Santa Clara University’s Crazy Idea of Human Sexuality

Honestly, I don't understand the problem here. Everyone at the Report enjoys sado-masochistic Mondays where we dress up in leather and beat each other senseless...all in the name of fun. Besides, it's good to force someone else out of their comfort zone.

Santa Clara University’s Crazy Idea of Human Sexuality

To become a therapist, I’m expected to watch bondage videos and submit a ‘sexual autobiography.’

By Naomi Epps Best, WSJ

June 6, 2025 5:16 pm ET

I’m a graduate student in marriage and family therapy at Santa Clara University, a Jesuit institution. Recently, I walked out of class. Prof. Chongzheng Wei had just played a video of a female “influencer” engaging in sexual bondage activity. When the lights came up, the professor smiled and asked if we wanted to try it ourselves. Maybe it was a crass joke to break the tension, but I didn’t want to find out if a live demonstration was next.

What began as a simple accommodation request in a required course called Human Sexuality turned into a case study in the reshaping of therapy training—not by science but by critical theory, a worldview that filters human experience through left-wing assumptions about power, oppression and identity, particularly regarding race, “gender” and sexuality.

The first time I enrolled in the course, students were assigned to read sadomasochistic erotica and a book called “The Guide to Getting It On,” featuring sexually explicit illustrations. We were told to write an eight- to 10-page “comprehensive sexual autobiography,” which could include early sexual memories, masturbation, current experiences, and future goals with an action plan—all uploaded to a third-party platform for grading. The syllabus allowed that students “are not required to disclose anything that causes extreme discomfort,” but that disclaimer rang hollow attached to an assignment requiring us to discuss such personal matters.

On ethical and religious grounds, I requested an alternative assignment. Cary Watson, the department chairman, denied my request, suggesting I change my plans and pursue a different type of license. In an email, she described the course as “an ‘inoculation’ of sorts . . . exposing you to content you *might* come across” as a licensed therapist. She told me that if I did encounter such things in a professional setting, I could “assuredly communicate that discomfort” to clients and decline to work with them. So why did it have to be part of my training?

I appealed to the dean, the provost, the Title IX office, the university president and even Campus Ministry. I’m not sure who was more shocked, the priest reading the syllabus or me, screen-sharing sexually explicit videos and images with him.

The course is a graduation requirement, so I re-enrolled with Mr. Wei, who is new to the school. I requested the same accommodation that Ms. Watson said “Muslim women students” had received: to complete the course remotely. Mr. Wei instead scheduled a Zoom meeting with me. He promised a professional tone and said sexual disclosure wouldn’t be required.

But in the classroom, among other things, he showed a how-to bondage video featuring a submissive wearing a “gimp suit” (a full-body garment designed to restrict movement) and played songs like “WAP” and “I Beat My Meat”—racial slurs included. A guest speaker, a male transgender psychologist, told us “only trans women have p—s that can blow up the world” and described being sexually aroused while looking in the mirror. One exercise included anonymously writing down something we disliked about our genitals or breasts, to be read aloud in class by another student.

I again requested to complete the course remotely. I was told no—I could drop the course or be dropped. Ms. Watson granted a “one-time exception”: take the W (for withdrawal, not win), pay out of pocket for a continuing-education course to fulfill licensure requirements, and enroll in an extra three units at Santa Clara to be eligible to graduate. When I asked for a tuition refund, she called my request “astonishing.” My objections weren’t treated as signs of a systemic issue but as a personal grievance to be managed quietly. (Ms. Watson didn’t respond to a request for comment from my editor at the Journal. Mr. Wei referred the editor’s inquiry to a university spokeswoman, who offered no comment on the record.)

When I went public anonymously on Substack, I realized I had stumbled onto something larger. The entire field of educating therapy has been hollowed out and filled in with critical theory. Therapists are no longer trained to be neutral; they’re trained to be agents of political change. Concepts like modesty and marital privacy aren’t merely treated as optional or even dismissed. They’re seen as oppressive norms to be actively combated.

In Multicultural Counseling, we were told that “objective, rational, linear thinking,” “delayed gratification,” and making a “plan for the future” are traits of “white culture.” I was required to preface mock therapy sessions by “naming my whiteness” and warning that I might misread clients because of my race. In Human Sexuality, we were taught that children with six months of “gender distress” should be “affirmed” in their belief that they are of the opposite sex—without deeper assessment, even when trauma or autism was present.

These ideas are being promoted by the field’s top bodies. The American Psychological Association, American Counseling Association and Council for Accreditation of Counseling and Related Educational Programs have adopted standards grounded in critical theory.

Therapists influence decisions about “gender transition,” family custody, school discipline and even criminal sentencing. When clinicians are trained to see everything through an ideological lens, rather than with ethical neutrality, the consequences extend far beyond the therapy room.

I’m 26, newly married, mother of a 1-year-old girl and a few credits from graduating. I pursued every institutional channel available. I even sought short-term therapy through campus mental-health services, which I was denied. A staff psychologist told me that my department has a history of demanding intimate self-disclosure from students—a practice he regards as unethical.

Speaking up comes with risk. But in a field where dissent is discouraged and students are coerced, I’ve chosen to say: No more.

Ms. Best is a graduate student at Santa Clara University.