Is my professor deviant?

I just want to follow up today's discussion with some thoughts. It is hard to tackle such a big topic in less than one hour, but I absolutely loved all of your comments and thoughts. Thank you for sharing them!

I want to reiterate my role as a professor of a topic like deviance. This whole semester I have been talking about how we dehumanize people we see as the "other." We treat people that are different as sick, or something that we should pity, or fear. I am asking you, as a student of deviance, to push yourself past you gut reactions, or what you have been told your whole life, and try to look at those feelings from a sociological perspective.

I would be a terrible deviance professor if I treated the topics as deviant. To me, as a deviance scholar, and instructor, I need to treat everything as "normal" and let you decide for yourself if it should or should not be considered deviant. If I treat a topic as "oh gross, can you believe that?" I have reiterated it as deviant--that is the last thing I want to do.

I already know what the mainstream society is saying about that group, or that deviant status--I am trying to give you the one opportunity you may ever have to see the group, or person, or behavior as normal. At least that is what I try to do.

So I get a lot of very strong reactions--"I can't believe you feel that way!" or "You must be a kinky non-monogamist!" None of that matters--I don't think people should be shamed for feeling those ways, or being those ways, so I am not going to treat them as shameful.

Because I have this approach, however, I also get a lot of feedback "you don't give enough time to the mainstream perspective!" Again, we only have one day to tackle a lot of those topics. I already know you are getting the mainstream messages from a variety of sources. As your professor, it is my job to give you the other perspectives--the ones you do NOT hear in your every day life. I am aware that makes me look biased, and I think that is the risk I have to take to ensure you get new and challenging perspectives. Do not assume you know what I think, but do assume I am doing my best to give you the opportunity to challenge yourself.

We are all adults, and you are in a junior level course at an institution of higher learning. I expect you to be able to take a step back from what you have been told your whole life--what you heard from your father, your mother, your priest, your other teachers, your friends, et al.--and critically analyze your beliefs. WHY do you feel that way? It is okay to feel the way you do--of course--but it is crucial to your development as a critical thinker to question the foundation of those beliefs. Do not just rely on "because someone told me to think this way."

College is your opportunity to take a step back and see what forces have shaped your beliefs. That may change some of your beliefs, and it may strengthen others. That is great--making educated decisions is better than making uneducated one, don't you think? Embrace this class--and all of the difficult topics--as a way of understanding why you feel the way you do. As I said in the syllabus, and on the first day, an open mind makes for a much more interesting class. Not because I'm trying to necessarily change your mind, but because entertaining a variety of perspectives is a valid intellectual exercise. Synthesizing new information with what you already know is imperative in college, as well as the rest of your life--the topics in this class give you a great opportunity to practice this synthesis with fun topics. Take advantage. This course, even more than any other that I have taught, gives back as much as you are willing to put in. So dive in, be open, and challenge yourself. Push yourself out of your comfort zone. It is worth it.