Sex Toy Demonstrating Professor Is Sorry You're So Mad

Northwestern University’s Professor J. Michael Bailey has issued a sorta kinda non-apology for a controversial after class sex demonstration he held last month that has all of Chicago’s pearls being clutched like they’ve never been clutched before. During the now-notorious demonstration, a male presenter brought his female partner to orgasm using a device called a fucksaw. Northwestern’s student paper reported on it, the national media caught wind of the story, and all hell broke loose, including groups calling for a formal inquiry into the presentation and whether disciplinary action should be taken. According to his statement, Professor Baily is sorry that people are upset, and he promises it won’t happen again, and he shouldn’t have done it in the first place, but no harm was caused by the fact that he did it. He added that there are more important things for people to be worrying about, like global warming.

Professor Fucksaw does have a point. While the demonstration may have been disturbing to some, it was performed between consenting adults, was optional for students to attend, and addressed something that had been discussed in class. Furthermore, college students, even at a school as nerdariffic as Northwestern, are hardly strangers to sex; what happened in Professor Baily’s classroom is no more risque than what happens in bathroom stalls in The Keg on particularly rowdy Saturday nights (although, having dated more than one person who went to Northwestern, it’s safe to say that female orgasm may not actually be present during intra-student romps as it was during the good Professor’s demonstration). The fact that this story has been dominating the news is a testament to our collective fascination with sex combined with residual cultural attitudes that attach feelings of shame to sexual pleasure, particularly female sexual pleasure.