In a debate Monday night a group of senators failed to add pornographic movies to the list of purchases for the Multimedia Center’s DVD collection.
What is concerning about the vote is not that the motion failed, but that a plurality of senators supported the proposal. The situation was left without closure, and the senate could decide at any time to add these titles. This should not be done.
The purpose of senate’s expenditure on DVDs was to create a mini-Blockbuster on campus, not an adult movie store. Of its many negative actions, porn objectifies women, glorifies violence against them, and contributes to the myth that women enjoy forceful sex. There are demonstrated links between porn and increases in child abuse, rape, violence, and domestic abuse.
If our SA makes porn freely available to students, it could cause these dehabilitating effects. The senate needs to pass a motion prohibiting the purchase of these movies in the popular DVD collection. Keeping porn out of the DVD purchase is not censorship, students are still free to get porn on their own. It should not be sponsored by the university, which should be a place of higher ethics and ideals.
In this light, the SA and Cinema Group should stop showing the spring porn. University supported porn is inappropriate and the spring porn is something that most of us take part in without even thinking. We cannot forget the consequences of our involvement, however. Our dollars directly support the porn industry. Our laughs and comments feed the smut.
Some will say that the campus porn is one of UR’s great traditions. That does not change that it is wrong. If we had a tradition of wearing black face it would be ended immediately. In the same regard, university sponsored porn should end now.
