In some English classes, students read Shakespeare and explicate
poetry, but one seminar takes self-motivated students to
unchartered territory where in-class sexual analysis is part of
their participation grades.
In the typical gloom of winter quarter, there are
university-accepted “smutty” options out there, namely
an English 189 seminar titled “Pornography and the Politics
of Sexual Representation.”
This seniors-only seminar has been offered to American
literature and culture, and women’s studies students for
eight years. The class is usually wait-listed, possibly because of
its sex-on-the-mind subject matter.
In one class discussion, a student contrasted how lesbian
pornography marketed to heterosexual men differed from that which
is marketed to homosexual women.
A likelier reason, for the seminar’s continuity and
apparent popularity may have more to do with the course’s
academic relevance and loaded material.
“The class forces students to take the next step
intellectually. It should be the culminating experience of your
college education,” said English professor Christopher Mott,
who instructs the class.
By the time students get around to fulfilling their seminar
requirement, close-readings of novels and explication essays are
commonplace.
“This class requires me to think a lot more than I have in
some other classes,” said Judith Lopez, a fourth-year
American literature and culture student.
At the beginning of the course, students find topics that
interest them and that pertain to sexual representation.
“The topics students choose always make you evaluate, and
sometimes change, your views,” she added.
The nature of the course’s subject matter can induce
awkward moments that may lead to broader thought.
“It’s OK to be uncomfortable with some of the
thoughts; if all you’re going to do with your education is
reaffirm everything you brought in here, why waste your four
years?” Mott asked.
Under the guidance of each other and Mott’s complementary
readings, students in the class are forced to assess the various
depictions of power at work in their topics.
With sex, the strategies at work are usually strategies of
power, Mott said. A person’s existence is shaped by the
feelings they elicit and the power positions they do or don’t
inhabit. The sexual representation and pornography in this class is
thereby rational, Mott continued.
“Our most intimate feelings and experiences are culturally
constructed,” Mott said.
Students further their exploratory analysis and inevitably raise
more questions through individual presentations that present words,
images and representations found in pornography and other genres.
Topic possibilities are virtually endless, as shown by the range of
students’ presentations.
One past presentation explored the mixing of food with sexual
pleasure, or the addition of a tactile experience to a usually
visually-dominated one. The student found the inclusion of messy
food to have other implications pertaining to power structure.
As accepted food-eating etiquette is altered in sex scenes and
undoubtedly made more thrilling, the pornography simultaneously
depicts the tearing down of cultural taboos and restrictions.
Another presentation evaluated the implications of the
“money shot,” the male’s ejaculating on his
partner’s face during sex.
One student analyzed the foot fetishism represented in
mainstream films and hard-core porn using images from
non-pornographic movies like “Pulp Fiction” and
“There’s Something About Mary.”
“It’s not like I’m pimping pornography-only in
the class,” Mott said.
Presentation topics should use more than film for sources,
students said. They have made use of cultural practices, the
Internet, literature and photography.
A student’s findings can also encompass other elements,
such as literary value and gender differences.
One student’s topic dealt with the representational
differences between textual depictions of sexuality and visual
ones. The student questioned why culture allows for deeply explicit
material in public bookstores, while policing visual sources with
ratings and other limitations.
The student also questioned why most women prefer textual
eroticism, while men favor the visual.
But gender differences don’t just factor into topics.
The class has a predominantly female enrollment. Presentations
can turn into an indictment of historically patriarchal or
masculine institutions. However, this doesn’t make male
students reluctant to speak out.
“The students really relate to the issues in a mature and
contemporary way. Any hesitancy to speak I may have had was
alleviated quickly,” said Matt Irvin, a fifth-year American
literature and culture student.
“The students really meld together as a community,”
said Mott.
After 10 weeks of students’ exploring topics that interest
or even offend them, those skeptical of the course’s value
may be surprised.
“Although it’s called “˜pornography,’ the
course appears to analyze many aspects of society,” said Mark
Flowers, a fourth-year American literature and culture student who
has heard about the seminar.
“By exercising all the undergraduate skills necessary for
this course, students work together, challenge each other, and
prepare for the next level, whether that be graduate work or
something else,” said Mott.
“Also, by looking at their culture, and understanding the
political import of what’s going on out there, hopefully the
seminar is producing better citizens as well,” he
concluded.