male professors and "sex positivity"

[svnsettia]

i'm in my fifth and final year of a women's studies degree. so far i've had two separate male professors dismiss me when i expressed anti-pornography and anti-sex work views.

the first time was in summer 2022. at that time, i only recently quit camming. my experience in sex work caused me to become critical of the industry. i began to question whether sex work and pornography could ever be feminist. i don't remember many details from the exact conversation with that prof, but i do remember expressing that i was starting to question whether sex work could ever be healthy for the sex worker. in response, he posted a list of sources after class for further reading. all of them were in support of sex work.

the second time was last week, and it was infuriating. at this point, i'm pretty confident in my anti-pornography stance, and my arguments are much more developed than they were last summer. one of our assignments in that class is to host an event that's open to all students in the women's studies program to attend. we get to choose any feminist topic that's important to us. so exciting ! i raised my hand to ask "does the topic need to be related to a course reading?" and the answer was "no," so i asked "are we allowed to choose something controversial?" and he said it depends. so i told him i wanted to do my presentation on radical feminism and its views on pornography. he essentially told me that i shouldn't choose that as a topic because i'm representing the university and i need to "respect the institution." such bullshit! he went on to talk about how he is personally pro-sex work because of his "sex-positive gay sex politics."

aside from the fact that it's deeply upsetting for a male women's studies professor to claim, in front of an audience of young women in our early 20s (i.e. a demographic that's very likely to create an onlyfans because they believe it may empower them), that pornography can be ethical and feminist (), it's just awful that a professor would not allow opinions that conflict his own to be shared. i'm fully ready to bring back the sex wars and fight for my right to discuss my views on this topic. it's very important to me, and i need to push back against the male professors spreading pro-pornography rhetoric in the women's studies department.

i'll summarize some of my arguments and make a post about it tomorrow. i'm sure it will continue to be useful for me, as i continue to interact with people who don't understand how damaging pornography is to our society. goodnight!

update: here's the post summarizing my arguments!