School begins, hiatus ends

Posted on August 28, 2006 by Hugo Schwyzer

Calloo callay! Bang the field piece! The first day of school is upon us. Today I begin my fourteenth year at Pasadena City College (the first as an adjunct, the last thirteen as a full-timer). It scarcely seems possible that it has been so long. Two years ago I posted about the first day of school and the "suspicion of one’s own fraudulence".

It is the end of my self-imposed hiatus from blogging as well. I hope to have a couple of serious posts up this week — I’ve had some specific requests that I need to address as soon as possible.

Reprint: Porn, HIV, Freedom, Responsibility

Posted on August 25, 2006 by Hugo Schwyzer

This will be my last reprint before resuming regular blogging on Monday, August 28. I’m reprinting the post that first drew significant attention to this blog — this was, for better or worse, the "break-out" post that ended up quadrupling my number of visitors. I’m grateful for that, and though the Lara Roxx story is now nearly two and a half years old, I stand by everything I wrote back on April 17, 2004.

Okay, folks, time for Hugo’s long Saturday night rant:

The adult entertainment industry in Los Angeles (the porn capital of the world, thank you) has been hard hit by news that two of its stars have recently tested positive for HIV. Some companies have shut down production entirely, others are continuing business as usual, some are shifting to a "safer-sex" format.

Some folks might respond to this story with schadenfreude, or at the least, with a certain lack of compassion for the people involved. "What else should they have expected?", a reasonable person might ask of those who perform in porn; "they are reaping the consequences of their actions",others might — with some justification — say.

The one woman known to be infected with HIV is an 18 year-old porn actress (who has only worked in the business three months) named Lara Roxx. She contracted HIV through unprotected anal sex with two men during the shooting of one particular film in March. What she was doing was perfectly legal, as it was in the workplace and she was over 18. No one — least of all the producers of the film — showed the slightest regard for this young woman who is still, for all psychological and spiritual purposes, very much in adolescence. (For obvious reasons, I’m not going to link to any porn sites — all my information about her has been gleaned from mainstream, non-x-rated media.) Brian Flemming, who apparently works close to the industry, put it best in his blog:

Lara Roxx had zero protection by government agencies. There was no cop on that set. No fire marshal. No doctor. Nobody had a license. And nobody broke the law by paying a teenager to accept the uncovered penises of two men into her anus.

Roxx showed poor judgment, yes. She isn’t blameless. But there are plenty of neophyte stunt performers in L.A. who would also be delighted to show some poor judgment and get themselves hurt or killed on a Hollywood movie set–but the government regulates those sets. I’ve auditioned plenty of eager young actors who would no doubt be willing to do their own dangerous stunts if it meant getting a good role and getting paid–but the LAPD, the LAFD and the Screen Actors Guild would all have something to say about that.

The 18-year-olds flooding into the porn industry have just about nobody. The porn companies label them "independent contractors," so the performers don’t even have the workplace safety protections that fry cooks at Burger King do.

Lara Roxx, who is too young to legally drink in a bar, has HIV not just because she participated in a dangerous sex act. She also has HIV because there was nobody to stop the producers from dangling money and other inducements in front of this young woman to get her to take that risk.

It’s important for porn to be legal. The government has no business outlawing sex or sexual fantasy. But this principle is not so sacred that we need to allow an industry to exploit and endanger its workers. There’s no fundamental right to express HIV. There’s no right to pay someone to play Russian roulette for your entertainment.

But we Californians have decided that the sex industry is the one industry that is allowed to lure young women and men and use them as it pleases. No politician speaks for these workers. No union imposes conditions on their employers.

The mainstream film industry, while making billions from distributing porn on the QT, doesn’t have any use for the dirty people who actually make it.

The porn industry has become increasingly mainstream, so much so that on the same day that the HIV story broke in LA, the New York Times did an "at home" feature in its House and Garden section on porn star Jenna Jameson’s 6700 square foot palace in Arizona. But this increasingly accepting attitude towards pornography is still another example of how our society is abandoning its responsibility to care for and protect all of its citizens.

(In the earlier version of this post, not all of the above paragraphs were correctly highlighted to indicate that they were Flemming’s).

I know firsthand how destructive porn can be. I cannot say I have not enjoyed looking at it; I can also say with confidence that exposure to it has invariably left me feeling ashamed, alienated, and sad. That may not be a universal experience, but it is certainly a very common response! Like in so many other areas (abortion, plastic surgery) we frame the debate about pornography in terms of choices. Women should have the choice to work in porn. Men should have the choice to work in porn. Women and men should have the choice to consume porn as well. As long as everyone (performer, producer, marketer, consumer) is over 18, where is the harm?

The harm is in my soul when I view it. The harm is in Lara Roxx’s body right now. Lara Roxx no doubt has another name, which we in the public don’t know. Porn stars, almost without exception, change their names when they work in the industry. "Lara Roxx" is not a person in the male porn consumer’s mind, she’s an object for fantasy and objectification. But beneath Lara’s violated and brutalized flesh is a young girl who has what I imagine is a far humbler name (a Nicole, a Jennifer, a Maria, an Elizabeth perhaps). I don’t know her, but I’m pretty damned confident that in 1996, when she was TEN, the little girl who would become Lara Roxx (HIV-infected porn actress) did not dream of becoming famous and wealthy for having anal sex with two men on camera. Her hopes for herself were, I suspect, simpler, warmer, and filled with infinitely more longing and promise.

