Sex, Truth, and Bulletin Boards
Saturday, January 18th, 2003 04:48 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
flwydIt is easier to get forgiveness than permission. -- /usr/local/games/fortune
Background: Every RA in the country needs to do at least one bulletin board per semester. Since I had to remove everything from my walls, I had three to do during spring training. I put the states back up with people's pictures pointing to their hometowns. I put up a bulletin board with the new food pyramid as well as some other articles about how food works. These are all fine and good, and the only controversy is that some people look silly in the pictures Eugene took at the beginning of the year.
But then there's the third bulletin board. More background: When I got to the floor, the bulletin board by one of the "clusters" (a semi-private area where six girls live) had a poster with sex quotes and one of the residents would put up condoms around the bulletin board. There was also an area of wall elsewhere in the hall with lots of sexual health information. For my November bulletin board, I decided that sexual health information was easy to find, but sexual fun information was not. So I put up a bunch of sex quotes, some websites, and a centerpiece with a bunch of "naughty words." I also had some pictures, including an illustration from tantra.org and a box proclaiming "Masturbation IS Safe Sex," both of which a girl in the other cluster stole and put on her door.
So since there was a designated sex board, I figured I ought to follow up with something to continue expanding people's sexual minds (and maybe some other parts, too). I remembered an interesting fetish roadmap I'd found on memepool. On Deviant Desires a FAQ, a fetish quiz, and a few images to spice things up. I made the quiz into squares where you read the question, then lift the paper to read the answer below. Nice. Almost a full board from just one website. I looked around to get a couple other helpful websites like open directory's fetish area, and printed a FAQ on Erotic Power Exchange from The Fetish Information Exchange. To attract attention to the bulletin board, included a few pictures of BDSM situations, such as this one, a guy with a leash in an obedient pose to a girl in leather (showing that it's not just about girls being tied up) and a painting of a woman hanging upside down while bound (nipples visible).
Throughout this process, free speech, openness, and diversity were all in the back of my mind. I felt that putting this up was the right thing to do.
I finished the board around 10 or 11am on Sunday (the day most students came back) and went to lunch. A little after I got back from lunch, the HDA on duty came to talk to me. He had gotten a couple complaints from RAs and parents about the board. I explained my thinking, we looked at the board, and decided to take the Erotic Power Exchange stuff down, since it had "disturbing" pictures and the drawing of a guy with a baloon on his arms, legs, and penis. Further discussion was postponed until Monday, so I could talk to my Hall Director about it.
On Monday, I met with my Hall Director (and our new HDA). She's rather socially conservative, and was (not surprisingly) taken aback by the pictures. She asked me what I thought the educational value of the board was. I explained that it was a designated sex board, and that I was practicing sexual education. I was presenting information so that (1) people who have a fetish can learn that they're not alone and where they might get more information and (2) people can learn that fetishists are not sick or deranged, but normal people with certain kinks. She asked how I thought it could both hurt and help foster an "open and inclusive community." I responded that it helped in educating people, getting people to understand any community members that might be fetishists, etc. Further, taking the board down would make anyone who had a fetish feel unwelcome and possibly foster negative feelings about themselves. The board could hurt an open and inclusive community if a lot of people took offense, were bothered by it, and felt their ideas under attack. However, I continued, a board about homosexuality could have the same effect in a community of homophobe, but the Department of Housing strongly supports boards about homosexuality. Fetishism and sexual orientation are the exact same thing at different granularities. I explained that I'd put the bondage pictures there to grab people's attention, hoping they would read the article and learn that there was nothing wrong with being consentually tied up. An RA talked to me who was shocked by the pictures, tying them to memories of past sexual assault. I asked if she'd read the article to learn that the people depicted enjoyed being tied up, and she said she hadn't, she'd just been too upset. Similarly, people might be offended by a body image board with lots of pictures of anorexic magazine models if they didn't read it and learn what the RA was trying to convey. I suggested adding a disclaimer (I'd already written a couple), and possibly adding flaps that went over the images saying "this is a picture of ... and it may offend you. If so, don't look."
