The Women’s Resource Center Has Sold Out
Last semester, conservatives bristled at the fact that their (parents’) hard-earned money was being spent on an event that instructed doe-eyed college kids in the wonderful, sinful ways of buttsex. They even showed up to protest! (And the Daily Sun caught it on video.) This semester’s Women’s Resource Center production was a bit less, shall we say, ass-positive; and, despite certain scatological inclinations, it was kinda disappointingly tame.
The event, called “Sex and Bacon” after speaker Sarah Katherine Lewis’s new book of the same name, found the plus-size prostitute/porn star narrating two of her amusing stories and engaging in some hot Q&A action. A real live microcelebrity! At Cornell! Still, “Anal Sex 101″ motivated College Republicans to idiotically dry-hump one another doggie-style and make placards demanding “PAY FOR YOUR OWN ANAL EDUCATION.” Instead, we were treated to the “mystery” of Baby Ruth Man — a pervy patron of Butterscotch’s Live Lingerie Tanning who inexplicably enjoyed masturbating into a washcloth (no touching!) while Lewis and her ilk consumed Baby Ruth candy bars suggestively. Lewis’s writing is elegantly hilarious, particularly when microwaving the candy bar elicits the climactic realization:
No. Fucking. Way. But yes, the mystery of Baby Ruth Man had suddenly become completely clear to me… the melted Baby Ruth’s resemblance to fecal matter was undeniable… The size and shape of the bar suddenly made sense… only Baby Ruth was organically round and bumpy. The peanuts added a touch of realism. Baby Ruth Man was paying us to eat shit.”
Well shit. Anyway, the stories were good, except reading pre-prepared material is by its nature not terribly audience-engaging. The Q&A got a little better — especially because Lewis wrote her cell phone number on the board and encouraged texting in queries. As a sex worker, this gal is definitely an anomaly in ways besides her (only moderately buxom) weight. Her views on objectification of women in porn:
The sex industry objectifies everyone. It teaches us that erotic affection is something you can do for pay, which I think is just essentially flawed… instead of actually making themselves into a person that’s able to receive honest affection, people just take a short-cut and receive ersatz affection.
For a gal who spent a large chunk of her adult life — it’s been twelve years since her fateful foray into Butterscotch’s — using sex work as a way to inspire and fund her true passion of writing, this view might seem a bit unforgiving. But hey, as she announced at the event: she just got engaged to her “partner.” (It’s a he.) This might just be the most conservative you’re allowed to be in the sex industry. But, damn, where’s the anal sexy fun in that?
PS: A note to the CWRC: when one makes a commitment to providing “aphrodisiacs” at one’s event, it might be wise to avoid including Bagel Bites. We realize that middle school slumber parties were rife with sexual tension, but we’d rather not be reminded of that one time Sally Voorhees neared me, her pizza breath increasingly pungent, cheesy saliva crescendoing into cascades of… wait, sorry, I think Lewis is rubbing off on me.
Tags: Daily Sun, events, speakers
April 19th, 2010 at 7:21 pm
Thank you for sharing this post, it was insightful.