No Lab is needed in Human Sexuality
The Human Sexuality class offered at USU, FCHD 3110, covers many topics, including anatomy and physiology, but is one class that still does not have a lab to supplement the course.
Kim Openshaw, the professor who has taught this course at Utah State since 1981, said the students jokingly want to know why they don’t have a lab. Still, Openshaw has had many students, married and single, return and thank him for a specific part in a class.
One student was raped and, because of a section taught in the class, knew that she couldn’t go with her instinct to shower and get clean, but instead reported the rape and went to the hospital, Openshaw said.
So even though there is no lab, the most important thing covered in the class, Openshaw said, is the critical decision-making section.
This section gives everyone a way to make choices, but Openshaw said he tries not to impose a specific way to make decisions about sexuality.
Openshaw said he hopes students will use decision-making skills from the class so they don’t make decisions in the heat of the moment and wake up the next morning saying, “Aw, crap. What have I done?”
Positive and negative feelings are part of every class, but Openshaw said he has received mostly positive reactions. Mothers have called, he said, but sometimes, they come to understand the importance of the class. One mother came from California and sat in on a class, Openshaw said, but then used the textbook to talk to her daughter about sex.
Openshaw discusses the developmental stages of sexuality in his class, from children to old age, and he said sexuality isn’t what some might think. When one thinks of sexuality, he said, they think of ads on TV and in magazines, but sexuality begins when a child is born. Children learn good sexuality to appropriate touch and examples, and poor sexuality through improper touch and examples, Openshaw said. Sexuality is the way we perceive the opposite sex and how we treat and interact with them, he said.
Media also have an effect on sexuality, Openshaw said, and the portrayal of sex in the media is a topic of the class.
Mainstream media and the portrayal of sex are discussed, he said, as well as pornography, sexual addictions and pedophilia. Although these subjects can be controversial, he said he tries to be sensitive to everyone in his class, conservative or liberal, heterosexual or homosexual.
Openshaw said he has encountered some who wonder why students in the Family Human and Consumer Development program have to take this class, but he said it will be helpful for them in the long run.
Openshaw said he hopes his class will help students to have healthy and happy relationships and enjoy the experiences relationships have to offer.
In the end, although he can discuss sex and relationships in his class, there are still things Openshaw cannot do.
“I still can’t do the lab,” he said, and laughed.