OAKLAND, Calif. – As regular readers of my posts know, I’m the sort of guy who will hop on a plane at the drop of a hat in my never-ending search for truth — or because when I’m really, really high, things like dropping hats appear to be explosive devices from which I feel compelled to get very far away, very quickly.
This time, it’s not psychoactive chemical-driven concerns over exploding headwear that have brought me to glamorous Oakland, Calif., but a question that has been burning in my mind ever since I learned Hyatt Hotel Corp. has joined the growing number of hotels that have decided to drop pornography from the in-room entertainment options available to their guests.
You might wonder why I’m not in Chicago, Hyatt’s corporate home, asking the bigwigs there what’s behind their decision to dump smut from their pay-per-view systems. To me, this would be a little like asking Best Buy why it doesn’t offer VCRs and VHS tapes anymore, when the answer is blindingly obvious: Those devices were tools of the Devil, and the majority shareholder of Best Buy (little known fact here) is the Pope.
So, I’m not in Oakland to talk to Hyatt, I’m here trying to get a meeting with someone from an organization that commented on Hyatt’s decision, because I just can’t fathom why they’d weigh in on this subject at all, much less do so in the way they did.
After reading the news about Hyatt, I heard from another source that a group called the “NCSE” had praised Hyatt’s decision, saying in part their organization “is grateful to Hyatt for its policy change and commitment to oppose sexual exploitation.”
What’s confusing about this comment— other than having nothing to do with the actual reason why Hyatt dropped porn (again, something to do with the Pope, and/or his co-conspirators at Mondelez International, most likely) — is who said it.
I mean, seriously: Why does the National Center for Science Education care, one way or the other, whether Hyatt offers on-demand porn?
According to the organization’s website, the NCSE is “a not-for-profit, membership organization providing information and resources for schools, parents and concerned citizens working to keep evolution and climate science in public school science education.”
Now, so far as I’m aware, nobody in the porn industry is going around trying to get schools to stop teaching evolution, and whatever “climate science” is, my bet is the vast majority of pornographers don’t really give a shit about that, either.
All I can think is someone in the adult industry pissed off these science education nerds with one of their products, or the marketing thereof.
Did one of you cheeky bastards make a porno in which creationist characters discuss “intelligent design” while engaged in rough sex? Or maybe one in which a progressive female evolutionary biology professor winds up covered in a Baptist preacher’s sanctimonious semen?
Normally, the NCSE does stuff like give people advice about how to testify at their local school board meetings, provide information on major court cases relating to science education and engage in other suspicious, anti-American things, but I haven’t been able to find one other example of them chiming in on the subject of sexual exploitation, much less the subject of hotel-room porn.
Then again, if you’re irrational and sick enough to think it’s a good idea to go around shoving unfiltered and unsolicited science down kids’ throats, maybe you’re also the sort of person who believes some milquetoast travelling sales representative jerking off to a censored version of Sausage Swallowing Secretaries 12 represents “sexual exploitation.”
Making matters worse, the NCSE further claims Hyatt was “eager” to work with them after they “reached out to the corporation to share concerns about the neurological and psychological harms of pornography.”
Oh sure — you all must be great scientists, what with the way you throw around assertions about “neurological and psychological harms” without so much as a footnote.¹
Just sitting here in the cab on the way to the NCSE offices pondering their absurd comments, my blood is really starting to boil — something about which I should probably see a doctor, or at least complain to my LSD supplier.
First, though, I want to look one of these evolution-evangelizing geeks in the eye and get them to address the elephant in the room. Then, just as soon as we’ve dealt with the elephant (which, yes, I realize might require sharing some of my tranquilizer stash), I’d like an answer to my question about the NCSE’s porn comments.
I mean really, all of a sudden these guys sound a lot less like science educators and a lot more like moral crusaders. They really should change the organization’s name to something more appropriate.
You know, the phrase “Morality in Media” really has a certain ring to it. I wonder if the .org is available?
¹ Like this one.
