Pastor Bans NU Students Because Of Sex Toy Demo
HIXSON, Tenn. (CBS) -- A Tennessee Baptist church is refusing to allow students from Northwestern University to camp on its property, because of the recent demonstration at the university involving a sex toy.
The Rev. Clifton Roth, the pastor of the Community Baptist Church in Hixson, Tenn., had originally agreed to let 14 Northwestern students camp on church property while they spent spring break volunteering to help build a nature trail.
But Roth changed his mind the next day after reading a story in a Chattanooga newspaper about a February demonstration in Northwestern professor John Michael Bailey's human sexuality class, in which a woman was brought to orgasm onstage with a motorized sex toy.
The students had no connection to the sex toy incident, other than that they happened to attend the same university where it occurred.
But Roth told CBS 2 he did not want the reputation of the church to be associated with Northwestern, so he decided not to let the students use his property.
The Chicago Sun-Times reports Northwestern student Jenny Haag, who made the arrangements with Roth, said she was stunned by his turnaround. She said the students found other accommodations.
The students who attended ended up seeing a woman strip naked, lie down on a towel onstage, and allow her partner to use to use a motorized sex toy on her and bring her to orgasm.
Guest speaker Ken Melvoin-Berg had come for a discussion with the class and brought the woman and her fiancé with him to the presentation on "Networking for Kinky People."
Along with a "variety" of other items, they brought a "sex saw," Melvoin-Berg said. The device in question was described by the Daily Northwestern school newspaper as "essentially a motorized phallus."
Before the demonstration, Bailey repeatedly warned students that it would be graphic and most of the nearly 600 students registered for his class had left before the demonstration. About 100 stayed to watch.
Last month, Northwestern president Morton Schapiro announced that he was launching an investigation into the incident, saying that he was "troubled and disappointed" by Bailey's decision to allow it.
"I feel it represented extremely poor judgment on the part of our faculty member," Schapiro said. "I simply do not believe this was appropriate, necessary or in keeping with Northwestern University's academic mission."
Bailey later issued an apology.
"I regret allowing the controversial after class demonstration," Northwestern professor John Michael Bailey said in a statement a couple of weeks after the demonstration. "I regret the effect that this has had on Northwestern University's reputation, and I regret upsetting so many people in this particular manner. I apologize."
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