Discussion List for campus-based and allied personnel working to end gender-based violence on campus.

Dear colleagues;

It has been reported in the past few days that a few universities are 
planning to show a xxx "hard core" porn film - as a form of entertainment - 
and a "safe alternative" to drinking alcohol to excess.

Schools are not officially endorsing this but they are allowing it as a form 
of free speech.

It's true schools can't be commanded to stop the films - but just because 
they CAN allow it doesn't mean they should.
Schools well understand the way that porn normalizes and eroticizes violence 
against women (we're not talking about splendor in the grass here - or 
erotica - the vast majority of hard core porn depicts women being brutalized 
- often by multiple men - and with objects and weapons - and while being 
degraded and crying and enduring literal torture while men are experiencing 
sexual pleasure.? women in the "industry" often have to stop working after 
only weeks because their genitals are so damaged and their bodies so ravaged 
- they are no longer "worth" anything to the business.)

This is not about sex - or morality or censorship - it is about violence and 
the harm to women in the films - and as a class.? Men, too - suffer - as do 
relationships - as new research shows the debilitating results of porn 
addiction and the obvious ways that porn inhibits healthy relationships while 
encouraging rape and abuse. (75% of men in prison for child rape - admit 
using porn - and 75% of men in prison for child porn - admit sexually abusing 
numerous children - for which they have never been caught).? 

Clearly - the endorsement or sponsorship of a respected university in the 
display of xxx porn would violate Title IX - so why don't schools care that 
allowing students to do it is equally inappropriate in light of the purpose 
of Title IX which is to prevent gender-based discrimination in the interest 
of fostering an equal educational opportunity for all students?

Even as a student-run activity - or maybe - ESPECIALLY BECAUSE students are 
asking to show this film, school officials should have the leadership and 
good citizenship sense NOT to allow it on campus and to use the controversy 
as a teachign moment - to express to students why the film isn't about sex - 
but rather - is a blatant attempt to normalize sexual violence and 
incentivize cultural disrespect for women - just as the showing of a film 
celebrating the abuse and enslavement of black people (as entertainment) 
would be a blatant expression of disrespect for black students on campus and 
in the larger community. (or a pro holocaust film would be offensive to jews 
- etc - )

The special nature of a college community means not only protecting free 
speech but making sure that offensive speech is not endorsed as entertainment 
- and maybe more importantly - making sure that an institute of higher 
learning is not responsible for creating a hierarchy such that films 
eroticizing the brutal abuse of women are ok - but films eroticizing the 
brutal abuse of blacks are not.

If UC Davis is being honest that allowing a film depicting the vile sexual 
degradation of women to be shown as entertainment is "free speech" - then 
they should prepare themselves for the steps now underway - (as should all 
schools considering allowing such films to be shown) - which include that 
women students are organizing and planning to sell tickets to a film produced 
by white supremicists that will convey the idea that it is pleasurable to 
brutalize black people - 

If this is what schools want - forced attention to the unequal ways free 
speech is used to allow the subjugation of some types of people but not 
others - women will fight back and demand that schools allow similarly 
hateful material to be sold as entertainment - 

And then what will happen to our communities of young people - our nation's 
next leaders?? How will they be affected during the learning process when a 
celebration of brutality fills the campus air and becomes the atmosphere 
within which they learn about public policy - the economy - world history and 
human psychology?

Wendy Murphy