Apropos of Joe Carter’s post last week, we now have this story of a Danish professor conducting an orgy on his university’s campus.
An Aalborg University professor and at least three other men and one woman have been caught on tape holding a steamy orgy on campus.
According to TV2, the professor has organised several orgies in a university machine room and police are now looking into whether the activities were illegal.
The hour-long webcam recording reportedly shows the four men wearing monk robes while having sex with the woman. The video was recorded by an anonymous person who did not take part, but who wanted to expose the activities.
What the monk robes have to do with it, I do not know, though if this had been a theatrical performance, it probably would have won accolades from the cognoscenti. But his rector disapproves, for reasons that are also far from clear to me:
The professor has been reprimanded but will be allowed to keep his position at the university.
”What consenting people get up to in their spare time is none of my business,” said university rector Finn Kjærsdam. “But we’re responsible for all university facilities, and we cannot and will not have things like that going on here.”
If they consent, don’t disturb anyone, and clean up after themselves, what’s the difference between a faculty reading group and a faculty orgy? Might the good rector have a thought or two about morality and propriety that he’s unwilling or unable to defend?
December 14th, 2010 | 11:14 am
Aren’t there considerations of propriety applicable to the rector’s decision of how to publicly criticize the “what consenting people get up to in their spare time”?
Are you serious? One relevant difference is that latter should not generally be where the janitor or someone else might stumble in, or where someone might have set up a camera. How, exactly, would you ensure that you “don’t disturb anyone”?
Maybe your problem is with the idea of such activities taking place anywhere? If so, then it’s probably appropriate that the rector hasn’t taken up your cause.
December 14th, 2010 | 12:18 pm
C, the filming was not accidental. It was someone who knew of it, and that could have happened regardless of the orgy taking place in school or in a club, or maybe even the prof’s home.
Here’s the thing: if it had happened outside of the university, would it have generated absolutely no scandal and would it be swept under the rug as consenting adults? I doubt it.
December 14th, 2010 | 12:36 pm
D., I’m not seeing the relevance of your comments. If the orgy had happened outside the university and at “the prof’s home,” the uninvited filming would be criminal and I don’t think we’d even be hearing about it. Or, if we were hearing about it, the scandal would rather regard those who insist upon gossiping about it.
What really is the issue here?
December 14th, 2010 | 1:01 pm
[...] Professors Do the Darnedest Things – Joseph Knippenberg, First Thoughts [...]
December 14th, 2010 | 7:39 pm
The issue is that he’d be censured in both situations, because the real issue is the behavior, not the location. If it was leaked, parents would still raise an outcry. If a student came up and told it, same.
When you are an educator you are held to a higher standard, because you are in charge of the intellectual development of people who view you as an authority. That doesn’t change because of place. Like it or not, you can’t transgress societal norms while hoping to retain the benefits of that society, and that teacher is going to be unable to look his students in the face from now on regardless of where it happened.
December 14th, 2010 | 8:40 pm
D, I still don’t see the relevance of your first paragraph. As for the second, I guess we can all just be thankful that our personal liberties are not entirely in hands of people who think like you.
December 15th, 2010 | 4:28 am
C. Ehrlich, I’m not sure I understand your response to Dblade. Do you really mean to be suggesting that only gossips would find anything unseemly about orgies?
December 15th, 2010 | 12:54 pm
Rather: if the orgy was held between consenting adults in the privacy of prof’s home, then there’s much less that we can complain about. If someone pervert or vindictive person breaks into the home and secretly records the occasion on the webcam, then that criminal activity is certainly something to criticize. Should this criminal then publish the recording, we might also criticize those who insist on spreading the gossip, whether out of entertainment, or out of some desire to shame the profs, or out of some perceived need to make some self-righteous stand.
December 15th, 2010 | 1:05 pm
In my own “considerations of propriety”, a story like this would be best left to the rest of the tabloid media.
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