Sex. It's what's for dinner.

My life just keeps getting weirder.

It was a rainy Monday afternoon and I was sitting in a basement classroom, utterly stunned. I am trying to be a model student this semester - perfect class attendance, sitting in the front row with my reading and color-coded notes laying open in front of me, etc. This Monday, my other classmates were laughing while my mouth was open in shock. "Rat sex??"

Welcome to Psychology 001- Introduction to Psychology. On the first day of class my professor brought in a real human brain from some unfortunate soul who died in the 1950's. Note - jars full of brains and preservative fluids do not mix with clumsy professors. There was one rather frightening moment when he tripped over a cable and almost dropped the brain, causing those in the front row (such as myself) to recoil in horror. But this particular rainy Monday afternoon was our second lecture and we had progressed from human brains to... rat sex.

Our reading assignment was an introduction to the brain and nervous system, which is why those of us who actually did the reading were quite surprised when we came to lecture and watched videos of rats having sex. It gets better. An hour later we watched slow-motion rat sex. Apparently the full-speed version skipped over the entertaining highlights such as the difference between an "intromission encounter" and an "ejaculatory encounter." Our professor, who has done many experiments involving rat sex, went into gross detail about how if you stroke a female rat's back just right, she'll arch her back for you and give you access to her... uh... "girly-goodies".... as if you were a male rat. "Imagine that!" he exclaimed in his excitement.

I sat there in the front row with my neat notes about neurotransmitters and thought, "Is this some weird fetish of his? Is this an area we need to devote some time to...?" For example, some professors (and most professors in the finance department) find it difficult to mask their political views from the classroom. Some teachers will even go on at length about how stupid certain politicians are in forming their economic policy. The class is polite and nods along, indulging the professor for a few minutes on whatever rant they've started.

I guess Professor Rozin's view on the world is... rat sex. I have to admit, it was the strangest hour and a half lecture I've ever had. It had nothing to do with the reading or our current topic, it was just "Hi, welcome to the second day of class. Today, we'll be watching rat porn." It got even more awkward as he started comparing the mating habits of rats to those of humans. I understand that we're supposed to be getting a well-rounded education, but this is a little too well-rounded for me.

Now, when people ask me "How's school? How are your classes?" I smile to myself and respond, "I'm learning something new every day."



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