The fact that Lara is 18 and consented to the making of this film means no crime was committed under California law. I’m not interested in ranting about the law. I’m grieving because Lara’s story reminds me of how much damage porn does to so very many lives. Lara’s very life is now in jeopardy. You can say she has some culpability, and I agree, she does. But the only reason the money is so good for young women in porn is because men are willing to pay quite a bit to see girls like Lara naked and exposed and penetrated. I confess that in the past I have been guilty of that very sin. My dollars have fed an industry of death, and I grieve that. And I know that I too — and countless other men — have been damaged. When men like me lust after girls like she who is called Lara Roxx (she’s 18, I’ll be damned if I’ll call her a grown woman), we scar our spirits and tarnish our relationships with all the other women in our lives as a consequence. I have worked hard to make certain that when I see teenage girls and young women (and I work with them daily), I see them as people worthy of my respect, friendship, and — yes — my protection.

I know there are women who work in the porn industry (the aforementioned Jameson chief among them) who are proud of what they do, who refuse to see themselves as exploited, who have reaped large financial rewards. While I accept their experience as valid, I am convinced that they are rare and over-hyped exceptions. I am convinced that the reality of the porn industry — for performers of both genders — is pyschically, physically, emotionally and morally far bleaker than its few superstars will ever admit.

As a man, I am called to do the hard but essential work of looking beneath the hyper-sexualized surface image that young women so often adopt in our society today. I owe it to myself, to the woman with whom I share my bed and my life, and to these young women themselves. The fact that many young girls and women choose to make themselves objects of desire does not lessen for one second my obligation to look past that veneer and see them as my younger sisters whom I need to honor, love, and care for. The girl who is called Lara is sick today. I imagine that tonight she’s scared beyond words, filled with regret and fear. I’m praying for her, and I ask God for forgiveness because I know that in some small way, my money has in the past helped to fuel the industry that has done this to her.

Porn kills many things: innocence, hope, trust, health, bodies, spirits. I know it is hip today to proclaim it harmless, but the unfashionable fact is that this is an industry built on distorted fantasy, loneliness, and despair. And we on the left need to stop hiding behind the First Amendment issues and articulate this untrendy but vital truth.

Originally posted April 17, 2004

An Updated Reprint: No on 85, and some reasons why

Posted on August 24, 2006 by Hugo Schwyzer

With my hiatus fast coming to an end, I’m doing a second reprint today.

This fall, for the second time in a year, Californians will be voting on a "parental notification inititative." Last year, it was Proposition 73; this year, it’s Prop. 85. I reluctantly voted "no" on 73 last year, and it was narrowly defeated. My position has not changed, and so I’m reproducing my post from last fall here. The links within it have been updated:

REPRINT: I’m about to surprise myself, disappoint some, and please others.

I’ve been reflecting on the various ballot propositions facing California voters in the November 8 special election. Most of the initiatives don’t require much thought for me; what Arnold Schwarzenegger calls reform I call an attack on organized labor and the vulnerable whom we serve. I’ll be voting "no" on every one of Arnold’s proposals, in keeping with my (often tepid) support for my union.

The only proposition that has caused me some agony is Proposition 85, which would mandate parental notification before a minor undergoes an abortion. It’s important to note, of course, that the initiative, if passed, would not require parental consent — only notification.

Here’s the No on 85 site.

Here’s the Yes on 85 site.

I’m not yet a father. But I am a volunteer youth worker who has spent half a dozen years mentoring teenagers, so it’s not as if I don’t have my own strong emotional response to the issue. And if I go with my initial instinct, I’m inclined to support the initiative. If I were a Dad, I would want my daughter to come to me. I would, I imagine, be hurt and bewildered if she felt she couldn’t. And my fear that my daughter might not come to me of her own volition makes me sympathetic to the idea that she ought to be compelled to do so by the state.

As I reflect more, however, I’m filled with sadness. As someone who still struggles to embrace the consistent-life ethic, I grieve the tragedy of abortion. I long for a world where underage teenage girls didn’t get pregnant, period — either because they chose not to have sex, or because in conjunction with their partners, they successfully used contraceptives. I’m sure that almost everyone on both sides of the abortion divide shares that wish! But we don’t live in such a world, not yet. And in this world where teens are having sex and will continue to have sex, many without contraception, what are we to do?

When I was 17 and a high school senior, I got my girlfriend pregnant. We were both underage; we were young and scared. In the desperate days and weeks after we confirmed that she was pregnant, she and I talked of many things. We briefly fantasized about getting married and having the child, but quickly abandoned that idea. Both of us were eager for college, eager for independence, and knew enough to know that we were utterly unready for the awesome responsibilities of marriage and children. More seriously, we reflected on whether or not my girlfriend should carry the pregnancy to term and then give the child up for adoption. To be completely honest, that was my wish. But it wasn’t my decision to make, nor should it have been. After all, my body wasn’t pregnant. I wouldn’t finish out high school "showing"; I wouldn’t have college delayed a year by carrying a baby. I wouldn’t have to go through what must be the unspeakably difficult task of giving a child you’ve carried for nine months up for adoption. And so, with many tears and much trembling, we decided on abortion.

