By
Dan Cassino
It's almost disappointing that it isn't yet the season for fundamentalist preachers on the Mall. They migrate in every spring like a flock of really obnoxious birds, cawing at the jeering crowds. Few of us look forward to their coming each year, but it's almost disappointing that they aren't here yet because they would have had a lot talk about this week.
Had they been here, they could have lectured us on avarice: does anyone really need a billion dollars? How much of that money is going to God and how much to the dreams of men?
They could have lectured us on vanity. Why should we clean up our campus, when, in truth, it is a mess? Why can we not be proud of what we are?
However, we really missed out on the lectures on sex. Last Friday, the front page of this distinguished publication featured a large photo of a woman carrying, all euphemisms aside, a dildo. This is the sort of thing the preachers on the Mall really get excited about.
The dildo-bearer in question, Merryl Sloane, had the object in question for a good reason. She was teaching a class on sex in the meeting room of Louie's Lower Level. About 50 students and a couple of local camera crews attended the event, sponsored by the Associated Students of the University of Arizona and the Women's Resource Center.
It's difficult to find any problem with the WRC - the aforementioned Resource Center, not the sweatshop-bashing Worker Rights Consortium, though that would have been fun, too- sponsoring such an event. If they want to spend their money on sex workshops instead of Marxist-feminist lecturers, not too many people are going to be upset, with the possible exception of the feminist Marxists, and they're upset most of the time anyway.
Eyebrows are raised, however, when ASUA gets involved in this sort of thing. As our student government, they generally shy away from funding anything overly controversial. Not to say if that is good or bad; but having people shout incoherently at you about something is never a great deal of fun.
Apparently, our representatives didn't know that this was going to be as graphic as it turned out to be. We can't really blame them for not being omniscient, but it would stand to reason that a seminar on sex is going to be more like a bad Monty Python sketch than a lecture by Miss Manners. The content was objectionable. People are uncomfortable with these topics and, for good or ill, many don't support talking about them publicly. Maybe some people don't think that ASUA should fund this sort of thing.
Students who don't think ASUA should be involved in these types of program have ways to express their discontent. First off, they can talk to one of the senators. They all have office hours, and they're all willing to listen to the views of their constituents. Undoubtedly, they're all good people who stand by their decisions; but they are also elected officials. If enough people tell them not to have a sex workshops, they won't have sex workshops.
Second, if a student doesn't want his money going towards these sorts of presentations, he has the simple recourse of not giving ASUA his money. ASUA isn't funded by tuition, or administration; rather, it operates off the profits from the bookstore. Think ASUA is a bunch of godless heathens? Fine. Go to Rother's.
Should we be talking about sex? Absolutely. Part of the university experience is discussing those things that may be taboo in other settings, opening up to new ideas. Those Marxist-feminist theorists don't pop up much in corporate America, for some reason. With the exception of the annoyingly precocious 12 year-old or two floating around, we're all adults here. Those people who find the content objectionable should stay away from seminars like this and go spend some more time sharing the word on the Mall.
