YNOT – When Oregon State University administrators cancelled a scheduled keynote address by sex educator Tristan Taormino, students got angry.
Then they got organized.
Within three weeks of the announcement Taormino’s keynote address for the Modern Sex Conference had been cancelled due to administrators’ fears that paying a “pornographer” to appear would incite conservative state legislators to withhold future funding for the university, students raised enough money to pay all of Taormino’s expenses themselves. Supporters spread the word via national media, blogs, Twitter and Facebook, and according to published reports, the university received “hundreds” of emails and calls criticizing its decision.
Thanks to the students’ action, Taormino will give the address she originally intended … just not as the conference’s keynote. Instead, Taormino’s presentation will take place the night before the conference begins: at 7 p.m. Feb. 15 in the LaSells Stewart Center on the OSU campus. Presented by the OSU Memorial Union, the talk will be open to all students, staff, faculty and members of the community.
“I am thrilled at the outpouring of support and honored that the students worked so hard to bring me to campus,” Taormino said. “I want to thank Memorial Union President Craig Bidiman, his advisors and the ASOSU for all their help.”
In addition, as a result of the hoopla, Taormino has been asked to speak at the University of Oregon. Her presentation, “My Life as a Feminist Pornographer” will take place Feb. 16 on campus. Taormino is expected to talk about her definition of feminist porn, what she hopes to accomplish with her films, and the challenges she faces in her career in the adult industry and in her professional career as a sex educator. In addition, she intends to address the OSU controversy and why she believes a feminist is the most “dangerous” kind of pornographer. The talk is sponsored by the Center for the Study of Women in Society; Robert D. Clark Honors College; departments of Women’s and Gender Studies, Sociology, Comparative Literature and Cinema Studies; Oregon Humanities Center; the Women’s Center; LBGTQ Alliance, and The Sexual Wellness Advocacy Team.
“Tristan’s involvement with pornography made OSU administrators uncomfortable, but I think they missed the point,” said University of Oregon Professor Jennifer Burns Levin, who organized the event. “Tristan’s sex-positive, woman- and queer-friendly work in an industry known for its exploitation of women addresses exactly the kind of labor issues we should be discussing on college campuses. And preemptively withdrawing funds from a provocative speaker in a time of legislative budget cuts sets a bad precedent, in my view, for others speaking on controversial topics. So we’re very happy to have her at University of Oregon. It should be an energized and popular lecture.”
For more information about the events as well as Taormino’s two scheduled appearances at Portland’s She Bop sexuality boutique on Feb. 13 and 14, visit Taormino’s website, PuckerUp.com.
