Appearances in News Media
Bailey and his work were featured prominently in a Boston Globe story by Neil Swidey entitled "What Makes People Gay?" That story was included in the 2006 volume of "The Best American Science Writing."
Bailey and his lab were also prominent in the CBS News 60 Minutes story "Gay or Straight?," which first aired on March 12, 2006 and was the most popular news story on the CBS News website the following week. This story provoked reactions ranging from "fantastic and fascinating" by gay author Jeremy Hooper at the Good As You blog to negative comments from gay author David Ehrenstein, who noted the show was "replete with the sort of clichés about gay men and effeminacy that haven’t been seen in a network news context since the 1967 CBS broadcast The Homosexuals." Shari Finkelstein, the producer of the "Gay or Straight" segment, responded: "We were aware of the controversy surrounding Michael Bailey's book, and we looked into all the allegations before we decided to interview him for the story...." She concluded: "We didn't feel there was anything that disqualified him from being interviewed. And in fact, his work is highly regarded by all of the researchers in the field who we spoke with, and we felt that he was a very worthy person to discuss these issues."
In 2011, Bailey was criticized for "poor judgment" by Northwestern University President Morton Schapiro after he allowed a female guest speaker and her partner to perform an impromptu mechanized sex toy demonstration in an optional after-class event on kinky sex and female orgasm. Students were advised beforehand of the nature of the demonstration, which featured an electric saw converted into a sex toy. Bailey at first defended the demonstration, saying that students found lectures featuring guest speakers valuable, but subsequently issued an apology, saying he regretted the upset caused and its effect on the university's reputation. He said there would be no repeats. He maintained that the demonstration was relevant to the topic of his course, and said that the students who chose to attend were over 18, "legally capable of voting, enlisting in the military, and consuming pornography", and contended that the criticism he had received was poorly reasoned. In response to the incident, Northwestern administrators removed Bailey's human sexuality course from the following year's curriculum, but have not made decisions regarding its future offering.
Read more about this topic: J. Michael Bailey
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