WASHINGTON, DC – Say what you wish about Vanderbilt professor Katherine B. Crawford’s teaching methods and classroom materials – at least her class isn’t dull.Crawford, who teaches a course entitled “Pornography and Prostitution in History,” includes screenings of actual pornography, including the porn classic Deep Throat, as part of the coursework.
Regardless of its value or applicability to the subject of her course, Crawford’s use actual pornography in the classroom has stimulated more than just her students’ intellects and libidos; her explicit teaching aids have also stimulated a healthy dose of criticism.
“Pornography is readily available at this point,” said Dr. Paul Abramson, who teaches a course called Sex and the Law and UCLA. “It doesn’t serve any intellectual purpose to show it.”
Crawford disagrees, saying that she tried teaching the course without screening any actual porn, but found it less effective.
“It was a less visceral experience for students,” said Crawford.
“I don’t actually want to shock anyone,” added Crawford. “The premise of the class is that pornography has a long and complicated history.”
Crawford’s critics focus on the ready availability of pornography and assert that given the availability of actual pornography to any college-aged person, there is no value to actually screening it in the classroom.
“Why spend thousands of dollars on a college campus on what you could get at an adult bookstore?” asks Mal Kline, executive director of Accuracy in Academia, a conservative academic watchdog group.
“It’s one thing if you are taking private money and being upfront about what you are spending it on,” said Kline. “It’s quite another when you are taking tax dollars and doing the same thing.”
Crawford’s course has also come under fire within the halls of Congress, with New Hampshire Senator Judd Gregg leading the denunciations of her class.
Crawford points out, though, that while people are quick to criticize her methods, they do so without knowing anything more than she has screened some porn in her classroom.
“He doesn’t know anything about what I teach in my class though,” said Crawford. “I’m not saying ‘Yay for pornography.’ They don’t understand because they don’t ask the questions.”
Crawford is not alone in her examination of pornography and its place in American society and she is not without her supporters in the academic community, either.
“Trying to understand what’s happening and what forces are affecting society is crucial,” said David Penniman, dean of the School of Informatics at the State University of New York at Buffalo. “And one of those forces has to do with pornography, whether you like it or not.”
Penniman supervises a course taught by assistant professor Alexander Halavais called “Cyberporn and Society,” a course which takes up the convergence of pornography and technology, and the ramifications of that convergence for American culture.
Supporters of professors who employ porn as a teaching aid are also quick to note that viewing the explicit material is voluntary, not required, for students taking such courses.
There is one thing on which the ‘porn professors’ and their critics agree: academic interest in porn is unlikely to fade, regardless of the attendant controversy.
“It’s hard to imagine it will go away as a topic of intellectual scrutiny,” said Abramson, adding that obscenity and its relationship to the law is a hot topic for legislatures across the country.
From Crawford’s perspective, it is entirely proper that the topic be addressed within college classrooms, despite the sensitive nature of the issues at hand and the potential offensiveness of the subject matter.
“I think a lot of schools would be shy about teaching (pornography),” Crawford said. “But universities are supposed to be places for discussion of difficult topics.”
