{"id":117096,"date":"2022-11-14T00:03:14","date_gmt":"2022-11-14T05:03:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thecollegefix.com\/?p=117096"},"modified":"2022-11-13T23:17:24","modified_gmt":"2022-11-14T04:17:24","slug":"princeton-black-queer-bdsm-course-features-porn-essay-by-professor-arrested-for-theft-from-pro-life-demonstrators","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thecollegefix.com\/princeton-black-queer-bdsm-course-features-porn-essay-by-professor-arrested-for-theft-from-pro-life-demonstrators\/","title":{"rendered":"Princeton to offer course on ‘Black + Queer’ bondage"},"content":{"rendered":"

‘The concern here … is the university-funded imposition of something potentially harmful and addictive by faculty onto students’<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Princeton University will host a course this spring on “Black + Queer” bondage and sado-maschochism, drawing concern from some students who argue the class is a thinly veiled attempt to celebrate and venerate the BDSM culture.<\/p>\n

The Ivy League course, \u201cBlack + Queer in Leather: Black Leather\/BDSM Material Culture,” explores \u201cBlack Queer BDSM communities,” according to the course catalog description<\/a>.<\/p>\n

“Black Queer BDSM material culture resists contextualization in relationship to biographical narratives because of the underground elements of the community,\u201d according to an alternate description on the Princeton Lewis Center for the Arts website,<\/a> which added it will have \u201ca significant research focus on finding and presenting new materials.\u201d<\/p>\n

The reading list includes \u201cSensational Flesh: Race, Power, and Masochism\u201d by Amber Jamilla Musser, \u201cThe Color of Kink: Black Women, BDSM, and Pornography\u201d by Ariane Cruz, “The Black Body In Ecstasy: Reading Race, Reading Pornography,” by Jennifer Nash, and \u201cA Taste for Brown Sugar: Black Women in Pornography\u201d by Mireille Miller-Young.<\/p>\n

Miller-Young is an associate professor of feminist studies at UC Santa Barbara whose area of focus is black studies, pornography and sex-work. She\u00a0got in a physical altercation<\/a> with a pro-life teenager in campus in 2014 after she was \u201ctriggered\u201d by pro-life demonstrators\u2019 signs. She was sentenced to to community service, anger-management classes, and $493 in restitution to the teen she assaulted, The College Fix<\/em> reported<\/a> at the time.<\/p>\n

Princeton’s \u201cBlack + Queer” class is cross-listed with the Program in Visual Arts, the African American Studies department, and the Gender and Sexuality Studies department.\u00a0<\/span>Tiona McClodden<\/span>, a 2021-23 Arts Fellow with Princeton\u2019s Lewis Center for the Arts, is listed as its instructor.<\/p>\n

McClodden<\/span> is a \u201cfilmmaker and visual artist\u201d whose work \u201cexplores shared ideas, values, and beliefs within the African Diaspora,\u201d which she refers to as the \u201cBlack mentifact,\u201d according to her website. McClodden is interested in “Blackness and traversing nostalgia\u201d and explores the themes of “narrative within social realism, re-memory\u201d and \u201cbiomythography,” it added.<\/span><\/p>\n

“Tell me there is a lesbian forever\u2026,\u201d \u201cThe Dom Drop,\u201d and \u201cThe Hitter\u201d are among McClodden\u2019s previous works.<\/p>\n

The College Fix<\/em> asked McClodden for a copy of the syllabus but has not received a response.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Students express shock at Princeton-sponsored exposure to \u2018highly addictive\u2019 pornographic content, violent imagery<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Some Princeton undergraduate students expressed concern about a course containing what they consider pornographic content and sexual violence.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe primary issue I take with this course is its employment of pornography,” Princeton junior Paul Fletcher wrote to The Fix<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Fletcher is president of the Princeton chapter of the Anscombe Society, an undergraduate organization that promotes traditional views of sex, love and marriage. It \u201caims to foster an atmosphere where sex is dignified, respectful, and beautiful\u2026and where no one is objectified, instrumentalized, or demeaned,\u201d\u00a0its website<\/a>\u00a0states.<\/p>\n

“In the course description, pornographic content is required reading,” Fletcher wrote.<\/p>\n

\u201cPornographic content of this sort is highly addictive, particularly to men and women of college age, often correlating with severe anxiety and depression,” Fletcher said via email. “Students cannot just watch it, \u2018study it,\u2019 without consuming it. This is the equivalent of a Princeton course requiring every student to smoke a cigarette each week, and \u2018study’ its effects. This course has no place in a university that prioritizes the wellbeing of its students.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe concern here…is the university-funded imposition of something potentially harmful and addictive by faculty onto students,\u201d Fletcher wrote.<\/p>\n

Sophomore Julianna Lee, vice president of Princeton’s Anscombe Society, wrote to The Fix <\/em>she is “<\/em>shocked that such a course is being taught at Princeton. Cultural discourse and understanding are good things, but there is no need to do it in such a way that students are exposed to content that has been scientifically proven to be harmful.”<\/p>\n

\u201cPlenty of people would be vehemently opposed to the idea of glorifying domestic abuse or gun violence, so why is it okay to have a class dedicated to concepts that promote unsafe sexual practices?\u201d Lee said via email.<\/p>\n

Lee noted she has never seen the university offer a course dedicated to traditional understandings of sexuality.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have not yet seen a single course here dedicated to exploring what it means to love in such a way that minimizes damage, including a clear dating timeline and how to truly will the good of another,\u201d Lee wrote to The Fix<\/em>.<\/p>\n

MORE: Harvard hosts \u2018Hit Me Baby One More Time\u2019 BDSM tutorial, \u2018Orgies 101′<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

MORE: Cal Poly investigates alleged vandalism against pro-life display<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

IMAGE: Duke University Press<\/p>\n

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