I can tell you that we both told our parents. We told them after we had made the decision, but before the procedure took place. She and I were both blessed with parents who didn’t lecture us! Neither of us got the "What were you thinking?" speech, nor the "I’m so disappointed in you" lecture. I’m grateful for that. My mother knew — and my ex-girlfriend’s mother knew — that we had already beat ourselves up far more than was necessary. We didn’t need a guilt trip, we needed support, and we got it.

The abortion was done in a doctor’s office in Monterey on a warm spring Saturday morning I will never forget: June 22, 1985. I sat in the waiting room with my girlfriend’s mother, trying to read a magazine. Afterwards, her mom took her home to sleep the day away. I went for a walk on the beach, alternating between guilty tears and an extraordinary numbness. Had things been different, the child that would have been born (the due date, we were told, was February 8, 1986) would be a sophomore in college this year — the same age as many of my students.

But I know so well that she and I were lucky in our parents! It would be absurd to assume that every teenager has a mother or father who will respond with reassurance, unconditional love, and support. I wish that it were so. Frankly, I think some teens might be surprised by the depths of understanding that their parents might display if they took the risk to tell them! I certainly feared recriminations before telling my parents; I was incredibly relieved that I didn’t get them.

I do wonder what we would have done had we known that the law required us to inform our parents. (Technically, this would only have applied to my girlfriend, but to my marginal credit, I was in complete solidarity with her in the whole process.) We might have gone ahead and told them so that we could comply with the order. Or we might have searched for someone willing to perform an abortion without the notification requirement. Had we had different parents, had we had more reasonable fears of rage and rejection, we might well have looked for someone who could be convinced to terminate the pregnancy without involving moms and dads. I am fairly certain that a great many young girls will seek out less-scrupulous abortion providers for exactly this reason.

Do I want to see an end to abortion in this country? Yes. Am I willing to advocate for laws to restrict access to abortion to adults or minors? No. Despite my own history, I’ve flirted in the past with supporting anti-abortion regulation. My faith informs me that all life is equally precious, including life in the womb. But with great heaviness of heart, I’ve come to agree that it’s destructive and pointless to try and end abortion legislatively. When we were teenagers more than twenty years ago, my ex-girlfriend and I "weren’t thinking" when she got pregnant. Frankly, whether or not abortion was legal and available had no impact on what we were doing together. Hormones and infatuation are far more powerful than fear itself, at least for many teens.

When and if I have children, I want them to feel comfortable telling me anything. If my daughter were pregnant, I would want to know. Perhaps I would want her to keep the child, or choose adoption — though those would not be my decisions to make. But even greater than my desire to know, I would want her to be safe. Ultimately, it wouldn’t be about me, but about her and her needs. And if for some reason she felt she couldn’t tell me or her mother, I would want her to be able to turn to medical professionals.

In my capacity as a youth leader, I’ve known of a couple of girls over the years who had abortions; at least one told me but did not tell her parents. (This was years ago, folks — if you’re associated with All Saints, don’t speculate.) I was not the only adult who was informed, but though I expressed my hope to the young woman involved that she would eventually bring her parents into the process, I respected her decision not to do so. Until I’m told that that’s unacceptable behavior for a volunteer youth minister, I will continue to assume that I am free to offer the same advice should a similar situation arise in the future.

Originally published September 27, 2005

UPDATE: Men favor Prop. 85 53% to 40%, while women are opposed 51% to 36%. According to this month’s (August 2006) Field Poll, public opinion in California is evenly split on Prop 85 less than three months out from the election. But the pollsters note a big gender divide: Men favor Prop. 85 53% to 40%, while women are opposed 51% to 36%.

Reprint: “Incredibly Hot” — the Michael Gee case

Posted on August 24, 2006 by Hugo Schwyzer

I’m on hiatus — at least from substantive blogging — until August 28. Until then, I’m reprinting favorite posts from 2004 and 2005.

I’ve followed with interest the case of Michael Gee, the non-tenured journalism professor fired from his teaching job at Boston University after posting on an internet blog site that one of his students was "incredibly hot." A verbatim quote from Professor Gee on a public blog:

Of my six students, one (the smartest, wouldn’t you know it?) is incredibly hot. If you’ve ever been to Israel, she’s got the sloe eyes and bitchin’ bod of the true Sabra. It was all I could do to remember the other five students. I sense danger, Will Robinson.

I mean, there’s so much wrong there, where do we start? And who still uses "bitchin’" anymore? Didn’t that go out with the first Reagan Administration? (I should probably just google it, but aren’t Sabras native-born Israelis, or am I confusing the term with something else?)

Gee was promptly fired (he had no tenure protection). As one who normally defends even the most indefensible of academics (such as Jacques Pluss), I have no problem with Gee’s dismissal. I can only imagine how the "bitchin’ bod Sabra" felt when she heard about it; the five other students whom Gee could barely remember can’t have been too happy about it either.

