|
Philosophy, Astronomy, Geography....Pornography?
Is
pornography essential to a liberal arts education? Some educators seem to think it is.
February witnessed bizarre film
festivals hosted at the University of Cincinnati and Emory University. De-funded NEA
"artist" Holly Hughes brought her inflammatory sexual politics to Dartmouth
College. And UC-Santa Cruz sponsored a conference for young homosexuals at which gay
pornography was shown and students were addressed by a "sex-worker."
n
From February 19-23, self-described performance artist Holly Hughes served as a scholar in
residence at Dartmouth. Hughes’ works include Lady Dick, Clit Notes,
and Well of Horniness. The event was part of Dartmouth’s celebration of
twenty-five years of co-education.
n Another NEA "artist"
who had her funding revoked popped-up at the University of Cincinnati. The appearance of
Cheryl Dunye, the writer, director, and star of Watermelon Woman, highlighted the
University of Cincinnati’s Fourth Annual Women’s Film Festival. In addition to Watermelon
Woman, the festival featured Our Mom’s a Dyke and Girls Like Us.
n The Fifth Annual Emory
University Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Film Festival was held in Atlanta from
February 19-22. Among the films shown were Badass Supermama, Hermaphrodites with
Attitude, and Chained Girls. Also playing was the "ever popular
classic," Liquid Sky, a film "in which space aliens, drug addicts, and
lesbians cavort in high style until a UFO ends it all." The Emory-sponsored
film-festival featured cult-films and documentaries and not pornography. "This was an
academic film-festival," contends organizer Sara-Lynn Chesnut.
n From February 6-8, the
University of California-Santa Cruz hosted, Exposed! The University of California Lesbian,
Gay, Bisexual, and Transgendered Annual Conference and General Assembly. The conference,
which was attended by high school and college students, featured screenings of Blood
Sisters: Leather Dykes & Sadomasochism and Daddy and the Muscle Academy.
Workshops at the gathering included "Latex Lovers: A Workshop on Queer Womyn
Safe-Sex," "Transgender Workplace Issues," and "Town, Gown, and
T-Rooms: the University and Public Homosexual Sex."
"It is amazing that college administrators would think it an
appropriate use of tax-dollars," explained Peter LaBarbera, who attended the
conference for Campus Report, "to fund a conference that featured talks
by ‘sex-workers’ and screenings of pornographic films to college and high school
students."
UC-Santa Cruz spokesperson Elizabeth Irwin categorized the conference
as "a number of very serious, academically rooted, discussions about issues of
sexuality, and especially, issues of human rights." While Irwin noted that some of
the gathering’s events did not have "universal appeal," she claimed it
provided an "educational opportunity." Irwin professed, "There was no
question that there was a rational, and an academic, underscore to any of the official
presentations."
These incidents have come on the heels of the well-publicized
controversy occurring at the New Paltz campus of the State University of New York. Two
tax-funded conferences—"Revolting Behavior: The Challenges of Women’s
Sexual Freedom" and "Subject to Desire: Refiguring the Body"—featured
enthusiastic endorsements of sadomasochism and slides of a naked woman with snakes
slithering on her body. The gatherings provoked protests from trustees and elected
officials, with New York Governor George Pataki labeling the conferences,
"outrageous."
|
send page to a friend 
