The Utah college is not backing down from offering an elective class in which students will watch hardcore porn together to study it as an "art form."
Westminster College in Salt Lake City, Utah announced that it has "no intention" of canceling an elective class that lets students watch hardcore porn to study it as "an art form." The liberal college said it was committed to talking about "tough subjects" such as pornography.
"We have no intention to back away from offering this class. By and large, the campus community is supportive of that academic freedom and Westminster's commitment to talking about tough subjects," Westminster College's Chief Marketing Officer Sheila Yorkin announced via Deseret News.
The liberal college believes that pornography is "as American as apple pie" and is even "more popular than Sunday night football" and thus "requires serious contemplation." Westminister College's website explained, "Our approach to this billion-dollar industry is as both a cultural phenomenon that reflects and reinforces sexual inequalities (but holds the potential to challenge sexual and gender norms)."
"We will watch pornographic films together and discuss the sexualization of race, class, and gender as an experimental, radical art form," it concluded.
The Christian Post reported that students who join the hardcore porn elective class will have three-hour twice-a-week clases over the four-week term where they will be "thinking seriously about this media," associate professor Eileen Chanza Torres, who will lead the class, explained. Torres added that it is not simply a class where people watch porn together and go home.
According to the associate professor, students will have "active conversations" about the "history of the representation of pornography on film." Students will also discuss the development of porn alongside technology. Torres shared that students are free to "tap out" or "walk out" of class if they cannot handle it, but admitted that she had never had a student walk out of the discussion.
Naturally, the hardcore porn elective class at Westminster College was met with backlash, specifically from conservatives. An online petition called for the removal of the classes from the liberal college's course list. The opposers cited the Supreme Court's definition of obscenity as "completely devoid of scientific, political, educational, or social value," arguing that pornographt is "devoid of educational value and has no place in the classroom." They added that watching pornography in a classroom "reates an unsafe environment for students and faculty" and "normalizes pornography in culture."
But Westminister College is standing its ground over its hardcore porn elective class, calling it "an opportunity to analyze social issues," which include "potentially offensive topics like pornography" so that students "understand their pervasiveness and impact."
Meanwhile in the United Kingdom, educators came together at the the National Education Union's (NEU) event in Bournemouth, England to discuss concerns over the prevalence of pornography. According to the BBC, one teacher shared how to tackle explicit online content and how it impacts children. The union campaigned for more training and tools to help schools and teachers talk to students about the effects of ponography and for "consistent recording and reporting of incidents of sexual harassment" in schools.
The teacher admitted that she encouraged 14 and 15 year old students in her class to "think critically about pornography and to discuss its potential impact." She observed that while girls were more "withdrawn" than boys in group discussions, some were vocal about the damage that pornography does to the youth.