In the classroom, I am scrupulous about treating all of my students the same, regardless of gender or perceived attractiveness. It’s much easier to do now than when I was first teaching, and frankly, it’s a lot easier to do now that I am fully and completely in love with one woman! What makes Gee’s remarks indefensible is that he managed, in an instant, to make the classroom an unsafe place for every single student — both the woman whom he called "incredibly hot" and the other students whom he admitted to neglecting. At least Jacques Pluss, the Nazi from Fairleigh Dickinson, kept his feelings about his actual students to himself!

Do I have favorites as a teacher? I suppose from time to time, I do. There’s always going to be a special student, male or female, young or old, who shows such enthusiasm and such promise that I can’t help but want to give him or her extra attention or encouragement. These are the guys and gals who come to my office hours over and over again to argue, debate, and talk about life. I mentor a few of them, I’m honored to say. I suppose other students might notice that some of their classmates visit me more often than others, and as a result, may end up with more of my attention. But these "favorites" are not selected because of their looks. Indeed, one of my most important jobs is to make it clear to any student who comes to see me that my interest in him or her is purely professional.

The lovely and the homely of both sexes have crosses to bear. The former often fear that the attention they get is merely superficial; the latter fear being ignored altogether. As teachers, our job is always, always, to look past the surface of our students. Sexiness can be a distraction, but it’s completely unacceptable for those of us who teach to allow desirability to influence our attention, our grading, or our willingness to offer help to those who need it.

Several years ago, I had two students who were regular visitors to my office. I’ll call them "Jack" and "Jill". Jack was in my ancient history class. He was an older fellow (mid-forties), usually unkempt. He was a heavy smoker and infrequent bather. When he came into my office to talk, he brought with him an odor of cigarettes and dirty clothes; sometimes, the awful stale stench of alcohol seemed to seep through his pores. Jack was a bright man — very thoughtful (if argumentative). I liked him very much, but I confess that his odor was a distraction. My office-mate at the time would leave whenever Jack came in, and finally asked me to meet with Jack outside, at the little coffee stand near our building. Was it easy to work with Jack? Not always. His body odor was a test for me, but it was a test I overcame. It wasn’t my place to comment on his grooming — it was my place to do what the rest of the world probably didn’t do, which was to pay close attention to him despite his truly unpleasant scent. I’m happy to say he transferred to Cal State LA, and still keeps in touch.

Jill was the opposite, of course. She was in my women’s history class. She was young, quite attractive, and she tended to wear much more revealing clothes than her classmates. She also came to my office regularly, as she was doing a scholar’s option research paper. I don’t think she was flirtatious, but she was likely aware of the impact her body had on those around her. Our conversations were always academic in nature, but at times, frankly, I found her a challenge in much the same way as Jack had been. Both Jack and Jill had bodies that demanded attention! With both Jack and Jill, my challenge was to be a thoughtful, attentive, loving mentor who saw them as human beings first and foremost. Jill’s exposed flesh and Jack’s stench both grabbed attention,and at times, in remarkably similar ways, I had to force myself to stay absolutely focused on what each was saying. As with Jack, I had to give Jill what I imagine she didn’t often get from men: completely non-sexual attention. I’m not in the business of telling young women how to dress, or telling older men to bathe. Good teaching means dealing professionally and compassionately with the sexy and the malodorous alike!

Michael Gee didn’t see his "Incredibly hot" student as a person. He could not do what we who are privileged to work as teachers must do , which is teach without being distracted by either the beauty or repulsiveness of student bodies. And even when we are challenged by the "Jacks" and "Jills" and "bitchin’ bod Sabras" of the world, for heaven’s sakes, we ought to keep it to ourselves!

Originally published July 20, 2005

Reprint: The perils of advice, and professorial self-doubt

Posted on August 23, 2006 by Hugo Schwyzer

I’m on hiatus — at least from substantive blogging — until August 28. Until then, I’m reprinting favorite posts from 2004 and 2005.

This week’s Chronicle of Higher Education online edition has this rather sobering First Person essay by a Prof. Thomas Benton: An Adviser Without Advice. He writes of running into one of his brightest and best recent graduates working as a cashier at Target:

My former student scanned and bagged the objects as if she was running on a treadmill. She recognized me, and I tried to return her nervous smile. We each asked how the other was doing and said "good." I swiped my card, and she gave me a receipt. There were bored people all around, and the whole conversation was understood in a few embarrassed glances.

"Good to see you," I said, leaving. "Yeah, you too, professor," she said, flatly. I saw her feigned cheerfulness droop a little as she turned to the next customer.

Benton reflects on what he told her when she came to him, a few years earlier, for professional advice:

I should have been looking out for her. She came to me for advice. I told her something like this: "A liberal-arts degree is the best preparation for life in general, but it helps if you also have some specific, marketable skills." I had persuaded myself that I knew what I was talking about. I supported and reinforced her choices. And my vanity was gratified by the thought that I was helping her.

Okay, that is scary! I could have written that paragraph verbatim a thousand times over. I’ll quote his final section at length; bold emphases are mine:

All I have is an instinctive belief in the value of a liberal education without regard to its practical use. I am increasingly sure that it is wrong to encourage students (and indirectly ourselves) to justify the work and expense of education as a prelude to lucrative career opportunities. Yet I know that when so many students undertake so much debt to go to college, the link between education and future income becomes unavoidable.

