Laurie and Debbie say:

The New York Times is writing about a phenomenon perhaps best called campus sex magazines. As near as we can tell without spending time with the magazines in question, these are a potpourri of nudes, erotic photographs, and pornography (and yes, the lines that divide those categories are fuzzy indeed), focusing on college students and specific college campuses. On the whole, this all seems to be mostly okay–real (if carefully selected) bodies, no photoshopping, men and women, gay and straight images mixed, and at least some real discussion of the issues accompanying the pictures. It could be a lot worse. Of course, we don’t object to pornography. (One reason we can’t really evaluate the magazines themselves is that at least the two referenced in the Times article are extremely careful about what they put up on the Web, out of respect for their models.)

The Reverse Cowgirl, who analyzes the implications of porn and writing about porn, sees it all rather differently.

How that works, I am not clear on either. In the end [of the article], some chick gets her knickers in a twist when she gets called a “porn girl” because she got naked and covered in paint in the aforementioned Boink. In her defense of why she is not a “porn girl” despite her having engaged in clearly “porn girl”-like porn activity, she explains herself thusly: “It really just started out as a joke. I think it’s good to be proud of your body, especially when you’re younger and stuff, as long as it’s tasteful. Just something to add to the résumé. I thought the body-painting spread was really creative.” Indeed, I’m sure the paint was very non-pornographically applied.

The first warning sign, for us, is that “some chick” has a name in the article. She is Anna Lee. We’re disturbed by the way Reverse Cowgirl anonymizes her, and quotes far and away the least intelligent-sounding of her quotations.

More to the point, however, Reverse Cowgirl seems to believe that being in proximity to pornography is pornography. We don’t see any reason why a tasteful painted nude (or a photograph from Familiar Men for that matter) is more pornographic next to a photograph of a masturbating man than it is next to a Robert Mapplethorpe vase of flowers. Honest and truly, some significant percentage of Playboy readers are (or at least were) interested in the interviews and articles. Some of the best writers of our time published in Playboy and its competitors, because 1) the money was good, and 2) being on the other side of a page from a bunny spread doesn’t make your story into pornography.

Sorry, Reverse Cowgirl. You’ve got this story by the wrong handle. Even (especially?) if you dislike or distrust pornography, you have to be careful to distinguish the real thing from its neighbors.

Thanks to Daphne Gottlieb for the thought-provoking link.

sex, sexuality, pornography, college, erotica, body image, Body Impolitic