Pro-Department of Sexuality Statement

[leiju]

I find it absolutely perverse that, amongst all the endless number of departments that exist in the vast amounts of colleges spread around the world, none (to the best of my knowledge) have a department of sexuality

Comments

[serif]

Agreed completely! I'd just like to add another book to your reading list if you haven't seen it already: Who's Been Sleeping in Your Head? by Brett Kahr, a psychoanalytic study of sexual fantasies from hundreds of participants. Very fascinating.

[leiju]

Oh yes! I can't believe I forgot that book! It is an absolutely brilliant book, indeed! Thanks for putting up the link to it!

*nods fervently*

:D

[siveys]

In this day and age you do not need a university to study something, publish papers about it and be recognized as a leading expert in the field of study. Actually I think that today you probably need to do all of this without a department dedicated to the subject before nobody takes it seriously enough to form a new department.

Start a blog. Review literature. Form syntheses. Outline problems. Formulate studies. Gather voluntary test subjects. Report findings. Ask for voluntary support. Write books. Dedicate 25 years of your life for something meaningful, important and close to your heart. Wipe your a** with honorary doctorates.

Please do get out of your obsessive university box. What good are they if they haven't even been able to form a department for the study of human sexuality anyway? :D

Yours truly, MSc.

[evilbobrex]

I have a feeling that it would be easier if the dominant religions in the western and chunks of the eastern world weren't anti-sex and anti-sexuality.
if the first instinct of most people, when in public, weren't to laugh or act embarrassed everytime any sexual topic is discussed frankly. if the academics weren't just as scared, just as easily humiliated. if you could gather groups of people between the ages of eighteen and thirty together and have a discussion about sex, and expect the collected maturity level to be above that of a thirteen year old...

and "women's studies" and even a certain amount of feminism acts to oppose every avenue for discussion of sex, claiming that every turn is just another way that men take advantage of women.

I agree, this is a great idea, it's something that should happen. unfortunately, drastic change in societies needs to happen first.

Why?

[anonymous]

Why do we shy away from the subject? Take a look at Catholic dictionaries (I'll bet other religions may fall into same trap). As a naughty 12 year old, me and some classmates thumbed through the dictionary in the school library and had great fun chuckling at all the rude words like "penis", "vagina", etc...- "masturbation" was interesting and had me terrified - "Bodily self pollution"!! How scary is that?

However, although I don't disagree with all that you say, it isn't clear what the outcome would be. What are you looking for? Humans have managed to reproduce over thousands of years, and most likely will continue to do so. You used one word that hinted at more though, when you said "through a holistic approach" - does that include the emotional/relationship part as well? If so, does that still get categorised as sex?

[leiju]

*bodily self pollution* - always a good one! Think about negative thoughts! Aren't those forms of bodily self pollution

[siveys]

I'm not sure if there is anything to it but the extra rude words referring to the parts of our bodies you mentioned have (at least in my foreign brain) a strong connotation of arrogance and selfishness

[leiju]

A hug and loads of Love your way! Thank You for being there and always standing by my side and fuelling me with additional information and thoughtful thoughts :)

There is also the fact that many people seem to hold some degree of mystery and fantasy as a central part of their sexuality, plus the fact that many people guide their relationships primarily through emotions instead of cold rationality. These both speak for the fact that many people might even find it offensive if somebody forced hard science down to their fantasy land.And you've actually just touched the core: The first sentence of your paragraph is exactly what I'd like to see talked about, studied, researched. Yet at the same time, especially as a "social sciences" student, I can tell you that "hard science" doesn't exist outside the realm of our imagination. Even medical "hard core science" is merely politics and our own indulgence at rational discourse. And there's another field of study for the Department of Sexuality

You got it :)

[anonymous]

Great Article :))