It seems inevitable, though we are not yet willing to admit it, that a liberal education is becoming a practical impossibility for most young people. Or liberal education earns the justified reputation of something undertaken at one’s peril. Students know they have to make a living before they can appreciate Kierkegaard. They don’t have time to question their beliefs; they are too busy getting their academic tickets punched.

I understand that outlook, but students do not seem to know that even the practical choice is fraught with as much risk as following one’s heart. They seem unaware of how much their drive for "success" is a construction of consumerist pressures. Perhaps careerist choices carry even more risk, since you ultimately give up what you love for the sake of some opportunity that may not exist by the time you are ready to meet it. . I can remember all too vividly the fear of sinking into chronic underemployment and relative poverty, of feeling for the rest of my life the special scorn that socially mobile societies reserve for the people who haven’t "made it." You’re a loser and nobody cares how it happened.

Of course, this kind of pontification can only come from a position of privilege

But what can I offer to my students besides the general advice to follow their talents wherever they lead? "Follow your bliss" and "find your vocation." Those remarks seem as banal and unhelpful now as when they were uttered by the wiser advisers of my youth.

Most of my students at Pasadena City College are from working-class backgrounds. To put it bluntly, I am not. Most of my students are not white. I rather obviously am. Most of my students are first-generation college graduates, while I am the son of two Berkeley Ph.Ds. My kind and fortunate parents paid for my college education; I never had a nickel’s worth of student loans. I teach at a community college, but (and this is hard to admit) I would have been deeply ashamed if I had "had" to attend such an institution out of high school. Slowly, painfully, I am unlearning my snobbery, my elitism, and my privilege, but I confess that it is still a work in progress. (I can say I would not be crushed if a child of mine went to a JC for their first two years, but in all honesty, I would be a bit disappointed). With all that in mind, what from my own experience can I possibly offer to my students? As much as I want to be one, how can I be a satisfactory role model for them?

In the past decade, I have had maybe 70 or 80 students whom I have mentored. They have come to office hours and made special appointments, and they have come time and time again for career advice. Many want to become professors themselves someday. I offer the same sort of airy encouragements that Mr. Benton offered. Indeed, not a semester goes by that I don’t actually say: "Study what you love; the money will follow." Though it has all the depth of a Hallmark card, my students nod their heads appreciatively, confident perhaps that if Dr. Hugo believes it is true, than so it must be. As I do in my teaching, I substitute outer enthusiasm for inner certainty. I can always muster the former. It’s not that I lie to them about their abilities! Rather, I find that I deliberately misrepresent the difficulties of getting tenure-track jobs in higher education. It’s easier to be relentlessly optimistic.

I do have a few former students teaching now at the college level. All are adjuncts so far, waiting and hoping for the appearance of a miraculous tenure-track job. But I’ve run into my share of former students at Target and elsewhere; they’ve graduated from four-year institutions, often with history degrees. I love running into my former students and hearing their stories. But I’ve seen — or imagined that I have seen — embarrassment in the eyes of several of them, as if they worry that somehow they have let me down by working at Starbucks fulltime rather than taking out still more loans to go and get a Ph.D. And I wonder, as Benton wonders, whether all of that encouragement and advice does any good.

Year in and year out, I tell my students that their lives will be better and richer because they know about Alexander, about Antony, about Arius the Heretic. They will be better citizens of the world because they know about Luther, Leibniz, and Lloyd-George. But I went straight from high school to college, and never worked for money while in school. When my classes were over for the day at Cal, I could wander over to Strawberry Glade and read a book and think about life; I could sit in coffee shops and pontificate my day away. My students race off from my classes to their jobs and their families. And then they come to me, asking me to mentor them! I am honored and flattered; it satisfies both my vanity and my longing to help. I am so grateful for the genuine close friendships I have formed with many students over the years. But so often, so often, I wonder: What good am I, what good are we historians, if we don’t have more tangible, practible advice to offer?

Originally published July 19, 2004

Tuesday odds and ends and links

Posted on August 22, 2006 by Hugo Schwyzer

It’s my last week of summer vacation, and I’ve set aside a bit of time to get some serious writing done today. In keeping with my over-caffeinated, short attention-span, ENFP, Gemini personality, I tend to write in frantic thirty-minute bursts. I then leap up from my chair and pace around, frequently talking to my pencil, before sitting down at the keyboard again.

I’ll be back to regular blogging (and Thursday Poems, Friday Random Tens, and the rest of it) starting next week. Until then, I’ve got a few more "reprints" scheduled. I note that my readership has dropped by half since I went on hiatus; a few hundred of you are still coming by, however, for which I am grateful. Some of you aren’t even related to me.

Some links to those who are not on hiatus:

1. My friend and former student, Kristie Vosper, has a blog. She’s also in ministry, and preached a sermon at First Pres Newhall on "Martha" this past Sunday. You can listen to the sermon here — it’s good stuff, and I have it on right now. I’ve always felt for Martha, irked at her sister’s counter-cultural (and feminist) refusal to work alongside her.

2. The inimitable Jenell Paris has some excellent advice. She’s right in wanting to ban one of the most offensive phrases in the scholarly vocabulary.

