New on campus: Hard-core porn 101 UPDATE

UPDATE APPENDED

Just when you thought the news of the day couldn't get any worse, here's a story that's sure to make you scream, or cry. The University of Maryland in Baltimore College Park is going to a screen a XXX hard-core pornography film at its student union this weekend in an attempt to offer students an "alternative to late-night drinking and other dangerous activities."

Since when did hard-core porn become a positive alternative to drinking -- or whatever other "dangerous activities" occur on campus after dark? I have a feeling if they're alluding to dangerous sexual activity then the hard-core porn is not going to be part of the solution. In fact, the public university has invited Planned Parenthood to speak to students before the screening about sexually transmitted diseases, condom use, emergency contraception, and abstinence. Yes, because students watching hard-core porn are likely to choose abstinence as an option. How do they even suggest that with a straight face?

The student committee that chose the film voted unanimously for Pirates II, which apparently is available in an R-rated version but did not seem as likely to draw the students out as the XXX romp.

"We thought this would be something fun for the students to do, especially since we're getting close to the end of the semester," Lisa Cunningham, program coordinator for the Hoff Theater, told the Baltimore Sun.

Remember the days when cutting a class and sitting out on the campus lawn was considered a fun thing to do at the end of semester? Ah, how quaint. Little did we know that it was hard-core porn we needed to really put the fun in finals.

Not surprisingly, the only voice of reason in the Baltimore Sun article, was the Catholic chaplain on campus, who reminded that hard-core porn "is not contributing to the buildup of the human person."

"It's degrading to the human person. It really runs counter to our efforts to try to form people to be men and women who will go out and contribute to society," Father Kyle Ingels told the reporter.

The university administration has admitted it has no problem with the screening of the hard-core film on campus, where the student committee has said it appeals to a "niche market" that exists at UofM. I wonder if they include that demographic group in the information they send home to prospective students and their parents.

Unfortunately, the University of Maryland screening is not an anomaly. The University of California at Davis is also showing Digital Playground's $10 million porn film this week. You can click HERE to read that story and comments that really sum up what this is all about: "to get young people accustomed to seeing adult movies as mainstream entertainment."

It's becoming abundantly clear that our society is reaching a point where now even the most basic limits on the most extreme forms of sexually explicit materials is consider puritanical. There was a time when college students who were looking for alternatives to keg parties opted for more intellectual fare -- like classic movies or poetry readings. Who'd have thought we'd one day be longing for the moral compass of the Beat Generation.

UPDATE: University of Maryland President C.D. Mote Jr. has just announced that he is canceling the screening of hard-core Pirates II at the student union this weekend after state lawmakers threatened to cut funding to the state university. Read the full story HERE.