Students Watched Class Instructor Have Sex

by Sara Russo

A course at UC-Berkeley dedicated to the study of "Male Sexuality" was suspended and then reinstated after it was revealed that the class's student instructors had organized trips to strip clubs and "sex exchanges," held class parties that turned into orgies, and engaged in sex in front of students.

"There was an orgy at one of the parties," Christy Kovacs, a freshman student at Berkeley explained to the campus newspaper, The Daily Californian, which broke the story of the course's exploits. "And after we went to a strip club, at the party, people took pictures of their genitalia." The anonymous Polaroid photos were then placed in a box and students and class instructors played a game attempting to match the photos with the person whose genitals were featured. Course instructors claim that the party was organized to help students taking the class meet one another, and that no one was pressured to take the Polaroid photos which they label a "party game."

"The purpose of the party was for everyone to get to know each other in an outside environment," Kovacs said. "The main point of them was to meet people from other sections." Students and instructors in the course have hastened to state that the party, which was held at the home of one of the course's student instructors, was not mandatory, though they admit that the photograph-taking and group sex took place.

A second questionable incident occurred when several course instructors accompanied a group of students when they visited a gay strip club as research for their final project for the class. While at the strip club, they watched one of their instructors undress and have sex onstage.

Student instructors for the "Male Sexuality" class were adamant in defense of the course's content. In a letter to the Daily Cal, Drew Navarro, a "facilitator for the Male Sexuality class for the last five semesters," insisted that he and the course's other instructors had done nothing wrong. "The Daily Cal horribly mischaracterized the truth," course instructor Ian Bach told Campus Report.

"Along with icebreakers done in class, we also arrange parties outside of class," Navarro explained in a statement he sent to Campus Report. "At these parties we play games that would go under the category of icebreakers. We call one 'porn pictionary' and another, 'porn password.'"

"I liken them to playing 'spin the bottle' or 'truth or dare,'" Navarro stated in a letter to the Daily Cal. "It is not fair to blame the class because some students played games in the bedroom at a party. It would be the same as blaming the forestry department for students getting arrested for protesting the destruction of a forest."

Navarro also objected to being called an "instructor" for the course, preferring instead the term "facilitator" or "coordinator." "We leave the instruction to the guest speakers, who are experts in their field, along with some UC faculty members," he claimed. Guest speakers this past term included lesbian sex-toy shop owner Carol Queen, S&M expert and self-declared "sadist" Cleo Du Bois, and female-to-male transsexual, James Green.

Despite the defenses the course's instructors have given on paper, they failed to show up to a February 15 meeting with faculty members and administrators, and the University suspended the course indefinitely. "It will remain suspended pending the review of the allegations that appeared in the student newspaper," campus spokeswoman Janet Gilmore told Campus Report. Gilmore refused to address the charges issued against the course's student coordinators, or whether the University might be at fault for allowing the course to proceed. "I'm not going to get into the particulars of it," she said. "We are investigating what occurred and once that's done I can talk to you further, but I'm not going to get into all the particulars."

The "Male Sexuality" class is made possible through a special program at Berkeley called de-Cal, which stands for "democratic education at Cal." De-Cal classes are organized and run by students, although a faculty sponsor must be willing to oversee the class and be "responsible for the content" of the course. Approximately 100 de-Cal courses are offered to students each semester with topics ranging from "Drugs in the Media" and "The Joy of Garbage" to "The Grateful Dead" and "Star Wars." A large number of courses are offered on sexually explicit topics, including "The Erotic as Power," the three sections of the "Male Sexuality" course now under scrutiny, and six sections of a corresponding "Female Sexuality" class.

While the student instructors or "facilitators" of these courses receive no salary from the University, the classes are held on University grounds and students taking the classes receive from 1 to 4 units of credit towards graduation. To remain enrolled as a full-time student at Berkeley, a pupil typically must take 11-13 units of credits per semester.

Caren Kaplan, chair of the women's studies department at Berkeley, is the faculty member charged with the responsibility for overseeing the content of the "Male Sexuality" and "Female Sexuality" de-Cal classes. "I don't police the content," Kaplan commented, claiming that she had been unaware of the course's specifics until the scandal broke, despite the de-Cal regulations' clear mandate that a faculty member be "responsible for the content" of each course. Ordinarily, approval for a de-Cal course requires the consent of both a sponsoring professor and the head of an academic department, but because Kaplan is the head of the women's studies department, no secondary evaluation was required.

George Bresslauer, dean of social sciences at Berkeley stated that it is "too premature" to make a determination as to whether or not Kaplan neglected her duties at the course's supervising professor, but noted that de-Cal classes are typically "run with very little faculty oversight" and "that will probably change."

Berkeley administrators deny that they had any knowledge of the sexual antics prompted by the "Male Sexuality" course. "Needless to say, none of the reported excursions or dubious parlor games were included in the course description or syllabus provided to us," reads an official statement from the University. "If the allegations are indeed true, then in their wanton abuse of the privileges afforded UC-Berkeley students, the student coordinators have displayed not only the glaring lack of a moral compass but the absence of even the most basic common sense."

Despite Berkeley's denial that it was aware of the course's true content, Campus Report has reported on the course's lascivious curriculum several times within the past year-and-a-half. In November of 2000, the class came under fire when it was criticized by California State Senator Ray Haynes. In a February 2001 article, Campus Report reported that members of the "Male Sexuality" class at Berkeley were asked to write papers about their first masturbatory experience and view "multiple clips" of pornography in class. One group of students conducted a final project for the class by testing the effects of alcohol on the rate of orgasm.

Campus Report again reported on the course in May of 2001. The article entitled, "Berkeley Students Stroll Naked for Final Class Project," highlighted the antics of freshmen Andrez Guerrero and Binh Au. The students were threatened with arrest after they removed all of their clothing and had a classmate videotape people's reactions as they walked naked through the city as a final class project for "Male Sexuality." When their instructor was told of the threat of arrest, he angrily exclaimed, "This is hootenanny. I see a naked parade at least once a year."

Just over a week after the class was suspended, Berkeley allowed the course to resume on a probationary basis, claiming that the outrageous activities which had been reported had not been an official part of the course. The class will now be subject to strict supervision and scrutiny, claim University officials, and student coordinators will be forced to meet weekly with faculty sponsors who must approve extracurricular outings. Berkeley officials have confirmed that the class did indeed visit a strip club as a class project. A second faculty member will join professor Caren Kaplan as a sponsor for the course.

Student opinion at Berkeley on the class is split. Matthew Taylor, a student who recently completed the "Male Sexuality" class claimed that it "is a robust course covering a universe of topics, from masturbation toys to pornography and safe sex." Taylor defended the sexual activities of his classmates, admitting, "Yes, one of the parties last semester ended with a few folks having a sexual experience. What's wrong with that?"

Other students at the University were more critical of the course. "They'd dress up in nothing but thongs and pass out fliers for the course," sophomore Jordan Webb commented on recruiting tactics for the class. "Sometimes these foreign engineering students would be so afraid, they'd actually run away. And these guys would chase them."