Anthro329: Intro to Human Sexuality

"Welcome to 'Anthro329: Intro to Human Sexuality'. I'm Professor Higgins, and I'll be your sexual guru for the semester," said Professor Higgins, an older, soft-set man with brown salt and peppered hair in a tweed suit, from the front of the classroom.

Everyone giggled at that. Professor Higgins was... not old, but not what anyone would think of when it came to 'human sexuality' in an intimate sense. In an anthropological sense, sure, but not beyond that.

Then again, he was an anthropology professor.

A hand shot into the air.

"Yes, Claire?" said Professor Higgins.

"Um, when you say 'sexual guru', do you mean, like, demonstrations, or like videos?" asked Claire, trying and failing to suppress a titter of giggles.

Claire was the kind of pretty blonde who you knew was probably a cheerleader in high school, where being the prettiest was all it really took to get onto the squad. She wasn't a cheerleader at university. To be perfectly honest, she was at university to get her 'M R S' degree. But she was curious, and cute, and so made for a good bellwether when it came to things like this. And she was on the anthropology track, for reasons known only to her and Professor Higgins, her advisor. So here she was.

"I can't put my legs behind my head, if that's what you're asking," replied Professor Higgins, and everyone laughed, "but I know the theory pretty well. Better than most of you, I suspect. I'll be leading your discussions, offering advice, and generally steering you in a positive direction. If we watch any videos, it will either be for reference purposes, or for class discussion purposes."

Another hand shot up.

"Yes, Chax?"

Chax, a himbo of a student who really did mean well, took a deep breath. "Uh, when I signed up, you told me that I'd be hooking up with everyone in class. I thought that meant that I'd be the only guy. But, like, there are other guys here? Does everyone mean, uh... well, uh..."

About half of the other boys in the class nodded along with his question, as did a smaller-but-still-surprisingly-large proportion of the girls in the class.

Professor Higgins took a deep breath. "I'm not included in everyone. Otherwise, yes. You might have noticed that there is a matching, even number of folks who identify as men, folks who identify as women, and folks who identify as nonbinary. That was by design. I don't know your sexuality, and I don't know if you know, either, no matter what you might think you know about it, so, everyone does indeed mean everyone."

"I didn't sign up for this queer shit," said a young man whose name doesn't matter, because he was out the door as soon as Professor Higgins finished.

"There's always one," said Professor Higgins with a sigh. "Anyone else having regrets? You will not be in trouble if you leave, and the credits for this class will be counted back to you, but you do need to choose now. If you think this is much, I promise that it is going to get weirder."

A few girls looked at each other, and a few boys gulped, but no one else got up.

A head poked into the classroom.

"Hey, Professor Higgins? We just saw a guy leave?" said the head, which was attached to another anthropology student by the name of David.

"Yeah, come on in," said Professor Higgins. He paused, then looked around the room and counted, then nodded. "Actually, we've got chairs. How many folks are out there waiting?"

"Just me, Steely Dan, and Zoe," replied David. In the hall, two other folks moved into view of the door; a heavyset bearded young man; Steely Dan, and a petite goth young woman wearing a shirt that had a monocled skull with mutton-chops on the front; Zoe.

"That's... yeah, come in. Actually, all three of you come in," said Professor Higgins.

As they took their seats, Steely Dan by Zoe, in the back, and David between Claire and Chax, in the seat of the young man who left, Professor Higgins went on.

"These are, were, seconds for the class, in case someone left on the first day and we had an uneven number. We need an even number. Wouldn't be fair, otherwise."

Another hand went up; Patricia, a brunette, pretty as Claire, but focused on the science side of anthropology. "Wouldn't you've been able to step into his place?"

Professor Higgins scrunched his face up, like he'd just been tricked into eating a lemon instead of an orange. "No, for a laundry list of reasons, most of which stem from the fact that, as your professor, it would be wildly unethical to force any of you to have sex with me. Me forcing you to have sex with each other because you signed up for this class is a completely different academic beast altogether."

"How can you even do this class? Isn't the administration full of prudes?" asked, blurted, another student, Vern, who was only moderately sure of how much he wanted to be here now, but was more unwilling to back out than he was unsure.

Professor Higgins pushed a smile onto his face. "Yes, but I was able to secure a generous research grant, so the university has been a little nicer to the department than usual. I figured that this would be as good a way to use it as any, no matter what the administration thinks."

"So we're just research monkeys?" asked Chax, the cogs in his head turning slowly but surely. "But doesn't us knowing we're research monkeys ruin the class?"

"Not at all. You knowing the specifics of what I'm looking into would make the research side of things a little more difficult, but this is a class that needs to happen anyway, so as long as you're all learning, I'm gonna be a happy camper.

Chax nodded cheerfully. Vern just looked more concerned.

"What about consent, and stuff? Don't you need our consent to do all this? Like, you can't just force us to have sex," Vern asked, not making any motions that would imply that he wanted to leave, but just as clearly not happy with the state of things.

"We all signed the forms and stuff, so he's kinda already got it, doesn't he?" asked Claire, smile never faltering. She'd been looking forward to this class since she'd overheard Professor Higgins talking about it in his office.

"And part of today is making sure we're all ok with that. Obviously I don't plan on forcing any of you to do anything you don't want to do, but if you think that you're someone who's asexual and sex repulsed, now's the time to back out, not halfway through the semester because you really just don't want to match up with someone else in class."

"So we're really gonna... we're really gonna fuck everyone here?" asked Zoe, whose cheeks then blushed a furious scarlet red color.

"Yes. Over the course of this class, you will be having sex with each of your classmates, so that, boy or girl, everyone, every student, here will have hooked up with everyone else here by the end of the semester."

"But not you," added David, glancing at Claire before looking back at Professor Higgins.

"Correct," said Professor Higgins with a nod.

If he was being generous to himself, it looked a little like some of the girls and a couple of the boys were disappointed, but Professor Higgins knew better than that. He was a saggy, late forty-something anthropology professor at a small state university. He wasn't the type to draw the wandering eye of anyone, no matter their age or sexual preference.

Truth be told, he really had applied for the grant to learn more about youthful human sexuality, no matter what else his colleagues thought about it. He'd not mind hooking up with a few of them, sure, but, like he'd said before, actually doing so would be a gross violation of the ethics he'd already bent quite far. But just because he wasn't going to participate in the research didn't mean that he couldn't make sure it was as even-handed as could be for his students.

"Even with a grant, how can you do this class? You're really not nervous about what they think?" asked Vern, looking more certain now, but clearly wanting to cover his bases.

"You want to know the real, honest to goodness reason I can do this and not get fired?" asked Professor Higgins, leaning in close.

Everyone nodded, and leaned in to listen.

"I have tenure now, so they can't fire me," said Professor Higgins with a shit-eating grin. As he relaxed, the class burst into laughter, Vern too. "Any other questions? No? Alright, then. Let's dive in."