HEALTH
DOCTORS OF LOVE
Dr, Andy Barclay of Michigan State and Dr. Sylvia Hacker
of Michigan talk and teach sexuality to packed lecture halls.
LESLEY PEARL
Jewish News Intern
"A WONDERFUL RIDE"
Andy Barclay lives life
as Dr. Sex.
en minutes after
the hour, a
short, graying
man walks into
the nearly filled
Michigan State
classroom of 500
seats. He pops a tape into the
cassette player, hits record
and begins talking about his
day — quite obviously stream-
of-consiousness style. Various
obscenities spew from his
lips and students begin
fidgeting nervously, looking
about the room, waiting for
the lecture to begin.
It started the moment
Andy Barclay entered the
room.
While Dr. Barclay is blab-
bing about his day in court, a
fight with his ex-wife and
bad drivers on the ex-
pressway, he is teaching. He
is teaching about signs to
look for in a liar, about the
dynamics of relationships
and why they often don't
work, and about how to con-
trol a situation. He talks to
students about cheating on
their partners in order to
dump emotional baggage —
all in college-slang ter-
. minology.
Occasionally Dr. Barclay
throws in a few words that
sound clinical, and art
students and fraternity
brothers alike frantically
flip open their notebooks and
attempt to scrawl down
something resembling
coherent notes. Dr. Barclay
chuckles to himself. The 50-
year-old psychology pro-
fessor doesn't believe in
note-taking or texts. He says
they merely create a barrier
between the student and the
knowledge.
In the past 23 years, Andy
Barclay, better known at the
MSU campus as "Dr. Sex,"
has become a bit of an in-
stitution and a bit of a
celebrity among the East
ar
Lansing community. He
dazzles students and enrages
deans with his less-than-
orthodox methods of
disseminating information
on superior orgasms bet-
ween interracial couples,
advocating multiple part-
ners within a committed re-
lationship and talking
favorably of his drug experi-
ences.
"I think everyone should
teach like I do," said Dr.
Barclay in a cocky, self-
Dr. Andy Barclay
assured and completely seri-
ous tone about his popular
"Psychology of Love and
Maturity" class.
"I'd like to change the
name to "Psychology of Sex,
Love and Maturity," he said.
"Because that's what it is.
What I'm trying to do first is
make the student realize the
sexual attraction that exists
between us.
"That sexual attraction, as
in a relationship, is going to
evolve. Over the 10 weeks I
teach the course they (the
students) go through all the
stages of an evolving rela-
tionship with me," Dr.
Barclay said.
This professor is confident
all his students fall in love
with him —even those who
are completely repulsed by
Dr. Barclay's honest and
sometimes crude manner.
"Women who don't like me
just can't deal with the fact
that they really love a man
who is as disgusting as I
am," Dr. Barclay said. "All
these people have an image
in their head of the kind of
man that they could fall in
love with. I'm trying to get
them to deal with that issue
— that in fact, they have no
idea whatsoever of the kind
of person they could fall in
love with."
And the men in his
classes?
"They love me too. They
want to be just like me. They
think at 50-years-old you're
dead. But that's bulls---," Dr.
Barclay said. "At 50, I'm
just learning what it's all
about."
That type of learning, of
life's lessons, is what occurs
in Dr. Barclay's lectures,
among blushing cheeks,
stifled giggles, high-fives
and sighs of relief. But it
wasn't always that way.
For many years, Dr.
Barclay viewed himself as a
laboratory scientist studying
"I don't care if they
(my students) learn
a damn thing, but
they're going to
walk out the door
with a different
state of
consciousness."
Andy Barclay
"CELEBRATE SEXUALITY"
Sylvia Hacker wants
people to just say 'know
urrounded by
political car-
toons, a poster
of multi-colored
condoms read-
ing "Living
Color" and a
rubber tree plant boasting
condoms rather than leaves,
Dr. Sylvia Hacker said with a
chuckle, "I just want to
celebrate sexuality."
The 68-year-old University
of Michigan professor of nur-
sing and public health wants
to teach others to do the
same.
"My aim is to get everyone
more comfortable with the
topic of sex," Dr. Hacker
said.
In the classroom she at-
tempts to do that by
implementing the P-LI-SS-
IT model created for
therapy. P stands for per-
mission, establishing an at-
mosphere allowing in-
dividuals to think and talk
about sex; LI for limited in-
formation that can be ab-
sorbed through one semester
of learning; SS for specific
suggestions a therapist gives
to a patient; and IT for in-
tensive therapy used for the
15 percent of the population
which can not be helped by
the first three steps.
P LI are emphasized in the
classroom as SS-IT are more
appropriate for patient-
doctor therapy.
But before jumping right
into sexuality, combining
the clinical with the human
aspect, Dr. Hacker asks her
students to anonymously list
any questions they may
have. She does this to see
what level of knowledge she
is starting with. Usually,
she is disappointed.
"I get questions like, 'How
do I know if I'm in love?' and
`How do I have an
organism?' rather than
orgasm," Dr. Hacker said.
-
human behavior. However,
his work in graduate school
at Columbia University and
with the Minnesota
Multiphasic Personality In-
ventory changed Dr.
Barclay's outlook.
"Eighty-five percent of the
world is healthy," Dr.
Barclay said. "So why am I
occupying myself with the
15 percent of the world
which is disturbed?
"I didn't know what was
happening to me," he said.
"It just happened."
Now students don't com-
prehend what they are
U of M's Sylvia Hacker.
Dr. Hacker attributes this
lack of insight to poor sex
education in the high
schools.
"Most sex education is not
sex education; it's biology;
it's plumbing," Dr. Hacker
said. "When I see the cur-
riculum, I call it an organ
recital."
Because of the sorts of
questions she receives, Dr.
Hacker is confident
educators are not providing
students with the type of an-
swers they want and need,
but instead leading them
into a false sense of under-
standing.
"Growing up I knew that I
didn't know anything about
sex. But the kids today think
they know about it, but they
don't," Dr. Hacker said.
So rather then droning on
about fallopian tubes and
urethras, she talks to them
about real life — about how
to be a good lover and what
the responsibilities of being
a lover include. Rather than
preaching the ever popular
but less-than-successful
motto "just say no," Dr.
Hacker instead emphasizes
"just say know."
Her premise is that with
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