A little tip for all of you – never use YouTube to search for that scene from Black Swan.  If you don’t know the scene I’m referring to, you probably haven’t seen the film.  Anyway, if you do the videos that are ‘Recommended For You’ will completely change (well mine did, maybe these videos are already on your feed but that’s none of my business.)  If I were to sit and watch these videos, most of them “how to”s and advice videos, I do believe I could be the best damn lesbian lover any woman had ever encountered.  My recommended videos is now overrun with videos about masturbation, sex and lesbian porn.  Of which I’ve watched only 2, I swear.  One  was a panel of women talking about the ‘correct age to start touching yourself’ (the general consensus was 3 or 4 years old, if anybody’s interested.)  The other is the one which this blog is going to tell you about, and is about ‘Human Sexuality’ classes.  Or class (singular) to be specific.

Apparantly, somewhere in the world that definitely includes America, classes are available which teach students about their own sexuality.  60 year old Karen Royce signed up for the course, then proceeded to sue Western Nevada College because she felt that the professor was inappropriate and that the classes were offensive.  I’ve read a couple of articles after watching the video, and I’m Team Karen.  I fail to see how these classes are in the slightest bit educational, I don’t see what students have to gain and I am repulsed by the thought.  Then again, I am a repulsed asexual so there is a high chance that I’m incredibly biased.  I’m also not entirely sure why a woman of that age was signing up to a sex class in the first place, but I am in absolutely no position to judge.

The class at Western Nevada College is lead by Tom Kubistant, who kick started by telling students that he was going to “increase their sexual urges to such a height that they won’t be able to think of anything other than sex.”  Now, that might not sound too bad.  A little cocky perhaps but unless you heard the words leaving his mouth it could easily be assumed that the comment was meant humourously, as a bit of an ice breaker (I’d imagine ice breakers would be a necessity for this subject.).    Class assignments, however, involved writing short journal entries about their sexual fantasies, increasing the amount of time they spent masturbating (and writing about the effects of this on their lives) and was rounded off with a case study…about themselves.  Yes their final exam, as it were, was to write a Case Study on their own sexuality entitled “A Sexual Case Study -You!”.  Now, writing a case study on yourself might not seem so bad, in fact in theory it should be a damn sight easier than having to find somebody willing to divulge honest information about their sexuality to you (although this is maybe just a side effect of the singletonitus I have, who knows).  What about if I told you that their case study had to include :

How and when they lost their virginity

If they have ever experienced sexual abuse

If they experienced a homosexual phase and the challenges associated with this

Whether they cheat and how they feel about it if they do

When they started to masturbate

Their ‘personal promiscuity behaviours’

Is that not a bit of a personal assignment?  I see no educational benefit to writing about this, if anything I’d say it would making a cracking application form for the course and would also give students an insight into what they were getting into.  I can’t help but feel that this man in incredibly perverted, and from what I’ve read I don’t even think he taught the students anything (but we all know what the newspapers are like for conveying information).  I just can’t see what anybody would gain from these classes.  One newspaper interviewed 20 other students from the class, none of whom shared Karen’s view, but I’m not convinced.  I know I’m quite old fashioned, I’m quite prude I guess and I am asexual, but I don’t think I would have lasted very long in that class without getting offended.

So is it just Karen and I, or is Human Sexuality Studies a perverse practice that needs to be put to bed?  I’d love some opinions!