Motivated by interest expressed by students across campus in the issues of sexuality and pornography, the student organization Let’s Talk Sex has chosen to sponsor a lecture by feminist pornographer Tristan Taormino on April 29, 2010. The goal is to begin a productive and intellectual discourse about a controversial subject.
The event will be held at 4:30 p.m., location TBA, and will be open only to members of the Princeton community. Because of the event’s adult content, the event will be open only to PUID holders ages eighteen and older. The event will consist primarily of a lecture, but will include a brief showing of various film clips.
In her lecture, Taormino will openly share her experiences as a feminist within the porn industry. She will engage with the question: “Can we really create sex-positive, empowering pornography?” She will show a 10-15 minute clip reel from her films at the end of the program to illustrate what she believes feminist pornography can look like.
Taormino’s talk will be preceded, earlier in April, by a contrasting lecture that will explore the damaging and oppressive aspects of pornography.
“We hope that students, faculty, and staff will make an effort to attend both events, as we intend for the two to be in conversation with each other,” said Let’s Talk Sex co-leader Amelia Thomson-DeVeaux ’11.
The two April lectures on pornography were sparked by responses to a popular Let’s Talk Sex campaign. The group taped posters with open-ended questions about sex to the backs of bathroom stalls last spring and this fall, and left pens so that students could respond anonymously.
“One question that always sparked a lively conversation was ‘What do you think about pornography?’” said Thomson-DeVeaux. “It was clearly a subject about which Princeton students had a diverse range of opinions, and something that they wanted to talk about. We decided to give them a space to air their thoughts.”
Because of the popularity of Taormino’s lecture last November on non-monogamous relationships, also sponsored by Let’s Talk Sex, the group’s organizers decided to invite her back. Their goal is to host two speakers whose divergent opinions on pornography can begin the productive discourse about this subject.
“Taormino’s lecture is an unusual opportunity to actually talk to a feminist pornographer,” said Thomson-DeVeaux. “I would be shocked if Princeton students didn’t embrace this as an opportunity for honest academic discussion. Taormino believes that her pornography is radically different from the mainstream kind that most students will have encountered. Whether or not students agree with what she says, her lecture will provide a unique and valuable angle into our conversation. Our purpose is not to support one particular view on pornography or any other issue, but rather to bring together students with diverse opinions. In a respectful academic community, this is how we learn from each other.”
Are these actually “contrasting” viewpoints? One seems to be that mainstream porn is “damaging and oppressive”, while the other is that a certain kind of fringe porn is “sex-positive and empowering”. I guess you could believe one of these without believing the other, but this is hardly a “diverse range of opinions”.
And given the fact that your ideological opposites really cannot attend the latter lecture, it will not surprise anyone when there is no “open academic discussion”. It’s like having a lecture where the speaker will say that vegetarianism is immoral, and requiring everyone who attends to eat a steak. Clearly in that case you know beforehand that one side of the argument is not going to represented.
I’ll leave the honesty of this approach for others to decide. But if you really want to have an “open academic discussion” about anything, you should simply have a public debate with people (e.g. Anscombe) who you disagree with. I’m sure they would be happy to join you, so why not?
1) Yes, these opinions are “contrasting” and “diverse” because they are different. The author of the post did not claim they were mutually exclusive or opposites.
2) On the likely absence of “ideological opposites” at your event, I don’t think LeTS is really trying to win over anyone in Anscombe. I think they’re trying to start a discussion with people who are genuinely open to hearing more about sex and sex positivity. The target audience isn’t someone who is already fundamentally convinced that the former is sinful and the second irrelevant.
3) There has been a TON of “public debate” on campus about sex and gender issues this year that has taken the form of literal debate and in opinion columns in the Daily Princetonian, our school newspaper.
1) The opinions are contrasting and diverse in the same way that the opinions “Republicans are bad” and “Democrats are good” are contrasting and diverse. That’s not what most people would call contrasting and diverse, but it would not be the first time that this blog has stretched the meaning of words.
2) You assume that people in Anscombe are “already fundamentally convinced” and not genuinely open to debate (as I’m sure you are). This is an uncharitable and unproven claim, but let’s assume it’s true. Here are two possibilities: you could debate Anscombe people, not in the hope of convincing them, but in the hope of convincing the people in the audience. Or, you could debate students who disagree with you and are not in Anscombe–of whom there are plenty, I assure you. Unless you think that everyone who disagrees with you is both wrong and unwilling to change his mind?
3) Having people talk past each other in opinion columns is not having a debate, even if it’s done more competently than it was. Having a dinner discussion is not having a debate. To my knowledge there has been no “literal” formal 1 on 1 or 2 on 2 public debate on this or indeed on pretty much any other issue you’d like to name. At best there was the “Drunk Sex or Date Rape” thing last spring, which drew more people than your thing probably will, even with your free porn.
Look at the intensity in the Prince comments on those articles. You can see that a serious and probably hostile debate on such topics would be heavily attended and well worth doing.
