Sexing up field trips

As it turns out, your nostalgia for frequent field trips isn’t unfounded. And while you remember fondly when you used to go to museums or state parks, a class at Randolph College in Virginia is doing one better —it went to a brothel.\nIt’s the legal kind, of course, nestled 60 miles outside of Las Vegas in a part of the country that refuses to separate entirely from the idea of the Wild West. This particular brothel, called the “Chicken Ranch,” hosted a group of students in a class on American consumption, using two of their workers to give talks about their jobs in the sex industry. This particular field trip was the capstone to a course section on the wedding and entertainment industries, which will be followed by a visit to Vegas to see a showgirl review.\nAnd just think, when you took accounting, the closest you got to a field trip was when the fire alarm went off. \nSome may have personal objections to visiting a brothel, but it’s important to point out that Randolph students were not forced to go. Julio Rodriguez, director of the college’s American Culture Program, told The Associated Press that he gave students the opportunity to opt out of the field trip or to “express reservations,” but none of them did. This isn’t particularly surprising. Randolph is, after all, a private liberal arts college whose students knew what they were in for. We’d probably never get away with such a venture because we’re state-funded. At Randolph, it’s their party, and they can go to a brothel if they want to. \nDespite one’s potential objections to the idea of a legal sex trade or the morality of prostitution, it is nevertheless a part of our country. Just because it’s controversial doesn’t mean one should avoid it. If anything, it should be studied more. And what’s the harm with being more familiar with one’s subject matter?\nIndeed, from details about the visit, the trip shed light on a number of issues in modern prostitution. Even in one of the country’s only brothels, (they’re only legal in 10 counties in Nevada), the workers were hesitant to receive publicity. Only two workers volunteered to talk to the students at all, according to the manager, Debbie Rivenburgh, and even then, participants refused to give details about their identities. Prostitution might be one of America’s last “peculiar institutions,” where the demand for putting sex on one’s MasterCard is counterbalanced with the nagging suspicion that one is “getting away with” something. The workers are the ones who feel the strain of our dualism, as demonstrated in their refusal to give their full names, lest people they know find out. \nYou could read about brothels and the individuals who work in these institutions in a book, but these students learned better from actually being there. Critics are always saying that we need to keep innovating our educational system. Well, you can count this as one step to that end.