My HD thanked me for everything I said and said that she'd show the EPE materials to some other Hall Directors and Fox, the RLC for Programming. Fox was out sick for a few days, so the decision was delayed for a while. After the Tuesday staff meeting, my HD told me that she was leaning towards "Taking it down." I asked for clarification. She said she thought all of the sexual stuff should be removed, but that the board could stay up. I looked at her quizzically and said "So I should just leave some blank construction paper up there?" She said that, for instance, stuff on the foot fetish could stay. I blinked and explained that a foot fetishist is someone who gets sexual gratification from feet. "Oh."
Fox was still out on Wednesday, but my HD and the Diversity Coordinator took a look at the board, flipping up answers on the quiz, etc. They went over and talked about it some more and I heard nothing. The next day, my HD told me that after talking to the Diversity Coordinator, they thought it should stay up. The Erotic Power Exchange could go back up without pictures. She showed me an email from the Diversity Coordinator which was rather positive. She told me that she knew opening people's minds was part of my thing, and that I'd succeeded -- the head of Residential Life and the head of the Department of Housing had both been up to look at my bulletin board. They look at very few RA bulletin boards, and I figure they may not know much about fetishes.
My biggest concern was for the residents in the cluster, who I learned had expressed concerns about "why does this board have to be here?" Talking to the girls in the cluster, I learned that one of the two girls who had expressed a problem with it was more concerned about the previous one -- she didn't like the piece that said "It's okay to say fuck tits penis nipple cunnilingus blowjob lick suck kiss hump..." Another girl (who was fine with the board) said her parents were disturbed by it when they were helping her move back in. If I can offend a baby boomer, I'm all for it :-) The compromise for the cluster is that I'll put the next "sex board" on the bulletin board next to my door so that they don't feel like they're in the "sex corner."
A rather happy ending, I think. I still need to talk to a couple RAs (I'm just not sure who, yet), but everyone seems either comfortable or only uncomfortable enough to learn with the board as it is. Had I talked to the HD before putting it up, it might be more restricted than it is, and possibly not allowed at all. Certainly I wouldn't have had 3 honchos of the Housing Department look at my bulletin board. A couple people suggested I do a follow-up program, which could be fun. I just don't know how many people would come to a fetish program, which is why I did it as a program in the first place.
My faith in Freedom of Speech in the Department of Housing is now Partially Restored. This has been the story of Sex, Truth, and Bulletin Boards, and I'm glad you read this far.
Background: Every RA in the country needs to do at least one bulletin board per semester. Since I had to remove everything from my walls, I had three to do during spring training. I put the states back up with people's pictures pointing to their hometowns. I put up a bulletin board with the new food pyramid as well as some other articles about how food works. These are all fine and good, and the only controversy is that some people look silly in the pictures Eugene took at the beginning of the year.
But then there's the third bulletin board. More background: When I got to the floor, the bulletin board by one of the "clusters" (a semi-private area where six girls live) had a poster with sex quotes and one of the residents would put up condoms around the bulletin board. There was also an area of wall elsewhere in the hall with lots of sexual health information. For my November bulletin board, I decided that sexual health information was easy to find, but sexual fun information was not. So I put up a bunch of sex quotes, some websites, and a centerpiece with a bunch of "naughty words." I also had some pictures, including an illustration from tantra.org and a box proclaiming "Masturbation IS Safe Sex," both of which a girl in the other cluster stole and put on her door.
So since there was a designated sex board, I figured I ought to follow up with something to continue expanding people's sexual minds (and maybe some other parts, too). I remembered an interesting fetish roadmap I'd found on memepool. On Deviant Desires a FAQ, a fetish quiz, and a few images to spice things up. I made the quiz into squares where you read the question, then lift the paper to read the answer below. Nice. Almost a full board from just one website. I looked around to get a couple other helpful websites like open directory's fetish area, and printed a FAQ on Erotic Power Exchange from The Fetish Information Exchange. To attract attention to the bulletin board, included a few pictures of BDSM situations, such as this one, a guy with a leash in an obedient pose to a girl in leather (showing that it's not just about girls being tied up) and a painting of a woman hanging upside down while bound (nipples visible).
Throughout this process, free speech, openness, and diversity were all in the back of my mind. I felt that putting this up was the right thing to do.
