You may know it when you see it, but don't call these student-run sex magazines porn.
Sex magazines are appearing on campuses around the country, according to this story from the New York Times.
"These publications vary in tone and content, but while all strive to be provocative after a fashion, they generally eschew the term 'pornographic.'"
The Times tries to posit this trend an extension of the MySpace and blogging craze, but along the way hits on something I find much more interesting:
"Still, though personal online pages on Web sites like MySpace or home videos on YouTube often reveal as much as students do in these magazines, Squirm’s release form specifies that the magazine is intended solely for on-campus distribution ... 'We try to limit unwanted exposure as much as we can,' wrote its current editor, Sarah Fraser, in an e-mail message."
Is there really much a difference between exposing yourself to 10,000 random college students and anyone else? Does it take a certain education level to understand that it's not porn, like the magazines claim? Or is it not porn just because it has an educated audience?
I'm certainly not trying to condemn the students involved in these magazines. Open discussions on sex are by far preferable to abstinence campaigns, and there is no doubt that these magazines will stimulate just that. But there's no need to derail that conversation just to parse words. If the editors are proud of the content they're creating, then the label doesn't really matter.
Derick Vollrath @ Fri, 03/09/2007 - 5:59pm
Well I'll go ahead and condemn them. This is perhaps the most absurd thing I've ever heard in my life. In this internet age, of course this stuff is going to get out and forever be captured in the fabric of the internet. I mean it's not like there isn't a market for amateur college porn (and that's what it is, despite the "oh, you're just not smart enough to understand" spin). And when it does get out these people won't be able to get jobs, be taken seriously, or likely marry anyone with a computer and a penchant for googling their prospective partner's names. But I guess it takes someone of a certain level of education to understand that.