The Institute for Advanced Study of Human Sexuality (IASHS) was a private, unaccredited, for-profit graduate school and resource center for the field of sexology in San Francisco, California.
Its library and archives were a collection of adult films, academic sexological and erotological resources, and sex therapy training materials.
By 1974, it was clear to the forum that a free-standing institute dedicated to the study of and education and training in the emerging field of sexology was required.
[7] The institute was to be integral to the development of humanistic sexology, emphasizing experiential techniques and sexual pleasure over positivist empiricism.
The culture of casual as well as clinical nudity and the inclusion of various bodywork and erotic massage techniques led to the institute being nicknamed "Hot Tub University" or "F**k U" by some critics.
[8] The institution was never accredited, but it was approved from 2010 until shortly before its closure by the California Bureau for Private Postsecondary Education (BPPE), meaning that IASHS was not a fraudulent diploma mill.
[9] In July 2014, the BPPE sent a Notice to Comply to IASHS regarding several violations, for problems such as failing to properly disclose the full cost, providing outdated and incomplete information about courses and instructors, and not telling prospective students that the school was unaccredited.
Ted McIlvenna, president of the institute, favored a curriculum focusing on teaching teenagers techniques for "obtaining healthy, respectful relationships with their partners" rather than abstinence-only sex education.
[8] The archives included hundreds of thousands of adult films, as well as documents tracing the development of sexology as a field of research and training, as well as educational materials.
[24][25] Charles Moser, chair of IASHS Department of Sexual Medicine, has argued that paraphilias and BDSM should be removed from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM).