Making Philosophy Sexy

Back in the late sixties, I taught a seminar on ancient Greek philosophy at an elite West Coast university. It was a time of academic and sexual experimentation and I wanted to integrate an experiential dimension into the philosophical questions we would be addressing. We met twice a week; I would lecture first, and my students would take the second session to present a hand-on exploration of the issues raised. Much of the seminar has faded into fuzzy memory, but there was one session that I will never forget.

It occurred late in the quarter after we had become well acquainted with each other. The general topic was the politics of the polis, and the issue we were discussing was why the ancient Greeks thought that what separated them from the barbarians was their practice of engaging in politics in the nude. Aristotle even argued that, in the perfect city, both men and women would conduct civil business naked although this level of perfection was never achieved. Needless to say, I intended the topic to be provocative because I wanted to see how they would deal with a custom that was so strange to our cultural sensibilities.

A few of the articles I assigned suggested that public nudity had started in the gymnasium (gymnos meant naked). They argued that the ancient Greeks thought that standing naked before their fellow citizens was an act of what we might call today full disclosure, that is, the full presentation of one's character. In the act of displaying the intimate details of one's body, one also disclosed the personal aspects of one's character. They thought that to cloth one's body was to engage in a form of deception. At least, that was the main point I wanted to make in my lecture.

On the day of hand-on session, I had an important lunch meeting that had run long, and so I was running late. I rushed into the room in a rather disheveled fashion and took my regular seat at the disk in the front of the classroom. After placing my books down, I looked up to discover that there were five naked men and three clothed women standing in front of me. The five naked men toward me and then asked me to stand with the clothed female students. They then took leadership of the seminar and debated a controversial item that was on the student government's docket that night.

I was taken back to say the least partially because I could decide how I was suppose to related to the five naked males. No matter how I tried to focus on the issue being discussed, I could get over the fact that they were on full physical display. One guy in particular, I will call him Steve, had a very quick mind, but his physical appearance was a bit geek-like -- small framed and skinny. What was surprising was that he had a penis like a horse. The rest were more or less fit and trim and had average attributes. I am not saying that I had an easy time keeping my eyes off their dangling members while I tried to engage their political arguments, but with Steve it was impossible to pay any attention at all to what he was saying.

When I looked over at the other three women in seminar, I could tell that they were having the time of their lives. And they also were making it absolute clear that their real interest wasn't politics but was instead the exhibition of maleness that was before them. After about five minutes, I decided that it was time to interrupt the debate. I began asking what people had learned.

One woman said that she had never before realized how fully on display the male genitalia were. Nothing is hidden and, she said with a chuckle, the only surprise that remained was the size of their erections. She turned a little red with embarrassment, but what we were all secretly thinking was now out in the open.

Another commented that their nakedness made them seem more vulnerable and thus in a strange way more honest. She also confessed that she enjoyed the view but wondered what made naked bodies seem so risqué. One of the men added that the sense of vulnerability that he felt was the fear that he would become aroused. He felt a little exposed parading his manhood before the gaze of a female audience but he was not yet ready to reveal the dimensions of his sexual state for all to see. That was a line of voluntary disclosure he could not cross.

At this point, I decided to push the issue and, turning to my female students, asked who was ready to enter the perfect city. They were all busy demurring about this and that and the other when I stood, took off my blouse, unbuckled my bra, and exposed my rather ample and what I thought were shapely breasts. I asked them if they were willing to go this far. I could see shock in their eyes because they weren't quite sure what they had gotten themselves into.

I walked half way to the front of the room and paused. Turning back to face them, I lowered my skirt and removed my panties. While it was the practice to go au naturale back then, I liked to buck the trend and shave things back because I like the airy feeling it gave me. I also happen to have a pretty large clitoris that would poke its little head through the folds of my sex when I was turned on. As all would soon see, this act of shedding my cloths had really turned me on. I was sure that I was as "out there" as a woman can be as I stood by naked male students.

The five naked male students were taken back, but only Steve was showing it. My naked display had given him a raging erection and, to be honest it, it seemed like it was a foot long. He was trying to cover it but how do you hide an erection that big? I was almost out of my head with erotic desire as I walked to him, took his hands, and put them to his side. I announced to the seminar that, in the perfect city, this may not happen but that, on the way to perfection, we needed to help each other out.

I don't know why I did what I did next, but it just seemed like the right thing to do. I reached down and grab his hard, ridged penis and began to stroke it. I could get my hand only partially around it and the impressively long shaft gave me plenty of room to move my hand back and forth. I remember how it felt to rub over the swollen head of his penis and how exposed it looked as I pulled the loose circumcised foreskin back from it. In short order, he moaned and gave forth several rhythmic spurts of semen.

Well, this exercise in eroticism left, as it were, no man hanging. Each of them was sporting an erection but, this time, in proud displayed. I turned to my still clothed female students and said that I was leaving them and their naked, aroused classmates to work out what kind of city they wanted. I took Steve's hand and walked out of the room. I looked back only once as I approached the door and saw each of them shedding their garments. I paused at the door until one of the women had kneeled before one of the men and place his penis into her mouth. I closed the door.

It was only then that I realized that I was standing naked in the hall with a student whose penis was hanging to mid thigh. I rushed him to my office and closed the door. I pushed him back on to my disk and took his penis into my mouth. I had never had to deal with one quite that size but I managed to get most of upper part of it into my mouth. I stroke the rest of it energetically and soon I brought him to climax ... again! I am not one who normally likes the taste of cum but, in this instance, licked his penis clean. I then grabbed his head and put his mouth to the throbbing clit that I thought would explode. I came three times in rapid succession, each wave of ecstasy leaving me gasping for air.

As soon as I caught my breath, I turned to the task of getting Steve's flaccid penis hard because I wanted to feel his large member inside me. He responded admirably (ah, the wonders of youth!). When I place him inside of me, he stretched me to the limits of my comfort. He pounded me relentlessly until we were both drained and exhausted. We lay in dreamlike contentment in each other arms on the carpeted floor of my office. It was dark by then and all, or at least enough, of the faculty and staff had left for the evening. We walked quietly back to the classroom and found our clothes neatly folded on the front disk. We dressed and parted after a gentile kiss.

When the class met in the following week, there was no mention of what had transpired. On the final, I received one essay that was both quite insightful and also personally revealing, but I will need to leave its contents to another day. I received raving reviews and, although I never taught that exact course again, I had many requests. I mainly felt that lightening never strikes twice in the same place.

In truth, I did teach a seminar on ancient Greek philosophy, and my male students did disrobe. There was a student, not named Steve, who was small in frame and large in attributes. He did get an erection, but amazingly wasn't embarrassed by it. I am also quite sure that my female students didn't think a penis came that large because I didn't think that one did. The rest is fantasy, what I wish had happened, at least in my imagination. Still, dreams are what we make of them, and from what we make of them comes perfection.