Pornography on campus!

A shocking exposé

Last year I posted an article featuring the rantings of a student at American River College in Sacramento. The writer, who was part of the right-wing cabal that took over the student government at ARC (and which has since been ousted), had his concerns published in the school paper:

Pornography at school? Don't look, but there is pornographic art in the Learning Resource Center (LRC)

At the time I wrote my original post, I had not had the benefit of visiting ARC's Learning Resource Center to view its collection of lewd artwork. Recently, however, I was in Sacramento and visited my friend “Steve,” who is a former student of mine and teaches at ARC. Naturally I could not resist the opportunity to peek into the LRC to witness in person the depravity of this capital city college.

And now, at last, I know why the concerned student was so concerned. I had to hunt for a while (probably attracting attention from the denizens of the LRC, who must have been wondering why I was wandering around the place). In fact, I initially walked right past the offending and offensive art, an oil painting which is near the main entrance. (Just take a right from the lobby and look at the first picture on the wall on your right. It's the only art in the whole building that seems to be even a remote candidate for salaciousness.) When I finally noticed the “pornographic” content of the painting, I fumbled my camera out of my pocket and snapped a couple of shots (probably causing the people at the front desk to start thinking about calling campus security).

I can now share the fruit of my brave mission into ARC's salacious den of iniquity. It turns out that the college's innocent students are having their virgin eyes assaulted by ... bare boobies. Yes, manifest mammaries. The mind reels.

You have to keep a sharp eye open if you're going to notice them (or, more accurately, it), so I suppose the artist intended to seduce students subliminally. The artist in question painted a picture of an artist (a self-portrait perhaps?). The artist is in the foreground, surrounded by the tools of his craft. In the background one can see a painting by the artist (a painting in a painting!) that depicts a nude model. And you can see her left breast!

Yep. That's it. And that was enough to prompt one screwed-up right-wing hyper-Christian student to blow a gasket about on-campus pornography. When Steve drew my attention to the student's letter in his school paper, I enjoyed poking a little fun at the boy's excessive delicacy and prudishness. Now, however, I confess to being conflicted. It's not nice to mock people who so desperately need help.