Especially for Parents

News and Commentary by Sharon Secor
May 2005

New Lows Of Higher Education

Time changes all things, according to the wisdom of the ages. And, judging from the state of higher education in our nation, it’s plain to see that those changes are not always for the best. There’s another old saying, one about having to hit rock bottom before starting the slow ascent to sanity and health. With the news coming out of academia, one can only hope that - if we haven’t reached the bottom of the pit yet - the descent will end soon.

“Ivy League Colleges Lead Boom In Student-Run Porn Magazines,” announced the headline of a May 1, 2005, article by Jaclyn Trop for the British newspaper, The Independent. And, the newest to join the foul frenzy is Boink: The College Guide to Carnal Knowledge, which, according to Trop, “launched at Boston University in February” and is “arguably the most explicit.”

The “premiere issue,” was released after a February 17 “launch party” at the Roxy in Boston, Massachusetts, which, according to a report by Tara Lynch for the April 14, 2005, edition of The Fairfield Mirror, Fairfield University’s student newspaper, “was shut down by the Boston Police Department after reports of underage drinking.” The cover of the magazine featured one nude young woman intimately touching another young lady who, although she did have a tank top on, had her jeans unzipped and pulled down to accommodate the other young woman’s hand.

"Our magazine is porn," said the co-founder and editor-in-chief of Boink, Alecia Oleyourryk, as reported by Trop. "It's meant to arouse, it's meant to excite."

Oleyourryk’s founding partner is Chris Anderson and, according to Lynch’s report, “the idea for Boink was born when Anderson, 38, who had done photography work for H- Bomb [Harvard’s contribution to the world of sexually explicit magazines], pitched the idea to 21-year-old Oleyourryk, who had modeled for him in the past.” Although inspired by H-Bomb, Oleyourryk finds the Harvard magazine’s photos to be of a more “artistic” nature.

"Of course, there were many changes we had in mind when beginning Boink, and the magazine flourished from them," Oleyourryk said, as quoted by Lynch. "Namely, making it more about masturbation material, porn, something to get people off, full frontal nudity, etc."

In addition to the growing number of student published explicit magazines, many school newspapers are becoming much more accepting of coarse language and sexually themed materials. The Cornell Daily Sun, for example, runs a regular column, by Heather Grantham, under the title of Cornellingus. Judging from the sex and alcohol celebrating content of the April 26, 2005, column - which includes “a brief ode to Spring: Hurray! Hurray! The first of May! Outdoor f---ing begins today!” - I doubt that the similarity between Cornellingus and another word that refers to oral sex is purely coincidental.

With college campuses throughout the country in recent years hosting sex festivals and fairs, allowing the publishing of explicit magazines, and hosting the exhibition of pornographic films both inside and outside of the classroom, it is no wonder that pornographers attempt - often successfully - to recruit students for their films.

According to an April 20, 2005, Michigan Daily report, University of Michigan Dean of Students Eklund and Housing Director Carole Henry sent out e-mail warnings to students against participating in the filming of pornography on University property upon receiving information that “a gay pornography production company is allegedly operating out of Ann Arbor,” attempting to recruit students for pornographic pictures and films via a “College Campus Invasion Tour.”

Last autumn, at the University of California at Chico, student members of a fraternity, according to an April 16, 2005, report by Sacramento Bee staff writer Phillip Reese, “participated in a hard-core pornography film.” A Chico News and Review report from March 31, 2005, said that fraternity members “entered into an agreement for use of the house for the video shoot” with the pornography producing company Shane’s World, responsible for the successful College Invasion video series.

According to a published April 20, 2005, opinion piece in The Orion, a University of California at Chico publication, the film, College Invasion 6, included what Orion sports editor Travis Souders referred to as a group of “professional sex objects.“ Souders went on to describe, in graphic detail, some of the sexual encounters that took place between students and professionals. The Chico News and Review described a trailer for the film as showing “several college students engaged in unprotected sexual intercourse and oral sex with porn stars.”

"The only college girl who participated was ... visually uncomfortable as 'Jerry' took advantage of her state like a true porn douchebag," said a review of the porn film, written by Corey Bloom for the Synthesis, a Chico weekly newspaper, according to an April 20, 2005, article in the Orion, written by Shannon Savage.

That students are willing to participate in the production of pornography shouldn’t be too surprising in light of both our culture and the types of accredited college courses that have sprung up on campuses from coast to coast. Recent years have seen such offerings as the Wesleyan University class -discontinued after a public outcry - in which the final project, according to a May 8, 1999, Hartford Courant story by Eric Rich, required students to create their own work of pornography. An October 2001, Accuracy in Academia article by Joe Jablonski described a San Francisco State University course “which seeks to introduce them to the world of the Internet's sexual underground. Students actually learn how to navigate the underworld of cybersex and get a guided tour through the world of porn sites.”

Not all students, however, are enthralled by the degree to which pornography has become entrenched in campus social and academic realms. In an April 26, 2005, article in The Easterner, an Eastern Washington University student publication, students expressed frustration at rising tuition costs and questioned the use of monies to pay speakers such as porn star Ron Jeremy, with student Amanda Snyder saying that the school “should stop concentrating on bringing controversial speakers to the school and spend that money to fix the clocks.”

A practical sentiment, considering the results of a survey of 120 American corporations reported in a December 7, 2004, New York Times story by Sam Dillon, titled What Corporate America Can’t Build: A Sentence. Dillon wrote that a recent study, conducted by “the National Commission on Writing, a panel established by the College Board, concluded that a third of employees in the nation's blue-chip companies wrote poorly and that businesses were spending as much as $3.1 billion annually on remedial training.” Maybe a little less time and money spent on porn in colleges would produce more graduates with sufficient skills.