3. Jill met Ramesh Ponnoru.

4. A good long post on race, culture, and the children of interracial marriages by Rachel at Alas, A Blog. Someone recently asked me what my wife and I would tell our children (when, deo volente, we have ‘em) about their ethnic heritage. The long answer: Indigenous Colombian/Jewish/Nigerian/English/Croatian/German/Austrian/Scotch-Irish/Czech/Welsh/Spanish. Short answer: a beloved child of God and two adoring parents.

It’s funny: my wife is only one-quarter African (what would, in a racist era, have been called a "quadroon"), but that’s the one-quarter that seems most fascinating to most folks.

5. Via Feministing, the truly depressing story of Sarah, a twenty-nine year-old virgin who wants Jane Magazine to help her find the right man to sleep with for the first time.

6. I am pleased that the legislature and the governor have agreed to raise the California minimum wage to $8.00.

7. David at Sed Contra has a great post on breaking free of magazine subscription addiction. He put up his list of what he and his partner subscribe to. Here’s what comes to the Schwyzer household:

The Nation
The Economist
Newsweek
First Things
New York Review of Books
Vogue
The Week
Christianity Today
The Mennonite
Women’s Review of Books
Running Times
Marathon and Beyond
Yoga Journal
Sierra
California Educator (the union sends it to me, against my will)

Yes, many a copy goes into the bin unread. I am not doing my part to reduce the amount of paper wasted in the world.

Oh, and my wife have fallen in love with a local artist: John August Swanson. We’ve got some of his stuff on our walls now, and plan on getting more.

Reprint: Letters of rec and the “Lake Wobegon” effect

Posted on August 22, 2006 by Hugo Schwyzer

I’m on hiatus — at least from substantive blogging — until August 28. Until then, I’m reprinting favorite posts from 2004 and 2005.

I write perhaps thirty to fifty letters of recommendation a year. I get more requests than that, mind you. About a third of the folks I get requests from are students who have earned Bs or Cs in my classes, who have never come to see me in office hours, and about whom I know absolutely nothing other than that their work is competent. I always tell these students — gently — that I don’t inflate their capabilities for the purpose of a letter, and thus will only be able to state some basic facts. Indeed, I’ve been forced to write the following:

Mary McGillicuddy took my History X class in the fall of 2002. She received a grade of C on her midterm, her term paper, and her final. My records indicate that her attendance was regular. If you have any questions in regards to Ms. McGillicuddy, please do not hesitate to contact me.

I honestly am left without anything else to say! I teach seven classes a semester (not counting intersessions); I have over 750 students a year. Of those, only a small number will make the effort to have contact with me. Relatively few will come in and talk about their ambitions, their goals, their ideas, their doubts, and so forth.

It’s immensely tempting to "inflate" letters of rec, just as it is tempting to "inflate" grades. I have a colleague who has a template for letters of rec saved on his computer; he simply punches in the name of whichever student requests a letter, and a near-identical form is spit out. (He has one for his "A" students; one for his "B" students — and he won’t write them for students who get grades below that.) I’ve seen his "A" letter. His template announces that every student is "unique", "remarkable", and (I love this), "well-positioned to become an exceptional scholar at X college." I haven’t stooped that low yet, but with the demand being what it is, it sure is tempting.

I’ve heard this tendency to inflate called the "Lake Wobegon" effect, after Garrison Keillor’s famous fictional Wisconsin town where "all the men are good-looking and all the children are above average."

For my "A" students, I try and craft the letters in such a way so that the reader will see clearly that I am NOT using a template. I also know that if I consistently inflate my comments (by making every student "outstanding", "remarkable", and "unusually promising"), the value of my recommendations will decline considerably. For example, as much as it hurts my heart to do so, I write 10-15 letters to USC alone every year. Over the course of my career, if I continually over-estimate my students’ abilities, the folks at ‘SC aren’t going to give me much credence when I do write about a genuinely terrific candidate for admission.

For that reason, I always try and rank my students in my letters. On those rare occasions when I am able to say that "Joanie Jetson ranked among the best students in the class", I’ve said something that I think is more meaningful. To be "excellent" and "outstanding" means, of course, to "excell" compared to others and to "stand out" from one’s competition. Thus I always think it helpful to make at least some remark as to where my student ranks. If a C student still wants a letter from me, I comply with something along the following lines:

Ms. Jetson showed no less ability than the majority of her classmates.

Yup, I actually said exactly that recently.

To my current and former students who read this blog, take comfort in the fact that my praise is genuine.

Originally posted November 15, 2004

Reprint: Male privilege, rumors, harassment, and grad school

Posted on August 21, 2006 by Hugo Schwyzer

I’m on hiatus — at least from substantive blogging — until August 28. Until then, I’m reprinting favorite posts from 2004 and 2005.

