Text #1: The Kinky Professor
(i) Source:
Contributor: Molly Fagan
Informant: Ashley Bochner
Semester/Year: Spring, 2021
IU Bloomington
(ii) Text:
MF: Have you ever heard any funny, or crazy stories out there? I know that’s super general, but it could be all sorts of things, like, say, something that’s happened to you, or something you heard from someone else. I’ll give you a second if you need it.
AB: Hmm…well, so it could be from someone else? Umm…yeah, wait, I think I have one. Are you ready, like is the recording thingy on?
MF: Yep, go ahead!
AB: Okay, so this is one of my favorites! [laughing] I feel like it might be inappropriate though, but would it be okay?
MF: Yeah?[laughing]. Go ahead, we’ll figure it out as we go along. Really.
AB: Well so I heard this from a friend whose roommate is majoring in computer science. Apparently one of the professors, he’s a real jerk, and he’s such a hardass he threatens to throw kids’ laptops out the window if they mess up at coding. So she said students dread being around him. He’s really good, but like, not exactly the um, greatest guy [laughs].
MF: Haha, wow, sounds pretty terrible!
AB: Well so here’s the funny part. Alright, so you know about Pridefest…
MF: Yeah.
AB: So she goes and she’s just there, chilling, and there are a bunch of booths out there on the street. She decides to go over and check a few out. Well so she goes up there, and there’s an info table for the BDSM community, like kink stuff…
MF: Umm…
AB: Well guess who was behind the table?
MF: Oh no…
AB: Yep, none other than the man himself!
MF: No way! How would you live that down? [laughing]
AB: Let’s just say that, that she couldn’t look at him the same way again!
MF: Oh wow, so do you believe it? I mean do you think it’s real?
AB: Haha, well, I don’t really know. It’s really funny though, so I kind of hope so. It doesn’t seem, you know, impossible really.
(iii) Texture:
Ashley’s tale is brief, but she manages to pack it with suspense by employing strategic, dramatic pauses to build up to the “big reveal,” and she did it with a gleam in her eye. She could easily have stated the plot in a terse, dry manner so as to answer my question, but she decided to go beyond this and take up the role of storyteller. I felt like I was being let in on some very choice gossip, as the rumors with the biggest impact tend to be told in a memorable, punchy way like this story. She keeps her sentences short for the most part, and she doesn’t indulge in a great amount of detail, likely because it wasn’t crucial to getting her story across. It’s quite possible that she would have come up with a more detailed, lengthier telling if she hadn’t needed to conjure it up on the spot, yet there’s something charming about its sketchiness. If it were overly detailed, the story might have lost some of its anonymous appeal and caused it to become unwieldy and less suited to retelling. She also ensured that I was engaged with her story as well, inviting interaction by asking me who I thought might be behind the table, and ensuring that I was familiar with Bloomington’s Pridefest before continuing her tale. This is notable because it drives home the story’s reliance on local culture in order to make sense, and that if the listener wasn’t aware of this, the story would lose some of its impact. She also felt the need to mention that BDSM was “kink stuff,” perhaps to clarify for any listener who wouldn’t be familiar with the acronym. If the listener had no idea what this meant, the humor would have fallen apart, revealing how such simple additions can have a huge impact on how successful the story is at achieving its goals.
(iv) Context:
Who created/performed the text- Ashley Bochner
Members of the audience- Myself
Location/timing- My apartment in Bloomington, spring semester 2021
Holding this interview in my own apartment allowed for a highly informal atmosphere, and the more intimate setting may have increased the likelihood of a rather more salacious story being told than in, say, a quiet café downtown. If you’re going to tell a story mentioning BDSM, particularly in reference to an anonymous professor who likely lives in Bloomington, a quieter, public place might pose the slight risk that someone could overhear. Even though the professor in the story seems to be quite comfortable with his interest in activities of a certain nature, connecting an instructor to anything sexual can be open to misinterpretation. From what I could gather, she and her friends only really tell this story in personal settings like study groups and small parties, and this seems sensible given its nature.
(v) Interpretation:
As with any good tale involving a less-than-pleasant authority figure, this one plays up its “shock factor” in order to surprise the audience and elicit laughter from them once they have heard the big reveal. The fact that this story was initially passed on to Ashley by a friend of a friend (FOAF) and that it is free of identifying details leads me to call this a legend, even if it is rather niche. It seems to share these characteristics with other popular stories about professors that tend to crop up on every college campus, while still possessing its own local, Bloomingtonian character (Pridefest, IU). This legend is told in a humorous manner, and it is crafted to enhance the contrast between the draconian front the professor puts on in his classroom and his participation in a stigmatized, “exoticized” subculture to best effect. Students who suffer from taking a course taught by an overbearing instructor can feel trampled down, and with no power of their own. The “kinky professor” story returns some of this power to the hands of the computer science students by allowing them access to highly personal, nigh-on incriminating information. The humorous, shocking twist in this story serves to both entertain, comfort, and empower students who have had to deal with unfriendly professors. It also sends the message that professors are people too, complete with their own unsuspected personal lives, just as human as their students, perhaps helping them to feel a bit less intimidated.