by CAROLYN VENTER

For those who don’t know, Sociology Professor Geraint Osborne teaches a controversial class every two years where you can learn about genital piercings, witch burnings and social stigma.

The latter is examined through a ‘social norm breaching experiment’. If you don’t know what that means, it’s like that time in the fifth grade when you farted and everyone treated you differently for a little while. You were no longer known as ‘Jesse’ but instead as ‘the girl who farted during fifth period.”  

“What project did you come up with?” I asked Darby Noble, a fourth year psychology major. “We decided to walk a ‘conventionally used for eating’ raw duck as a pet. It actually kind of looks like a small dog the way the neck is.”

Fourth year Kinesiology major Kristen Huber stated: “I went to a sex shop last summer to get this vibrator. I picked it because it’s German manufactured and I knew it would be good quality. None of the other girls wanted to admit they had sex toys lying around.” Referencing a project where her group had repeatedly dropped the toy on the ground in front of people.

When I asked them what kinds of responses they had received, Darby stated that the cops had suggested she walk the animal at nighttime, as to not upset the public, while the vibrator experiment had had “One old man wave it around in the air before giving it back.”

When I asked them if they felt nervous about conducting the experiment, Darby stated “Yeah, I mean, who wants to be labelled a deviant?” while Kristen said: “I’m the girl with the ‘I’d rather be masturbating’ button on her backpack.” Proving that, this class is fun for all ‘different strokes’ of folks.

When I asked the pair what the experience had taught them, Kristen said “I learned that items which are assumed to come in contact with a vagina are automatically assumed to be dirty.” (Everything but penises, am I right boys?), while Darby found that “society sucks.” With a barrage of never ending midterms and the pressure to rock that new turtleneck crop top trend, it’s important for us to ask ourselves, what’s the meaning of it all?

Sure without ‘rules’, we would all be walking raw ducks and waving vibrators around but I for one don’t think that sounds like a half bad Thursday.

I asked the girls if they had anything else to add and they did. Darby added that she “would definitely recommend taking Geraints class, its pretty funny!” and Kristen highlighted that her vibrator is ”still vibrating as if it was new!”