The XX Factor: What women really think.

To Porn or Not To Porn?

Samantha, I, too, saw the Washington Post story on how an adult-movie screening on the University of Maryland campus was canceled after Senator Harris suggested a budget amendment could strip the public university of nearly $500 million in funding. Sure, Harris' hysteria over porn on campus is silly at best—I don't know how truly "dangerous" pornography is to the culture at large—but what struck me as inappropriate is how an adult-production company is generating free publicity for its movie by trotting it out before its target demographic and pretending the experience is educational by coupling the screenings with safe-sex speakers or academics droning on about "gender and sexuality."

You say: "Still, the public viewing would at least get people in a room together, talking about sex and maybe—hopefully—even dipping into the sort of difficult, analytical discussion of sexuality and exploitation that colleges should promote." Personally, I doubt it. Porn rarely leads to analytical discussions of anything, much less sex. Instead, it looks to me like the colleges are getting snookered by publicists who have found their perfect mark in porn-happy academics.

Hilariously, the Planned Parenthood speaker who would have spoken on safe-sex practices would be doing so in the context of a movie in which none of the adult performers were using condoms. Way to set an example. In the end, porn is little more than smoke and mirrors.