Get a B.A. in T & A

Your forty-page Poli Sci case study getting you down? Tired of learning the energy confirmations of cyclohexanes in Orgo? Just think, if you had gone to Wesleyan instead of Duke, you could be directing your own porno instead of struggling through another problem set. Yeah, you read that right: At Wesleyan University, the final project in "Pornography: The Writing of Prostitutes" was to create a work of pornography. Works of literature, photography, and even erotic video were all accepted and encouraged. One student turned in a video featuring the eyes of a masturbating male, another turned in a video of herself scantily clad and bound to a wall, asking to be whipped.

Professor Hope Weissman's Wesleyan course examines pornography in the "so-called perverse practices such as voyeurism, bestiality, sadism and masochism." Duke's Cultural Anthropology department offers a different, slightly tamer version: "Sex and Money", taught by Professor Anne Allison. Sex and Money investigates "the intersections between sexualized desire and commodified pleasure in money-based economies"--and, in a unit on pornography, discusses the Freudian and Marxist implications of the "money shot." 

Senior Meghan Valerio, Recess Arts Editor, who took the class last semester, explains, "The money shot is a prime example of commodity fetishism. It's the most expensive shot in porn to produce, thereby rendering the action of "coming" outside the body a commodity." Senior Jeanne Ritschoff adds, "The guys in the gay porn were notably more attractive than their heterosexual porn counterparts." Though, she adds, "I guess our sample size was really too small to be statistically relevant. All the penises were large."

Both agree, hardcore pornography in the classroom is an interesting but awkward experience. Concludes Ritschoff: "As an industry that's one of the most profitable in entertainment, our culture's obsession and the implications of pornography are worthy of study. Just make sure you turn down the volume, so the kids in the physics class next door don't flip out."