“One of the things that we have to fight against is this idea that it’s porn’s job to educate us sexually.” This is just one of the lessons that Hugo Schwyzer, author and professor, tries to teach in his academic course,“Navigating Pornography,” at Pasadena City College.
Schwyzer gives his students the opportunity to talk about pornography in an academic setting for credit — and yes, some of their homework involves watching porn in private, reported The College Fix. The class made headlines after Schwyzer invited porn star James Deen (the one who co-starred with Lindsay Lohan in “The Canyons” and was featured in Stephen Rodrick’s telling New York Times Magazine profile of the film) to speak to his students. The guest-appearance sparked controversy, and Schwyzer was forced to cancel the public portion of Deen’s talk.
Schwyzer told The College Fix that “Navigating Pornography” is intended to encourage critical thinkingabout pornography — a medium that it’s pretty difficult to escape being exposed to in today’s culture. “[The course] focuses on giving students tools to understand pornography as a historical and contemporary phenomenon,” Schwyzer said. “Students today live in a porn-saturated culture and very rarely get a chance to learn about it in a safe, non-judgmental, intellectually thoughtful way.”
After watching BuzzFeed’s video of the class, we kind of wish that we’d had the opportunity to take “Navigating Pornography” during college. It looks pretty darn fascinating.
