The Issue of Pornography

by Judith Geer

In the Intellectual Freedom class we would get together and discuss the issues of the day. Each one of us had to do a project. And one of the student's projects was - and sometimes we'd go off-campus - the issue of pornography. One of my classmates made arrangements with - and I don't even know if this cinema is still there - the Capri over on Bailey Avenue. It was a pornographic movie house.

So the whole class goes trooping into this place. It's always dark in there; you know they never turn the lights up even in the lobby. I didn't want to go walking in there by myself so I got this other student in the class to go with me. We walked in and the student who I was with, because it was so dark in there, he kept walking down the aisle and ran into the movie screen! He couldn't see where he was going!

We ended up watching these movies that were really very strange and going to a bar afterwards and discussing intellectual freedom: should pornographic movies be shown, because intellectual freedom embraces everything, not just books on library shelves. Everything, flag burning and anything else. The student who arranged the class trip wanted us to watch the pornographic movies and then decide whether we thought they should be shown or what should happen to this movie house and discuss how that impacts on the First Amendment. It engendered some very interesting discussion. Most of us agreed that pornography should be continued to be shown even though we never went back to the theater - I don't think.