Mum Of University Of California Female Visual Arts Student Protests Compulsory Nude Posing To Pass Course

Off with the clothes or fail – that was the order of a Visual Arts professor at the University of California, San Diego, to students, according to an angry mum with a daughter in the class. Everyone in the class of 20 is supposed to be nude, including the professor.

“To blankety say, ‘You must be naked in order to pass my class’ – it makes me sick to the stomach,” New York Daily News quotes the student’s mother.

The professor, Ricardo Dominguez, who has been teaching the course for 11 years, told KGTV it is the first time that he has received a complaint about the course requirement. “It is a standard canvas for performance and body art. If they are uncomfortable with this gesture, they should not take the course,” he said.

The 55-year-old Dominguez adds that during the nude painting sessions, only a candlelight is used to illuminate the dark studio. It is also an elective course in which students could use figurative nudity to pass the “erotic self” assignment.

The department’s Web site describes the class as “Using autobiography, dream, confession, fantasy or other means to invent one’s self in a new way, or to evoke the variety of ourselves in our imagination, the course experiments with and explores the rich possibilities available to the contemporary artist in his or her own persona.”

However, some academics disagreed with the nude painting sessions, according to Facebook posts. One teacher, who was “appalled” at Dominguez’s use of the sessions “in the name of teaching art,” said there are other ways for students to dig deeper into themselves. Another commenter charged the professor with using the course “to fulfill his pervert needs.”

But Dominguez’s students have come to his defence. One student pointed out that they had a choice of being nude or doing something “emotionally naked.” Another admitted that having no clothes with your classmates is uncomfortable, they are adults and knew what the course required.

According to Inquistr, Dominguez is not new to controversy. He was investigated before for hacking the university president’s Web site through a DDoS attack through a system he created. The hack led to a virtual sit-in. Dominguez also created a GPS tool that helps Mexican illegal immigrants cross the border.

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