Ralph Luker at Cliopatria linked to this post from Crazy Ph.D: Sex, Collegiality, and the Academic Conference. Reading it brought back memories of just how powerful my male privilege was in grad school. Dr. Crazy writes about many things in her post, but especially about the complex and dangerous interplay between sexuality and power when one is a young, female graduate student. She relates some real incidents from her past (in safe, oblique terms), and then muses:

The point here, though, is that I think as a woman and a feminist and an academic it’s difficult to know what to do. Because the likelihood is that at some point or another one will be propositioned, or at the very least pursued in a way that is not professional. And any response can have potentially negative consequences, not only in relation to the person who propositions one but in relation to the ways that other people react. For example, I TA’d for a professor who is married to Famous Important Scholar in my field. She got her job at the university where I did my Ph.D. in no small part due to the fact that she is married to FIS. And, to top this off, she had been FIS’s graduate student. Do you know how much I respect her – even though she has a great book and is not an idiot? NOT AT ALL. I feel like she is where she is because of who she’s f*cking. And to me, that’s not playing by the rules. I don’t think she deserves the job she’s got, and I think it’s bullsh*t in this job market that somebody would get a job in that fashion.

And then:

…I fear that if I introduce myself to an Important Man that somehow I’m going to be read as trying to use the fact that I’m young, attractive, whatever to trick him into some sort of professional assistance. Or maybe I’m afraid that I do use my appearance/age in that way, and I think it’s wrong?

Good questions.

UCLA has one of the largest — if not the largest — history graduate programs in the country. My first year of grad school (1989), I was one of fifteen medievalists chasing the Ph.D. We were almost all white, but evenly divided between men and women. Since I also did a field in early modern Europe, I spent lots of time hanging out with "early modernists", who were disproportionately female. Over the years, as we sat in seminars together and studied medieval paleography together and TA’d together, we became a fairly tight-knit bunch. And I saw first-hand how many of my female colleagues in grad school struggled with the issues that Dr. Crazy outlined.

Like most grad students, I hero-worshipped the Famous Important Scholars in my field. (I wrote about that here.) Until I opted at the last minute to do a field in medieval philosophy with Marilyn Adams, all of my mentors were men. It goes without saying that there was never any sexual tension with any of these FiSs! These men often met privately with me — with their office doors closed. I was glad the doors were closed, as I did not want my fellow grad students hearing me confess my own fears and doubts about my intellectual abilities (something I shared with alarming regularity). I also didn’t want anyone to hear a certain (now retired) paleographer lament my ignorance of early monastic manuscript hand.

But I never, ever, worried that I would be "hit on" by any of these men. I worshipped them. I followed them around. I hung on their every word. I read their books and articles assiduously. And I knew that when they looked at me, they were looking at Hugo — not at my breasts or my legs. I was relieved when they shut the office door, because that meant that I could have some one-on-one time with these men whom I so admired and for whose praise I was so hungry.

Would that my female colleagues had all had the same experience! One young woman in my same year (I’ll call her Stacy) formed a close relationship with a much older professor of mine (long since retired, I’ll call him Professor Y.) In the early 1990s, Stacy and I both served as his research assistants. (He had lots of grant money, happily enough). Professor Y was divorced. Stacy did not have a boyfriend. Stacy and I both worked closely with Professor Y. As often happens, we didn’t just do research with him. We went to lunch with him. We went to the car wash with him (heck, I TOOK his car to the car wash twice.) And because we were working on different projects for Professor Y, Stacy and I rarely met with him simultaneously.

No one ever suggested that Professor Y and I were having an affair. When other students saw Professor Y and me having coffee and a danish together on campus, no one — to my knowledge — questioned why he and I were spending time alone together. The same was not true for Stacy. The rumors started early, and were vicious. Someone reported seeing them leave campus together in his car. Others said they saw them walking together, leaning against each other, in the sculpture garden. What I could do safely with Professor Y, Stacy couldn’t — not without becoming the subject of nasty innuendo. When Stacy was given a coveted TAship the following year (so was I, for the record), many folks questioned whether she had legitimately earned it. Stacy heard these rumors, and was hurt by them. Personally, I think she had a huge intellectual crush on Y. Then again, I suppose I did too. I don’t think they were sleeping together, but I suppose I’ll never know. What I do know is that the rumors were part of what contributed to Stacy dropping out of grad school after receiving her master’s degree.

In the early modern field, there was a very famous specialist in Italian renaissance history. He had quite a reputation as a lecher. At one time, one of our graduate advisers regularly warned incoming female early modernists against working with him, despite his stellar publishing record. I spent a quarter as his research assistant, and found him an unpleasant, exasperatingly unclear taskmaster. Any thoughts I had of doing a minor field in Renaissance history vanished after 10 weeks working for him. But the worst I had to endure was his perpetual tardiness and his abrupt personality. I knew two women in the early modern program who claimed that he had propositioned them. There were rumors that other women had had affairs with him. No one formally complained, even though by the early 1990s, everyone knew about sexual harassment procedures.

I talked to one of the women who had been propositioned by this Renaissance man. She told me that she was afraid that if she filed a sexual harassment complaint, all of her other male professors would shun her. "They’ll be so afraid I’ll charge them, they won’t work with me", she said. In the intimate world of grad student-professor relationships, a reputation as someone who files charges would be the kiss of death for her career. I wish I could I have assured her that things would be otherwise, but I suspect she was right.

There’s no question that my maleness smoothed my graduate school career. My male mentors would have had little trouble seeing me as younger (perhaps slightly more neurotic) versions of themselves. I could go out to lunch with them and meet behind closed doors with them, safe in the knowledge that the attention I would receive was purely intellectual and professional in nature. I was free not only from unwanted sexualization, I was free from the gossip of my colleagues. That kind of freedom gave me a confidence that carried me through the long years of grad school all the way up to completing my Ph.D.

