What do an expert on South American freshwater fishes, a sex therapist and a classroom of 230 undergraduate students shouting “penis” and “vagina” have in common? Last winter, they were all part of the Biology 116 course Biology of Sex, one of many courses at the University that discusses sex, sexuality and the academics behind gettin’ it on.

In an office buried deep in the back hallways of the Museum of Natural History, Prof. William Fink, who is also a curator at the University's Museum of Zoology and known for his work with fishes, sits at a desk near a shelf of books with titles related to human sexuality, love and evolution.

Fink said he conceived, uh, the Biology of Sex course in 2008 with Sallie Foley, an adjunct faculty member in the School of Social Work, a certified sex therapist and director of the University’s Sexual Health Certificate Program. The pair met through their sons, who attended the same middle school.

Fink’s work focuses on evolutionary biology and diversity of sex in animals, and he thought partnering with a specialist in human sex and biology could create a unique experience for non-science students.

“For me,” Fink said, “it’s an evolutionary biology course and a biodiversity course, but it also is a course that helps people in their late teens and early 20s try to understand what’s going on in their minds and their bodies.”

For many of his students, Fink said the idea of sex biology and evolution is a foreign concept.

“I start the class by telling them they are the results of three and a half billion years of successful reproduction,” Fink said. “(It) puts a framework around all of our behavior, and most people don’t know that. They think dinner and a movie is about dinner and a movie, but it’s about babies — it’s about making babies.”

Discussing “baby making” in an academic setting, however, does come with different rules.

The topic of sex education has been a controversial topic, with politicians and parents trying to control what is appropriate for adolescents and teens. While most institutions of higher education have no formal regulations on this topic, outside pressure from politicians and the media make teaching a university sex course different from teaching a course on, say, astronomy.

An act of indecency, or academia?

The date is Feb. 28, 2011. It’s after lecture in a Northwestern University human sexuality course, and the professor has brought in two guest speakers — a man and a woman — for an optional demonstration for students.

The woman undresses in front of an audience of about 100 students, and the two speakers engage in a sex toy demonstration. The woman lets the man, who was her fiancé, “penetrate her with a device that looks like a machine-powered saw with a phallic object instead of a blade,” according to a Chicago Tribune article on the class. She orgasms, and the after-class demonstration is followed by a discussion on “kinky sex and female orgasm.”

So that’s the same as an astronomy class heading outside at night to view the stars in action, right? The event launched a media hailstorm.

While Northwestern initially stood by the professor’s decision to show the exhibition, they later launched an investigation of the event, with Northwestern President Morton Schapiro denouncing the demonstration.

In a statement to the Chicago Tribune, the psychology professor who taught the course, J. Michael Bailey, said he couldn’t think of a reason not to show the demonstration to students, as his course focuses on “controversial and unusual aspects of sexuality.”

To show or not to show? That is the question

The expanse of sex education at the University is evident in the courses provided to students. One simple search of “sex” in the Fall 2012 LSA Course Guide produces 167 results, with the departments offering these courses ranging from Arabic, Armenian, Persian, Turkish, and Islamic Studies; Afroamerican & African Studies; American Culture; and Communication Studies.

One course that appears, Comparative Literature 122, titled Sexual Revolution, trades in Fink’s biological approach to sex for a political framework. Rackham student Rostom Mesli teaches this first-year writing requirement course, which he said offers a view of how sex is considered revolutionary.

Mesli guides his students in analyzing the role of sex during the AIDS epidemic, civil rights movement and other key political moments in history.