Pornography more common on campus than people want to admit

Published July 10, 1996

Student Printz

University of Southern Mississippi

Hattiesburt, MS USA

We want to see a porno. I know you have them somewhere, buried underneath half-dry towels, discarded flannel boxers, and unread sociology packets. Tapes with blonde women with plastic breasts and stair-master thighs on their covers. All we wanted was to borrow about five.

The idea was to write a column that would make my editors turn blue ... err ... umm ... was to do a psychological experiment. We wanted (there are 12 of us) to borrow five tapes and watch the "best" scenes. Butthead meet Susan Faludi.

But none of you would admit to owning the tapes. We asked every person we knew, from the proverbial choir boys to the Spizzwinks. No one would lend us a tape. We had one - we needed more. "Savage Nights" from Film Fest wouldn't cut it. We wanted to know what the fuse was about. We wanted IT. The real thing. XXX porn, not Emmanuelle II" in the SGA movie theatre, with a bunch of freshman whose heavy breathing would keep us from laughing.

I know you have these tapes, freshman year I was hustled out of a common room with a blush. Sophomore year a prospective friend called me back, "Sorry I cut you off. I didn't want to say so, but we were watching a porno." OK, I was offered a second tape on the grounds that over spring break, I repeat the acts depicted with its owner. All in all, I didn't think a 700 word column was worth having sex with a blonde.

If asked, no one at USM ever has sex: "No, really, we don't," we swear. (For statistical purposes, members of a fraternity and the varsity teams have been omitted). I simply know this isn't true. For one thing, an ex-roommate of a friend of mine used to make noises that could be heard by the whole wing in Bond Hall. (You didn't want to know that, did you? Well neither did I.) For another, someone takes hundreds of condoms from the clinic.

Non-oxynol-9 tastes too horrific for them to be blown up as balloons. Hypocrites. You are masturbating. You are making love. At the very least you wish you were doing these things. USM celebrates freedom of sexuality at GLBSO, yet we do not allow ourselves to exercise this freedom. A friend of mine isn't embarrassed to admit she had sex at the Cook Library Computer Lab. But people see her as shocking and titillating for admitting her "vice" (and how many other people's fantasy?), not simply as open and self-aware.

I walk the stacks in Cook with caution because I know that someone's stealing all the sex books off the shelves, and I don't want to stumble upon the culprit, especially if the culprit's using the books. Imagine how much less spooky the stacks would be if people simply checked these books out - no Lurch-like heavy breathing echoing down the narrow new aisles.

Admit your perversity's. Stop acting so shocked when the person next door hangs a Victoria's Secret purple lace thong teddy on a drying rack. Do you honestly think those satin ropes are for tying back dorm-issue curtains? Admit you read http://www.playboy.com. There is no way that all those pairs of handcuffs were only bought and used for Halloween costumes.

USM is not your mother, the dean really doesn't care what you do, just as long as you don't do it in the showers of the Payne Center. You will never be comfortable with your sexuality until you admit that you have a libido and that sex is like chocolate - something much better when savored than snuck on the side.

So loosen up people: This is not Sweet Valley High. And lend me and my friends "Debbie Does Dallas," "Linda Licks Lisa" and "Bob Boinks Bill." We need something to do instead of our term papers.