Although there is dissent concerning the current climate of porn fascination in academia, some refuse to unequivocally denounce the sordid affair.

Despite the title of her column, Porn Degrades Women, and despite her assertions concerning pornography’s “objectification and degradation of 51 percent of the world’s population,” Suzannah Morlos of the University of California at Chico’s Women’s Center says in an April 27, 2005, column in the Orion that she “would not come out against pornography as a media entity because to do so would be irresponsible” and that “the Women's Center is not taking a stand against the production of College Invasion 6,” even though “many of us at the Women's Center rightly believe that some pornography in this country is demeaning to women.” Morlos went on to state that “the issue being addressed in the recent boycott of the Synthesis is that a woman was portrayed as being sexually assaulted and the magazine used this as a publicity stunt.”

Such assertions seem illogical to me. “Irresponsible” to “come out” against an industry that, in her own words, objectifies and degrades more than half or the world’s population?

While Morlos herself is not a student and is not against pornography as an entity, perhaps part of the reason that - despite their private and public statements concerning the ills associated with pornography - many students find public dissent against pornography itself to be difficult is that in the academic realm, the wave of “tolerance” often flows one way.

Standing up against the flow of a pornified campus culture - especially when it is legitimized by campus administration via accredited courses that encourage the use and even the production of such materials -- can seem intimidating. As Boink co-founder and editor-in-chief Alecia Oleyyourryk stated in the Mirror, “for the most part, people who have strong anti-Boink opinions don't have the balls to say anything to me."

Whitney Williams is one student who took an unpopular public stand, according to an April 24, 2005, Boston Globe report by staff writer Meredith Goldstein. An outspoken and radical feminist, Williams wrote a regular column for the University of New Hampshire’s student newspaper. Goldstein reported, “over the past year, she's [Williams] written about 50 columns, 95 percent of which were about feminism and women's issues. Many were about rape.”

In an April 17, 2005, article published in the Concord Monitor, Viki Williams detailed the harassment and intimidation tactics endured by her “outspoken, committed activist” daughter Whitney Williams. A recent edition of Mainstreet Magazine, funded by the University of New Hampshire, in addition to sexually explicit material, also included a reference to Whitney Williams, by name, in the context of a young man, who later turned out to be a fictional creation of the Mainstreet Magazine editor, wanting to have sex with her, saying that his “c--- is huge.” The Boston Globe report mentioned a blog entry, written by “a former editor and writer at The New Hampshire.” According to Goldstein, the writer wrote of his desire to rape Williams.

The university, according to Viki Williams, has not been responsive, using “the First Amendment as a rationale for failure to hold the editor of this magazine…accountable.” Williams states that “Whitney has been subjected to death threats, pornographic attacks, heckling, condescension and, most damaging, a self-imposed anonymity in the classroom.” Evidently, tolerance for diversity goes just so far.

College can be a life-changing experience for students. Indeed, many a parent has been surprised by the new ideas their child has brought home from the world of higher education, a setting in which Judeo-Christian faith and traditional values are often publicly disparaged by professors and students alike.

One could almost imagine that it was with glee that The Daily, a University of Washington-Seattle publication, in an April 20, 2005, story, reported on the conservative Christian and private school background of a female student who is a co-founder of the Amateur Porn Club. According to the report, “the club’s goals are to provide a safe place to talk about, view and create independent pornography.”

Perhaps parents who’ve worked hard to raise their children with a certain set of values should take that as a warning. Perhaps parents should take a careful look at the academic culture and social climate of their children’s college choices and evaluate the potential for the destruction of their years of dedicated effort. There are still schools to choose from, schools that, like Patrick Henry College, focus on real education and intellectual achievement.

While some students in colleges awash in porn culture may very well turn out to be the pornographers of tomorrow, it is important to note that many more of them will likely be tomorrow’s teachers, law-makers and business leaders. But, pornified education doesn’t have to be the foundation of our future. Parents could put a stop to higher education’s rush to rock bottom by refusing to pump thousands of dollars per year into such institutions. Legislators could help by reducing funding for schools that waste tax dollars and that could be aiding and abetting violations of obscenity laws. When the money dries up, the academic culture will change.

Associated Links

Hey, Isn’t The Girl From Page 7 In Your Class An interesting article about Boink, the college student produced porn magazine. Be warned, however, there is one graphic photo.

Ivy League Colleges Lead Boom In Student Run Porn Magazines By Jaclyn Trop for UK Independent

Fraternity Caught With Pants Down An article about the filming of College Invasion 6

Wesleyan Brings Porn Into The Classroom Describes professor Hope Weissman’s class.

Porn Studies Latest Academic Fad An informative article that describes various porn studies classes.

Skin Flicks 101: What Porn Studies Profs Don’t Get About Sex An informative article.

You’re Studying What?! An informative article from November, 2004, describing accredited courses, offering examples both of the ridiculous and the tasteless

What Corporate America Can’t Build: A Sentence

Porn Degrades Women

(whitney background material)

(excellent background material whitney)

(porn producer recruits u students)

(frat. filming porn in dorms)

(student porn club for discussing viewing and making)

(editorial mentions past exploits, efforts to change image)

(vulgar description of college porn invasion 6)

(more about chico)

(more about porn invasion 6, student participation, female student filmed)

john hopkins film fest