Northwestern offering ‘Beyond Porn: Sexuality, Health and Pleasure’ course next semester that includes discussion of ‘threesomes’ and ‘butt plugs’
Northwestern University's Gender & Sexuality Studies Program is offering the course.
In a 2023 interview with The Daily Northwestern, Professor Noelle Sullivan gave her sexual advice to students, which included experimenting with masturbation and using lube.
Northwestern University students can take a course on pleasure, with lessons from porn, next semester under the school’s Gender & Sexuality Studies Program. The course is titled “Beyond Porn: Sexuality, Health and Pleasure.”
The course appears under the Gender & Sexuality Studies Program’s Spring 2025 courses, but the department has not yet released a course description. However, a previous year’s description appears on the university’s website.
“Threesomes. Squirting. Vibrators. Butt plugs. Multiple orgasms. You may have seen them in pornography, but have you ever wanted to study and talk about sex,” the description says, “and specifically, how to have a satisfying sex life? Many people look to pornography not just for entertainment, but also for education about what satisfying sexual encounters look like.”
However, the course concludes that “much of what people learn from pornography doesn’t lead them to healthy and satisfying sexual encounters and relationships.”
Instead, the course will go “beyond many presumptions about sex and pleasure depicted in pornography and popular culture, in order to equip students with information that can lead to more satisfying and healthy sexual experiences across their lifespan, regardless of how they identify, or who or what they like.”
In an interview with The Daily Northwestern last year, Professor Noelle Sullivan gave her sexual advice to students, which included experimenting with masturbation and using lube.
“This is really the stuff that most 30-year-olds wish they would have known at the very beginning of their journey into their sexual lives,” she said.
[RELATED: Indiana Attorney General launches probe into Indiana University sex research center]
During the semester, students of Sullivan’s course will study many sexual topics, including “physiological and biological sex; gender; sexual orientation; homophobia and heterosexism; navigating sexual risks in a sex-positive way; sexual health disparities; sexual desire, arousal, and response; solitary sex & sex with others; sex toys; unconventional sexual practices; intimacy and effective communication; sexuality & aging; sexuality, disability & intimacy; sexual problems and solutions; sexual pleasure as part of sexual health; sexual harassment and violence; selling sex; and yes, a brief unit on problematics and possibilities in pornography.”
Campus Reform contacted Northwestern University, the Gender & Sexuality Studies Program, and Noelle Sullivan for comment, asking what they hope students get from the course. Campus Reform also requested a course syllabus or reading list. This story will be updated accordingly.
