QOTD

My concern is these students are in this developmental phase, and I don't think it's a good developmental practice to just tell somebody to just sit around and masturbate. I don't think that promotes relationships.

-- Father Joe Vetter, of the Duke (Univ.) Catholic Center, re: an on-campus study recruiting Duke coeds to participate in "sex-toy parties" a la Tupperware, in which they will "view sex toys and engage in sexually explicit conversation with other female Duke students."

Father Vetter's concern is for the students' souls; TBA is still just trying to figure out how the "behavioral economics" guys got this past the school's human-research ethics committee. And when the videotaped interviews will hit the internet.

Michael Schoenfeld, Duke's vice president for public affairs, said that all kinds of research are important on university campuses and that the sex toy party project went through a peer review process before any students were sought.

"Not all research will make people comfortable," Schoenfeld said.

But evidently, some research will make some people very comfortable indeed.

(H/t Tyler Cowen.)