Scientific Article on Bats' Oral Pleasures Triggers Sexual Harassment Scandal


An Irish scientist who showed an article to his female coworker is charged with sexual harassment.

Dr. Dylan Evans, a psychologist and behaviorist who teaches in the University College Cork, came to the office of Dr Rossana Salerno Kennedy who is lecturing in the same college. They had a discussion where Dylan tried to prove that humans are not unique in their behavior. To prove his point, he showed her a scientific article about peculiarities of oral sex among bats, published in a specialized journal PLoS One.

“She asked me for a copy. She was not embarrassed in the least. And I had no intentions to embarrass her. I had no idea it could turn like this ,” the scientist explains .

Two weeks later Dr. Evans received an official notification from the administration that Dr. Kennedy accused him of sexual harassment in the form of demonstrating to her a dirty article and complimenting her on her looks.

“I was shocked, insulted and humiliated. I was very ashamed. I asked for a copy of the article to finish our discussion,” the woman explained the reasons for her complaint.

A special committee satisfied her claim, acknowledging that the article might have been offensive. Now Dr. Evans will be on probation for two years and will be fired if something similar happens.

Now many scientists are outraged with the dubious decision. They support their colleague and demand that the sentence is vacated. The Irish Federation of University Teachers has filed a petition where it called the scandal ridiculous and violating the intellectual freedom and freedom of speech. Scientists willingly sign the petition . Dr. Evans is supported by 2,500 colleagues all over the world.

Many media outlets wrote about the article that embarrassed Dr. Kennedy, including the Komsomolskaya Pravda. According to New Scientist magazine, the research that preceded the article called "Fellatio in fruit bats prolongs copulation time" became the most popular one in 2009, and generated the greatest readers’ interest.

Why was the Irish doctor horrified? Why was she not able to calmly discuss unusual animal behavioral model? It would have been different if the article was demonstrated to a physicist by a mathematician, in this case there could probably be a dirty insinuation.

The research on bats was conducted by Chinese scientist Min Tan and his colleagues from Guangdong Entomological Institute in Guangzhou, China. The research materials include video presenting no more than graphs. It is surprising that Dr. Kennedy chose to file a claim against the famous scientist.



Source: http://english.pravda.ru/science/earth/25-05-2010/113495-bats_oral_sex-0
Article this post is referring to: http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0007595




I get severely bored at work, and browse all kinds of different news sites. I found this article today, and it's completely boggled my mind.

What are your thoughts on this?

well... now that second link fails. Yay for it having a smiley face?

http://tinyurl.com/ykcqgbe
Entered on tinyurl so the colon in the url doesn't make a smiley face :)

Haha. Mental note: do not show anyone articles about bat blow jobs.

Well, let me see if I follow this. Dr. Evans wants to prove that humans aren't unique in behavior, so he gives his coworker an article that says in short, "Bats like blow jobs too."

I can see how that is inappropriate.

But if she is humiliated and embarrassed by the nature of the discussion, then why ask for a copy to CONTINUE THEIR DISCUSSION?

I feel like there are key facts missing in this case of he said she said.

i think it would depend on how the discussion started. if by 'humans aren't unique in their behavior' he was referring to a sexual matter in the first place, the article could be perfectly relevant. if not, then it's inappropriate. i agree with winged centaur that there are facts missing.

Inappropriate I could agree with. Sexual harassment seems a bit much to me though. Even if they weren't already talking about bat blow jobs =/ It's not like he gave her hardcore porn.

Exactly. Inappropriate? Maybe. Sexual harassment? Hardly.

This was on the Daily Mail site a few days ago.

It mentioned at the bottom of the article that apparently he has been making inappropriate suggestions to her for a long time. This was not the first instance. Funny how these stories leave this crucial bit out.

Ah see, that makes a LOT more sense.

Here we go, this article gives you all the facts left out: http://www.butireaditinthepaper.co.uk/2010/05/18/another-dishonest-headline/

Sweet, thanks! (:

It's still pretty bizarre, because it's like... none of the information provided in the link you posted had anything to do with the issue at hand. I mean, sure, he could have been a perv, I guess, but no matter how this situation could have been spun, showing someone an article about oral sex in bats, especially when it was relevant to a conversation, doesn't scream sexual harassment to me.

I mean, sexual harassment. Really. There was no harassment going on in my honest opinion.

Lol.

It's hard to know whether the bat article was inappropriate because we don't know the context of the conversation. Human uniqueness is not tied only to sex practices, so if the conversation was not specifically about human uniqueness in the sexual context, then the article was out of place and inappropriate. The situation seemed to be handled badly on both sides, so determining who was "right" or "wrong" gets muddled. Can the man be fully at fault if the woman didn't make it clear that the conversation was making her uncomfortable? I mean, asking for a copy of the article seems to be an action of encouragement, not a way to make someone leave you alone.

Also, a commenter on the second article said that the woman had sent e-mails to Dr. Evans saying she had enjoyed time spent together, which could have just been an insincere gesture, but there is no way for us to know.