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 Higher education can do more than stimulate the mind.Students in the popular and provocative human sexuality course at Northwestern University were invited for an optional demonstration after class on Feb. 21 in which a naked woman was penetrated by a sex toy until she reached sexual climax, The Daily Northwestern reported. About 120 students voluntarily stayed for the extracurricular activity organized by professor John Michael Bailey. Guest speaker Ken Melvoin-Berg, co-owner of Weird Chicago Tours, led the "Network for Kinky People" panel, which included several women.Before a woman onstage disrobed, students were repeatedly advised that they would see explicit content.The woman then used a machine with a graphic name to stimulate herself to the point of ejaculation, a topic that had been recently covered in class, Bailey said."It was a fun and educational experience," Melvoin-Berg told the Chicago Tribune. The students ""seemed to be incredibly pleased. We had a number of them that got closer and closer."The rousing performance caused controversy on campus and around Chicago, leading Bailey to write a lengthy defense of his decision to allow the demonstration."I hesitated only briefly before saying yes. My hesitation concerned the likelihood that many people would find this inappropriate. ... [But] those still there had stayed for an optional demonstration/lecture about kinky sex and were told explicitly what they were about to see," Bailey wrote. Bailey added that student feedback was "uniformly positive" and vowed to continue his fight against efforts "to silence sex research."Bailey's class is one of the most popular at the college, with about 600 students registered for it. The semester is packed with other optional panels after class that have included talks with sex offenders and a question-and-answer session with a swinging couple.Northwestern University President Morton Schapiro issued a statement on Thursday stating that the school had opened an investigation into the incident, and claiming the demonstration "represented extremely poor judgment on the part of our faculty member," according to FoxNews.com ||||| A psychology professor did what?! The story behind the Illinois university’s strange sex demonstration. 
 
 Update: Northwestern University President Morton Schapiro said Thursday that he was "troubled and disappointed" after hearing about the sex toy incident—and that Northwestern would be launching an investigation into it. “I feel it represented extremely poor judgment on the part of our faculty member,” he said in a statement. On Saturday morning, the professor behind the controversial class issued his own apology stating that he regrets allowing the controversial demonstration, and that "In the 18 years I have taught this course, nothing like the demonstration at issue has occurred, and I will allow nothing like it to happen again." 
 
 
 
 It was bizarre, say students—even for a professor who gets off (excuse the pun) on controversy. On Feb. 21, after a lecture on sexual arousal, students in Northwestern University psychology Professor J. Michael Bailey’s human-sexuality course were given the option to stay for a guest presentation. Most were used to these sessions: With topics like “The Gay Guys Panel” (gay men talking about their sex lives) and Q&A sessions with transgender performers, the optional add-ons were part of what made Bailey’s class one of the most popular on campus. 
 
 An unconventional sex ed class is making news. 
 
 But this particular lecture was, shall we say, different. Led by a man whose website describes him as a “psychic detective and ghost hunter,” it was called “Networking for Kinky People,” and began with a towel placed neatly on the auditorium stage. Next, a woman took her clothes off, and—with an audience of around 100—lay down on her back, legs spread. As students moved forward from the theater’s back seats, for a closer view, “The girl grabbed the mic,” says Sean Lavery, a Northwestern freshman. “She explained that she had a fetish for being watched by large crowds while having an orgasm.” 
 
 No, the girl involved was not a student. Yes, she was over 21, we’re told—and the guy stimulating her was introduced as her boyfriend. “It was a committed couple who did the demonstration, and it happened at the end of the class,” says Ken Melvoin-Berg, the guest speaker, who helps operate a tour company called Weird Chicago that offers sex tours. 
 
 We'll spare you the gory details—but let's just say they involved the woman's boyfriend bringing her to climax on stage, using a contraption called a "fucksaw," and plenty of gasps, not just from flabbergasted students. “I was gauging everyone’s reaction,” says Lavery, who’s been in Bailey’s class since January. “I think everyone was just like, ‘Is she really doing this right now?’” 
 
