December 06, 2003
strange world
Trevor,
This case reminds me of one you mentioned to me recently. In the former case a professor, who is also a director of the National Central University's Center for the Study of Sexuality, was accused of offenses against morality for creating a link from her university department's Web site to a site promoting bestiality.
The case you mentioned involved a casual tutor/lecturer being fired on the spot by the University of South Australia for introducing Catherine Breillat's recent Romance into an undergraduate course on rhetoric and communication. From memory he was dismissed for introducing "pornography" (was the charge corrupting the young?) after a complaint by a student.
In these two cases moral codes were transgressed. These Bataillean moments of transgressive sexuality were quickly repudiated as beyond the pale and unacceptable conduct.
How ironic, given that we are surrounded by images of female bodies that are offered as an exhibit for our (masculine) enjoyment. These are images in which the camera displays, and lingers over the female body as an object. This culture industry image making, which offers visual pleasure, is deemed perfectly acceptable. It is seen to be erotic and beautiful. It is morally okay in the administered world of a universal instrumental reason. These (often daring) images promise sexual freedom in opposition to the traditional puritanical (wowser) culture.
In this world the particular (or the individual and subjectivity) represents the theoretically boundless world of human possibility and play. When we introduce female sexuality, in terms of the intensity of female experience. into the eroticism of the cultural industry it is deemed to be pornographic.
An example:
This is the French poster for the film Romance, and it features a naked woman with her hand between her legs.
A large red X is printed across the image, thus revealing the source of the trouble: a woman in touch with her own sense of sexual pleasure. It is an image suggesting a women gaining pleasure from masturbating.
In Australia Breillat is still seen, and is dismissed, as the author of porn (in the tradition of de Sade), rather than seen as a European film maker working in the cinematic tradition.
After yesterday we have higher education legislation passed by the Australian Senate that allows the federal Minister of Education to disallow courses that he deems to be inappropriate.
Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at December 6, 2003 07:50 AM | TrackBack