QotD: Fascinating Class

What is the most interesting class you have ever taken? 
Submitted by Melissa. 

I was fortunate enough to have taken several interesting classes in university, but the stand out would have to be "Sociology of Sexuality".  The course endeavored to remove a lot of mystery from American society with regard to sex, as well as to attempt to explain some of the reasoning behind various sexual mores.

The class was presented with three textbooks - a biology text, a book of case studies of individual sexual experiences (very clinical), and a book of erotica.  The biology book was fairly boring, but the other two were eye-opening to me (I was twenty-one and of limited experience) in terms of what was, or should be, considered normal human sexuality.  The case studies dealt with straight, gay, black, white, male, female, religious, non-religious, promiscuous, and moderate behavioral patterns in an attempt to illustrate the sheer variety inherent in human sexual practices.

The erotica book was equally eye-opening as it presented a variety of stories that were intended, to put it bluntly, to get people off.  And, again, it was the sheer range of themes and imagery presented that were mind-expanding.  Stories ranged from fairly straight-forward male / female sexual game playing (real games, not mind twisting) to more exotic female / female role-playing inside a relationship to really kinky female / male gender-bending with a dash of cross dressing and hints of trans-sexualism.

An equally important part of the in class experience were the guest speakers.  The class heard presentations from ministers and a rabbis, hookers and phone sex workers, therapists and counselors, gay rights activists, and the occasional anti-sex crusader.

A final part of the class was actually out of the class.  We were assigned groups that met once a week to discuss topics provided by the professor.  This learning to speak openly and honestly about sexual preferences and mores and experiences without judging was perhaps the most valuable part of the class for me.  It helped me to find out more about myself (which is what college is about, right) as well as to accept others as they are, not as I wanted them to be nor without trying to confine them to a pre-scripted category of right or wrong.

And, hey, in our groups, we got to write erotica for extra credit.  How can you not like a class like that?