 The demonstration will become a rallying cry for sex-education critics, and parents of fresh-faced 18 year olds for whom Northwestern is suddenly at the top of their college wish lists. 
 
 The demonstration, as you can imagine, has become the talk of campus—a story that will undoubtedly become fable for subsequent classes of incoming freshmen. It will also certainly become a rallying cry for sex-education critics, and parents of fresh-faced 18 year olds for whom Northwestern is suddenly at the top of their college wish lists. With the story first reported in Northwestern’s campus paper, The Daily, on Tuesday, it’s safe to say that the influx of criticism has only just begun. 
 
 But Bailey, for his part, has never shied away from controversy. His 2003 book, The Man Who Would Be Queen, ruffled feathers with its argument that some transgender men who wish to become women are driven by erotic fascination rather than biological desire; Bailey has said himself that he enjoys turning intellectual taboo on its head. But he resigned from his post as the chairman of Northwestern’s psychology department in 2004, shortly after allegations that he had unethically published confidential information about many of his subjects. (The claims were never substantiated, and Bailey has vehemently denied them.) Now a professor of clinical and personality psychology, Bailey is not licensed as a clinical psychologist in Illinois, nor has he been, according to the Illinois Department of Professional Regulation. 
 
 Back on campus, Northwestern is still defending its longtime prof, despite Bailey's comments in another class, quoted in the student newspaper this week, that "Sticks and stones may break your bones, but watching naked people on stage doing pleasurable things will never hurt you." "Northwestern University faculty members engage in teaching and research on a wide variety of topics, some of them controversial and at the leading edge of their respective disciplines," the university's vice president for university relations, Alan Cubbage, told The Daily Beast in a statement. "The university supports the efforts of its faculty to further the advancement of knowledge." 
 
 Bailey declined to be interviewed for this article, but seems to have gained at least a bit of perspective since his earlier remarks. Late Wednesday, he posted a lengthy explanation of his behavior to the Northwestern faculty site, in which he acknowledges he had "some apprehension" about the display—though more for the personal repercussions than any lack of educational value. "Do I have any regrets? It's mostly too early to say," he writes. "I certainly have no regrets concerning Northwestern students, who have demonstrated that they are open-minded grownups rather than fragile children." Grownups, yes; but also open-minded enough to assess the display for themselves. "I was like, 'OK, she orgasmed on stage,'" says Lavery, the freshman, who is 18. "What're we supposed to take away from that?" 
 
 Jessica Bennett is a Newsweek senior writer covering society, youth culture and gender. Her special reports, multimedia packages and original Web video have been honored by the New York Press Club, the Newswomen's Club of New York and GLAAD, among other organizations. Follow her on Twitter. 
 
 Like The Daily Beast on Facebook and follow us on Twitter for updates all day long. 
 
 For inquiries, please contact The Daily Beast at editorial@thedailybeast.com. ||||| Faith Kroll and Jim Marcus who demonstrated the use of a sex toy at Northwestern University. (Sun-Times / ) 
 
 Related 
 
 Statement from professor of class 
 
 Northwestern University acknowledged that an unusual demonstration was held on campus last week in which students observed a naked woman being penetrated by a sex toy. 
 
 
 
 The sex act was performed in front of about 100 students in psychology professor John Michael Bailey’s human sexuality class. The demonstration occurred after class, and attendance was optional. 
 
 
 
 The university will pay several hundred dollars to guest lecturer Ken Melvoin-Berg, co-owner of Weird Chicago Tours. His Feb. 21 discussion of bondage, swinging and other sexual fetishes was arranged by Bailey, who gets extra funding from the university’s College of Arts & Sciences for lectures and other activities he routinely holds after class. 
 
