The dustup over Georgia State University faculty members who study racy-sounding topics such as male prostitution and oral sex has died down after two of the researchers explained their work to state legislators.

The lawmakers had objected to finding such topics in course catalogs and faculty listings, and vowed to cut the positions of professors teaching in those areas.

But attitudes changed yesterday, when Kirk Elifson, a former Army captain, explained that his research into male prostitution is being used to combat the fast-growing rate of HIV infection in the state and nationally, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Another researcher explained how her study of oral sex was related to work on teenagers’ changing attitudes toward sex. —Eric Kelderman