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Nov. 25, 2009
Daniel Pipes: Islamism 2.0
JWisdom.com: No God … No You! Know God, Know You! with Rabbi Yitzchok Fingerer (8 minutes)
Nov. 24, 2009
Rabbi Avi Shafran : The Atheists' unintended gift
JWisdom.com: You are a Philanthropist with Aliza Bulow (5 minutes)
Nov. 23, 2009
JWisdom.com: Actually, it really is all about you with Rabbi Lawrence Hajioff
Nov. 20, 2009
Rabbi David Aaron: How to make every second of your life come first
Caroline B. Glick: Whither American Jewry
Nov. 19, 2009
Binyamin L. Jolkovsky: Please Listen to this Godcast (5 minutes)
Jonathan Tobin: ADL Crosses the Line with Report Bashing Obama Critics
Nov. 18, 2009
Rabbi Yonason Goldson: What Judaism has to say about the secret of the Mona Lisa's smile
JWisdom.com: The (Jewish) Dating Game with Rabbi Lawrence Hajioff (8 minutes)
Nov. 17, 2009
Steven Emerson: How Does the 4th Amendment Impact Terror Finance Investigations?
JWisdom.com: If Frank Sinatra married Edith Piaf with Rabbi Y.Y. Rubinstein (2 minutes) Life lessons from what would be regarded as the most inappropriate lyrics ever sung
Nov. 16, 2009
The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir : When borrowing is stealing
JWisdom.com: Deconstructing faith with Rabbi Warren Goldstein (9 minutes)
Nov. 13, 2009
JWisdom.com Sarah's subjective reality with Rabbi Sroy Levitansky ( 6 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick: Obama's failure, Netanyahu's opportunity
Nov. 12, 2009
The Kosher Gourmet By Marialisa Calta : A sweet sweet potato treat
JWisdom.com Does God get tired? with Rabbi Harvey Belovski ( 5 minutes)
Nov. 11, 2009
Rabbi Avi Shafran: Jews and money: When anti-Semitism isn't
JWisdom.com Marriages are not made in Heaven with Rabbi Lawrence Hajioff (VERY fast 15 minutes)
Nov. 10, 2009
Michael Doyle: Author of book exposing CAIR ordered to remove supporting documents from Web
JWisdom.com If the creation so loudly shouts the existence of the Creator, why aren't more people believers? with Rabbi Naftali Brawer (9 minutes)
Oct. 29, 2003
Mortimer B. Zuckerman: Graffiti On History's Walls (MUST-READ!)

Jewish World Review March 24, 2009 / 28 Adar 5769

The Prostitution Art Show on Campus

By Mona Charen


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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | The Sex Workers' Art Show returned for the fourth time to the College of William and Mary campus in Williamsburg, Va., this week. Described as an "eye-popping evening of visual and performance art created by people who work in the sex industry," the show has been touring the country (and particularly college campuses) for the past several years. A Duke student publication reports that the show begins with a cast member leading the audience in a chant of "'naked ladies.' The remainder of the event featured political statements, musical theater, a mild dominatrix act, the elaborate removal of clothing and an anal sparkler for the grand finale."


The college president wasn't thrilled about the show, but declined, as he put it, "to be a censor." Instead of forbidding the performance on campus, W. Taylor Reveley III insisted that audiences as well as those who find the show "offensive and degrading" participate in a forum to discuss issues raised by the show at its conclusion.


Here are a few ideas for discussion: Doesn't presenting such a show trivialize and possibly even encourage the degradation and exploitation of women inherent in "sex work" (aka prostitution in the real world)? How does presenting a show like this encourage the search for truth and knowledge that universities claim to advance?


Major universities now sport student-run porn magazines. According to The New York Times Magazine, Boston University students publish the "sex positive" Boink. Yale publishes SWAY, the acronym for Sex Week at Yale. What's that? It's "a student-run symposium held biennially there since 2002, with administrative blessing and a corporate sponsor, Pure Romance, a company whose representatives sell sexual aids for women at Tupperware-like 'parties'" (emphasis mine). Columbia has Outlet, which recently featured an article on "vaginal personalities." These magazines, the Times explains, "aren't so much answering the question of what is and what isn't porn — or what those categories might even mean today — as artfully, disarmingly and sometimes deliberately skirting it."


It's not actually too surprising that the kids are pushing the envelope into the porn world, because the atmosphere on campus is already a bacchanal when they arrive as freshmen. As Princeton professors Robert George and John Londregan recently wrote on The Public Discourse:


"As part of the freshman orientation program, students are required to attend an event entitled 'Sex on a Saturday Night.' It consists of a series of skits ostensibly designed to discourage 'date rape.' For years, critics have contended that the play, which features vulgarity and suggestive conduct, does nothing to serve this laudable goal; rather, it reinforces the campus culture of sexual permissiveness, primarily by shaping students' expectations to include sexual license as normal.


"And then there is 'Sex Jeopardy' (officially 'Safer Sex Jeopardy'), an event that Princeton freshmen are 'strongly encouraged' by the University to attend. Modeled on the long-running television game show, this activity invites students to show off their knowledge of such topics as anal intercourse, flavored condoms, dental dams, sex toys and sado-masochism. As described by one female student, Sex Jeopardy is 'suffused with sexual bravado and conveys the strong impression that only someone with hang-ups would have a moral problem with hook-ups.'"


Every generation of young people wants, maybe even needs, to believe it is the first to discover sex. But how can a college student act out or sow seeds of rebellion when the boundaries are already so flaccid?


Our liberal universities are officious about warning kids of the dangers of STDs, pregnancy and date rape. But sadly, those are the only dangers they perceive in sexual license. If they cannot imagine that "sex workers" are degraded by their work, how can they begin to understand that promiscuity compromises self-worth?


Many college campuses today seem bent on satisfying nearly every imaginable sexual appetite in a "nonjudgmental" environment. In fact, the only people who today feel judged are those — and there are many — who reject the casual "hook-up" culture in favor of modesty, old-fashioned dating and even (gasp) chastity. George and Londregan suggest colleges have a duty to fund student centers for those students just as they fund centers for gay and lesbian students. It's a good idea. But it's sad that sexual restraint has become an alternative lifestyle.

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