mass higher education, if not before. It's only now in the Era of Public Complaint that you'd hear about it.
I think dsquared may sort of have a point re: being perfectly able to function when it matters; but also suspect there's been a bit of a sea-change, and current generation of new undergraduates, who've basically worked their arses off jumping through educational hoops, and had the press bitching about how shit they are since they were little kids, are probably a bit tougher than the previous lot.
491. No, before the Era of Public Complaint, academics didn't bitch about this, because if students couldn't hack it the way they found it they were shit out of luck and were gently advised not to let the door hit their arses on their way out.
There are reasons why this was not entirely a good thing. Chiefly it wasn't a good thing because it massively privileged kids from wealthier backgrounds who had more opportunity to knock around the world because their dads had money for them to do it with. I that respect, the fact that there are more support facilities in place these days is unequivocally a good thing. But in the days of the 'fuck off out and don't come back until your tea's ready' school of family care, rich and poor alike had to fuck off out and learn to cope, even if they had different shit to cope with. Learned helplessness was not a survival tactic.
Academics threw students out who were so shy that they insisted on eating in their rooms?
50 years ago most US residential colleges had curfews. Now students are expected to show up and parent themselves. I don't see how they're more coddled now.
Academics threw students out who were so shy that they insisted on eating in their rooms?
No, of course not. But neither did they make special provision for them to do so, and if the cleaning staff complained about mess or smells arising from them doing so, the student, not the cleaner, would have been in trouble.
But we're not really talking about this one bizarre instance. British colleges also had curfews. Students were expected to be sufficiently creative to work round them. It's hardly rigorous parenting. No regulations about having liquor in your room, for example, or sexual partners, provided they were discreet if they stayed over.
496: I think that 494.1 refers to 491 and 479, not to 486.
Though an inability to eat in public would doom your career as a barrister, because you wouldn't be able to eat the big dinners which are (no kidding) a compulsory part of your English bar qualification.
(Though maybe it would be OK if you turned up and didn't eat anything. I don't know.)
But neither did they make special provision for them to do so, and if the cleaning staff complained about mess or smells arising from them doing so, the student, not the cleaner, would have been in trouble.
Still the case; this chap had to cook all his own meals. There wasn't any mess because he wasn't a messy sort of person.
||
No more masturbating to the eastern cougar.
|>
Even if you have never, ever, stayed in a hotel before, in your whole life, it is not exactly a difficult skill to master, is it?
If they have turndown service, all kinds of class-based panic can easily be induced.
No more masturbating to the eastern cougar.
Bitch PhD shut down sometime last year, apo.
*Eastern* cougar, Gonerill. She's Californian.
I think a lot of what we are talking about is changes in institutional behaviour and a lack of disciplinary solidarity. Crying to one's institutional 'mommy'/'daddy' generally works. While the majority of students do what students have always done: basically do the work but grumble about it and try to make life as easy as possible within reason; there are those who choose to take the opportunity to game the system. And as far as I can tell, there's very little one can do about it.
If the environment changes, and those opportunities weren't there, I expect most people would just knuckle down and behave like adults, and the fact that in the past people were generally rewarded for behaving like adults, and (some) can now accrue benefits via _not_ doing so is the root problem.
No regulations about having liquor in your room, for example, or sexual partners, provided they were discreet if they stayed over.
My first year in grad school, I stayed in a dorm (single rooms with sinks, but shared bathrooms) that was built in the 50s or 60s. My room still had a list of rules, yellowed and faded, posted inside the wardrobe door. No women were allowed outside of the common area, among other things. I can't remember if there was anything about alcohol. I assume people broke the rules back then, but apparently they were there. I was kind of surprised.
501 gets it right. It's not a difficult skill to master, if someone shows you what to do.
501, 506: If I always just decline turndown service because why would anybody want it, does that mean I'm lower class? (I do take the mint.)
If I always just decline turndown service because why would anybody want it, does that mean I'm lower class I enjoy messy sex in the afternoon?
I tend to turn down decline service.
I would certainly sign up for a decline service. For a small fee a pale young lady with a camelia would lie on a chaise longue in in one's room and bewail her fate before expiring romantically just before you got bored.
Better than the rubbish on TV, anyway.
The ice bucket should clearly say "Not a chamber pot." One the one hand, it was near the drinking glasses, but on the other hand, it had a plastic liner. Why else would it have a plastic liner?
I just had to look up "turndown service." Are you supposed to pay extra for that?
With computer dating, you can easily get turned down 2,500 times a minute.
The NU prexy has now criticized the demo and initiated/called for/whatever an investigation. He didn't comment on whether faculty doors should be open or closed during office hours.
And surely most folks in the US who haven't stayed in a hotel have seen them on TV. So they'll know that if it's a motel with, like, two stories, there's bound to be a dead body in one of the rooms and police running around with their guns drawn, and if it's a fancier hotel with a big lobby, then glamorous men/women will using the elevators while a well-dressed gang plots to rob the adjoining casino.
Pro tip: In many ways, a hotel is quite like a house.
Except larger, red, and you can only put one on a property.
Home is anywhere you hang yourself.
"Home is the place where, when you have to go there, They have to take you in."
Jesus doesn't want me for a fucksaw.
'Cause fucksaws are not made like me.
Don't expect me to fuck at 2500 strokes per minute.
Don't expect me to fuck
Don't expect me to saw
Don't expect me to fucksaw you.
Give me a home where the smoke hangs thick,
Where a John is a John and a Dick is a Dick...
Late to the party, but this thread brought to mind this scene from one of my favorite comedies.
2500 strokes per minute!
Pretty sure that is enough to void the warranty.
The overlap between my real life and Unfogged life is usually zero, but today thanks to this thread, I got to participate in a discussion of the Northwestern demonstration by contributing the key piece of terminology: "fucksaw".
you are the anti-ben -- all praise to the apostropher