This is serious news, plus it's another chance to blog about my party-school Ph.D. alma mater!
From the Los Angeles Times, "At UC Santa Barbara, Sex as a Matter of Course: Sociology Professors John and Janice Baldwin, Married for 41 years, Are Trusted Voices on Love and Lovemaking for Thousands of Students at the Beach-Side Campus":
How well should people know each other before they have sex?This is a serious class, of course. And popular too - 600 students! Geez!
In the biggest classroom at UC Santa Barbara, sociology professors John and Janice Baldwin are reeling off survey results showing that male and female students are almost equally willing to sleep with someone they love. But the hall erupts in knowing laughter as a gender gap emerges: Men, the long-married couple reports, remain eager for sex through descending categories of friendship and casual acquaintance. Women don't.
By the time Janice Baldwin gets to the statistic on sex between strangers, the din from the 600 students is so loud, they can hardly hear her announce that 37% of men would have sex with a person they had just met, compared with only 7% of women.
"So you can see, males are a little more likely to go to bed with somebody they don't know very well," Baldwin says dryly.
"Or at all," she adds, to guffaws.
By turns humorous and deadly serious, "Sociology of Human Sexuality" has been an institution at the beach-side campus for more than two decades. So have the Baldwins, unflappable sixtysomethings who are trusted voices on love and lovemaking for thousands of current and former UC Santa Barbara students.
Today's undergraduates have easy access to X-rated Internet sites, and many have watched television gurus dissect troubled marriages. But there are often gaps in their knowledge of biology and sexual behavior, the result of squeamish parents and less-than-candid high school health teachers.
The Baldwins step in with data about orgasm, birth control and infertility -- and, implicitly, with their own example of a 41-year marriage that seems to work well.
"We don't feel we are the sex king and queen of the world," Janice Baldwin, 63, said recently in the cramped office the couple share, their desks touching. "So this is not about us. It's about the students, and we are privileged to get to teach a class that can help them avoid the downsides of sex and increase the positives."
John Baldwin, 68, said he and his wife do not aim to be role models. "We are not trying to teach them to be like us," he said. "But we are going to be talking about relationships, and a lot of them want relationships. Even though there is a lot of casual sex, they want to find somebody special . . . So we are little hope signals."
Students say the class is fun, eye-opening and altogether useful. Clearly, many of them pay attention: Lectures on sexually transmitted infections can trigger a stampede to the campus health center.
And recall previously, "UCSB Makes Top-Ten in Latest Party-School List."
It's hard out there for UCSB alum!
Hey, maybe Smitty can get new series started with some of this stuff! Could be educational!
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