Americana: X-Rated Homework

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Students in Professor Barry Singer's Psychology of Sex course at California State University-Long Beach were never too busy to do their homework. And no wonder. There were field trips to nudist colonies, gay bars and swingers' clubs. Singer's pupils could get classroom credit for after-hours experiments: married couples indulging in adultery, for example, or straights having sex with gays. A professor of psychology at the college, Singer required students to analyze and record their experiences in "play books."

All went well until housewives from a local evangelical church learned of the eight-year-old course and concluded to their horror that the taxpayers' money was being spent to encourage experimental sex and voyeurism. As angry state legislators entered the fray, Singer announced that he would no longer give course credits for sex. Last week, however, Cal State officials suspended Singer for 30 days, pending an investigation into his x-rated methods of arousing student interest. The professor insisted that there was nothing immoral about his approach to learning by doing. "Lots of universities have field trips," he said. "It's not so unusual. Criminology classes go to prisons."