Fred’s looks also interfered with his teaching. In his first term as a TA at least a third of his female students, and one or two of the males as well, developed crushes on him. When he called on these students they went all woozy and breathless and became quite incapable of concentrating on the topic of discussion. They hung round him after class, followed him to his office, leant over his desk in tight sweaters or shirts open nearly to the waist, clutched his arm in mute appeal, and in some cases openly declared their passion either in notes or in person (“I just think about you all the time, it’s really screwing up my head”). But Fred had no wish to sleep with ten screwed-up freshmen, or even with one carefully selected well-balanced freshman. He wasn’t attracted to puppy fat and unformed minds; and though in a couple of cases he was tempted, he had a strong sense of professional ethics. He also suspected correctly that if he fell and was found out he might be in serious professional trouble.

During that first year of teaching, Fred learnt to put more social distance between himself and his students; for one thing, though with irritation and regret, he stopped asking them to call him Fred. As time passed, the emotional and sexual pressure moderated-especially after he had met a woman whose appearance and temperament kept him fully occupied. But he still feels uncomfortable in the classroom. It bothers him to be “Professor Turner,” to have to maintain at all times a cool distance from his students, a dry manner, to give up hope of achieving the warm, relaxed, but in no way steamy and loose pedagogic climate enjoyed by his less-attractive colleagues. Time will solve his problem, but not for perhaps a quarter of a century, which from the perspective of twenty-eight might as well be forever. Meanwhile he has to put up with the belief of students that he is cold and formal-a belief promulgated every fall in the student-published Confidential Guide to Courses