I finished the board around 10 or 11am on Sunday (the day most students came back) and went to lunch. A little after I got back from lunch, the HDA on duty came to talk to me. He had gotten a couple complaints from RAs and parents about the board. I explained my thinking, we looked at the board, and decided to take the Erotic Power Exchange stuff down, since it had "disturbing" pictures and the drawing of a guy with a baloon on his arms, legs, and penis. Further discussion was postponed until Monday, so I could talk to my Hall Director about it.
On Monday, I met with my Hall Director (and our new HDA). She's rather socially conservative, and was (not surprisingly) taken aback by the pictures. She asked me what I thought the educational value of the board was. I explained that it was a designated sex board, and that I was practicing sexual education. I was presenting information so that (1) people who have a fetish can learn that they're not alone and where they might get more information and (2) people can learn that fetishists are not sick or deranged, but normal people with certain kinks. She asked how I thought it could both hurt and help foster an "open and inclusive community." I responded that it helped in educating people, getting people to understand any community members that might be fetishists, etc. Further, taking the board down would make anyone who had a fetish feel unwelcome and possibly foster negative feelings about themselves. The board could hurt an open and inclusive community if a lot of people took offense, were bothered by it, and felt their ideas under attack. However, I continued, a board about homosexuality could have the same effect in a community of homophobe, but the Department of Housing strongly supports boards about homosexuality. Fetishism and sexual orientation are the exact same thing at different granularities. I explained that I'd put the bondage pictures there to grab people's attention, hoping they would read the article and learn that there was nothing wrong with being consentually tied up. An RA talked to me who was shocked by the pictures, tying them to memories of past sexual assault. I asked if she'd read the article to learn that the people depicted enjoyed being tied up, and she said she hadn't, she'd just been too upset. Similarly, people might be offended by a body image board with lots of pictures of anorexic magazine models if they didn't read it and learn what the RA was trying to convey. I suggested adding a disclaimer (I'd already written a couple), and possibly adding flaps that went over the images saying "this is a picture of ... and it may offend you. If so, don't look."
My HD thanked me for everything I said and said that she'd show the EPE materials to some other Hall Directors and Fox, the RLC for Programming. Fox was out sick for a few days, so the decision was delayed for a while. After the Tuesday staff meeting, my HD told me that she was leaning towards "Taking it down." I asked for clarification. She said she thought all of the sexual stuff should be removed, but that the board could stay up. I looked at her quizzically and said "So I should just leave some blank construction paper up there?" She said that, for instance, stuff on the foot fetish could stay. I blinked and explained that a foot fetishist is someone who gets sexual gratification from feet. "Oh."
Fox was still out on Wednesday, but my HD and the Diversity Coordinator took a look at the board, flipping up answers on the quiz, etc. They went over and talked about it some more and I heard nothing. The next day, my HD told me that after talking to the Diversity Coordinator, they thought it should stay up. The Erotic Power Exchange could go back up without pictures. She showed me an email from the Diversity Coordinator which was rather positive. She told me that she knew opening people's minds was part of my thing, and that I'd succeeded -- the head of Residential Life and the head of the Department of Housing had both been up to look at my bulletin board. They look at very few RA bulletin boards, and I figure they may not know much about fetishes.
My biggest concern was for the residents in the cluster, who I learned had expressed concerns about "why does this board have to be here?" Talking to the girls in the cluster, I learned that one of the two girls who had expressed a problem with it was more concerned about the previous one -- she didn't like the piece that said "It's okay to say fuck tits penis nipple cunnilingus blowjob lick suck kiss hump..." Another girl (who was fine with the board) said her parents were disturbed by it when they were helping her move back in. If I can offend a baby boomer, I'm all for it :-) The compromise for the cluster is that I'll put the next "sex board" on the bulletin board next to my door so that they don't feel like they're in the "sex corner."
A rather happy ending, I think. I still need to talk to a couple RAs (I'm just not sure who, yet), but everyone seems either comfortable or only uncomfortable enough to learn with the board as it is. Had I talked to the HD before putting it up, it might be more restricted than it is, and possibly not allowed at all. Certainly I wouldn't have had 3 honchos of the Housing Department look at my bulletin board. A couple people suggested I do a follow-up program, which could be fun. I just don't know how many people would come to a fetish program, which is why I did it as a program in the first place.
My faith in Freedom of Speech in the Department of Housing is now Partially Restored. This has been the story of Sex, Truth, and Bulletin Boards, and I'm glad you read this far.