 
 
 “The students find the events to be quite valuable, typically, because engaging real people in conversation provides useful examples and extensions of concepts students learn about in traditional academic ways,” Bailey said in a prepared statement Wednesday night 
 
 
 
 After an initial discussion at Ryan Family Auditorium, the class was told that a couple was going to demonstrate the use of a sex toy and female orgasm. 
 
 
 
 “Both Professor Bailey and myself gave them five or six warnings about what was about to happen and it would be graphic,” Melvoin-Berg said. 
 
 
 
 The woman undressed and got on stage with her male partner, who used a device that looks like a machine-powered saw with a phallic object instead of a blade. Melvoin-Berg said the couple are exhibitionists who enjoy having people watch them have sex, and they were not paid for the demonstration. 
 
 
 
 Jim Marcus said he and his fiancé hadn’t planned to show off the sex act at first, but decided to do so after the class watched a video on female orgasm that he thought was unrealistic. They already had brought the equipment to show as part of the discussion. 
 
 
 
 “It seems like a human sexuality class is a smart place to dispel some of the mistakes that we saw in the video,” said Marcus, a musician who also teaches sex education. 
 
 
 
 He said the demonstration with his fiancé, Faith Kroll, was different from a live sex show or pornography. 
 
 
 
 “I was more than happy to. We have fun with it,” Kroll said. “I’m an exhibitionist. I enjoy the attention, being seen by other people. It was entertaining because there were a lot of curious minds, so that was cool.” 
 
 
 
 “What we did was not designed to titillate people, but to educate people,” Marcus said. He said the demonstration was accompanied by a discussion about safety and consent, for example. 
 
 
 
 “I hope (Bailey) doesn’t take a lot of flak for this, but I suspect he will,” Marcus said. 
 
 
 
 “It is probably something I will remember for the rest of my life. I can’t say that about my Econ 202 class and the material that I learned there,” said Northwestern senior Justin Smith. Smith, 21, said students were told there would be a “sex tour operator” speaking about fetishes after class, but they didn’t initially know there would be a live demonstration. 
 
 
 
 “We were watching a video on sexual arousal. They thought, ‘Why not give a demonstration?,” Smith said. “The main guy, Ken, said, ‘Are you ready for the live sex show?’ We were like, ‘OK.’” 
 
 
 
 There were several warnings and some students trickled out, he said. He said most students were sitting in the auditorium’s balcony, including a student’s mom who attended class that day. 
 
 
 
 Once the demonstration began, Smith said, “there was a lot of covering of the mouth like ‘Oh my gosh.’ It was pretty quiet … I didn’t really see people take affront, but they were engaged with the experience.’” 
 
 
 
 Melvoin-Berg called it an educational experience for the students, and said it lasted about three minutes. “We wanted to share not only our lifestyles and talk about it, but demonstrate what we do in our personal lives,” he said. The students, he said, “seemed to be incredibly pleased. We had a number of them that got closer and closer.” 
 
 
 
 An Evanston police department spokesman said Northwestern police would be responsible for determining whether the demonstration violated any local ordinances. University spokesman Alan Cubbage said “the issue has not been raised,” and nobody had filed a complaint with the police department. 
 
 
 

– Class presentations don’t get much more unconventional: last week Northwestern psychology professor John Bailey held an optional after-class demonstration in which a naked woman had an orgasm live onstage, as a man identified as her fiance used a sex toy known as a “fucksaw” on her. The girl was not a student, according to the Daily Beast. The sex act was the climax (no pun intended) of a talk by guest lecturer Ken Melvoin-Berg, who offers sex tours of Chicago. “Both Professor Bailey and myself gave them five or six warnings about what was about to happen,” Melvoin-Berg tells the Chicago Tribune. Some students left, but about 100 stayed as a naked woman came onstage and explained that she had a fetish for being watched by large crowds. The event has created a bit of a stir, but the school has issued a statement standing behind Bailey, and the professor is unrepentant. “Sticks and stones may break your bones,” he reportedly told another class this week, “but watching naked people on stage doing pleasurable things will never hurt you.” For more, click here.