Haha I was really hoping that Tristan Taormino commented, but I soon found out otherwise.
Tristan,
You seem to think that this blog presents a model of morality that is not to be found anywhere else, and I really haven’t heard the Republican/Democrat binary that you’re talking about (if you’ve noticed, we don’t really like binaries here), so I’m confused about your statements.
I don’t think that the only “contrasting” and “diverse” opinion is that of the Anscombe society. In fact, from feminist to feminist, among Democrats and among Republicans, you will find a range of opinions and positions on pornography. And that, I believe, is a dialogue that LeT’S is trying to engage.
I’m sure not everyone agrees with the Anscombe Society’s position, but I doubt that anyone parades their website declaring that they are not engaging in a useful dialogue, because they haven’t staged a “debate”. “Debate” was never mentioned in the post above…so I’m confused about why you want it in such a specific format, and why you think it’s the only legitimate form of discourse.
Diverse and contrasting opinions do not only constitute either/or. I know we learned about “opposites” in elementary school, but the range of opinions that can be represented by the academic world extend far beyond representations of white and black.
1) Really, you haven’t heard of the two major political parties in this country? Ok then…consider the opinions “X is bad” and “not-X is good”. These do not strictly speaking entail one another, but someone who believes one usually believes the other, which means they don’t conflict and they are likely to be held by the same people. Compare this to the opinions “X is bad” and “X is good”. These beliefs do conflict and cannot be held by the same people at the same time. Everyone agrees that the latter pair are contrasting and diverse; only a few seem to think that the former pair are. Do you really see no difference between the two pairs?
2) No one’s claiming that Anscombe is the only contrasting opinion, or at least I didn’t: “Or, you could debate students who disagree with you and are not in Anscombe–of whom there are plenty, I assure you.” For example, I disagree with you and am not in Anscombe.
3) “parade”: I don’t think that word means what you think it means.
4) You will concede that formal debate is *a* legitimate form of discourse. The reason people engage in it is that it’s a structured way of articulating one’s views and explaining why a rational person should believe them. Two sides of the argument are represented, both get equal time to speak their minds, no one can talk over the other, and there are some basic standards e.g. no name-calling. Formal debates have been going on for a long, long time and it’s pretty much standard practice for people who want to intelligently argue about some disputed issue. With all these things to recommend it, I can’t imagine why you wouldn’t want to debate someone, maybe Anscombe, maybe not, as at least *one* method of “engaging in discourse”. If people don’t hassle Anscombe about not debating their opponents, it’s probably because they’re fully ready to have such a debate anywhere, anytime. Why aren’t you?
Hi Tristan,
You and I are having a discussion right now that is outside the constraints of a formalized binary debate, where we would be called upon to sympathize with one camp or the other. The category that you might call “feminists” includes very different and diverse views on pornography. Maybe I’m not a debater, because I believe in the diversity of opinions that can exist outside of the restraints of binary identities. But yes, I can’t argue that debate is not a recognized and institutionalized format of discourse. I just wouldn’t agree that it is always the *best* one. I assure you that my opinions and perspective are potentially very different than other writers here on this blog. And I’m sure you have opinions and perspectives to contribute on the topic as well, which you are certainly more than welcome to share with us.
Though I appreciate your point about the diversity of positions on a given point X, there is a sense in which there actually only two positions: one affirming X and one denying X. Now certainly there are many different ways of denying or affirming some proposition, but a debate could then focus on the issue of why a certain argument for X is better than a different argument for X.
Take the existence of God. At the first level there is a binary between theists and non-theists. But among theists there is a binary between those who think God can be shown to exist through pure reason alone and those who think that to prove God you need to use empirical evidence. Among those who think that God’s existence can be shown by pure reason alone, there is a binary between those who think ontological arguments work and those who don’t. Among those who think an ontological argument works, there is a binary between those who think Anselm’s ontological argument works and those who don’t. And so on to infinity.
There could be, and indeed have been for centuries, “formalized binary debates” about each of these issues, even though no single debate includes all of the possible positions one could take in theology. Likewise, there could be, and indeed have been for decades, “formalized binary debates” about porn, rape, differences between men and women, or any other topic of interest to you, even though no single debate includes all of the possible positions one could take on the topic as a whole.
(As an aside, keep in mind that the question of whether there are “binary identities”–presumably you mean of gender–is separate from the question of whether there are only two possible opinions one could hold about some issue. In other words, pick your battles.)
So “formalized binary debates” are useful ways to talk about disputed issues. In my previous post I gave some reasons for why they are especially effective, and for why they are at any rate more effective at promoting “open intellectual discourse” than the upcoming event featuring the tastefully-named pornographer. I didn’t say that they were always and everywhere the best “format of discourse”; indeed I suggested merely that an organization like Lets hold a debate as at least one of their events, not that every event they hold must be a debate. Although in truth I think that would be better than the opposite situation that prevails at the moment.