Originally published April 20, 2005.

Home, and some pictures.

Posted on August 19, 2006 by Hugo Schwyzer

Though the blogging hiatus will continue another nine days, a quick note to say that my beloved and I are home from a brief and happy vacation with family in Northern and Central California. After bonding with many relatives and old friends, we wisely grabbed a romantic day and night just for ourselves in Big Sur. I’ve got about 19 new pictures up in this album. Among other things, I display my pool football skills, lamentable as they are, as well as my peculiar fashion sense.

Reprint: Filters, and sorting through the “triangle of desires”

Posted on August 19, 2006 by Hugo Schwyzer

I’m on hiatus — at least from substantive blogging — until August 28. Until then, I’m reprinting favorite posts from 2004 and 2005.

We had a good discussion this morning in women’s history about something that for years I’ve been calling the "triangle of desires." We’ve been talking about changing sexual behavior in the 1920s and 30s as a result of cultural and technological innovations like the automobile, the movies, and the greater availability of contraception. Using my favorite text, Joan Brumberg’s The Body Project, we’ve been talking about the ways in which young women in the 1920s — and today — struggle with conflicting and contradictory messages about their sexuality. Brumberg uses the diary of a woman she calls "Yvonne Blue"; Yvonne wrote at length about her adolescent sexual experiences in the late 20s and early 30s:

Despite her honesty with herself about the pleasures of petting, Yvonne was not totally at ease with her emerging sexuality. Although petting was commonplace among adolescents of her age and class, she still worried about her reputation, because she knew that she had a lower opinion of other girls whenever she found out about their sexual exploits… Because Victorian notions of propriety still had some resonance for her, Yvonne felt the need to clarify in her diary just how far she had gone. "I’m still technically a ‘nice girl’", she wrote, but she vacillated between feeling guilty and happy about the experiences she had. "Once in awhile I feel slightly ashamed of myself for indulging in the greatest American sport but something must be the matter with me because while I think it’s wrong I really, really can’t feel that it is". (Emphasis in original).

Yvonne wrote that in 1930. Three quarters of a century later, I saw more than a few young women nodding their heads in vigorous agreement when I asked whether Yvonne’s words could have been written by young women today. Several of them admitted that like Yvonne, they too had a "lower opinion of other girls" who had "gone too far". Others admitted that like Yvonne, they felt both shame and pleasure together, and often had difficulty reconciling the two.

The phrase "triangle of desires" describes, I think, the experience of many young people, especially women, when it comes to sexual decision-making. Triangles have three points. Young women, in Yvonne’s era and now, may often struggle with three different sets of desires making different demands upon them. For one, they’ve got the desires of their male partner (presuming heterosexuality) with which to contend. In a culture where we expect young women to set the limits of sexual activity, many girls are trying very hard to manage and control the desires of their boyfriends. At the same time, these young women have their own very real desires, both sexual and emotional. Those wants and needs may, or may not, be in synch with the fellows with whom they are sharing a bed — or a back seat. And of course she’s also internalized the third point on the triangle, the desires of what I call "the them": her parents, her church, her peers and so forth. Trying to enjoy oneself when one has all of these conflicting messages racing through one’s head can be, I suggest, immensely difficult!

I am not saying that all young women experience this "triangulation of desires." I’m also not suggesting that young men don’t experience something at least somewhat similar. But I do think that in a culture that, since the 1920s at least, has suggested that the ideal women is both "sexy" and "virginal", both a "nice girl" and "exciting", a cruel double bind has left countless young women struggling with feeling overwhelmed and ashamed. Is it any wonder that a great many young women, both in the 1920s and now, report that alcohol plays a vital role in sexual decision making? When the backseat (or the bedroom) is crowded with so many different and competing voices, all making impossible and contradictory demands, a certain level of intoxication can provide a welcome and blessed — if only temporary — relief.

Though I talked about this with my students today in terms of the shifting moral landscape of the 1920s, I’m going to work this in to some future discussions with my kids at youth group. I want them to acknowledge that an ethic that simply emphasizes "doing what you want" isn’t very helpful when so many of us carry within us these competing and conflicting longings. I realize that though I am not prepared to argue for abstinence (yet), I’m prepared to say that my kids, both boys and girls, deserve to experience sex without being overwhelmed by various and contradictory voices vying for their attention. They deserve to have sexual experiences where both parties are fully present (meaning not intoxicated) and where they aren’t haunted by the spectres of disapproving grandmothers or pastors or classmates.

One of my married students pointed out today that even as a married woman having married sex, she still sometimes felt guilty, still wondering what her grandmother would think! The stories I’ve heard over the years suggest that her experience is very, very common. (Gosh, the expression on the faces of some of the girls whom I know to be advocating abstinence when they heard her share that — priceless!) It’s important to remember that waiting till marriage is not a magic bullet that destroys sexual guilt and shame and self-doubt; our psyches don’t recover easily from the traditional message of "sex is dirty, save it for someone you love"!" The abstinence-only crowd doesn’t explain that postponing sex in many cases simply postpones (rather than eradicates) these feelings of shame and inadequacy.

That’s not a defense of promiscuity, either. What we continue to need is more dialogue, among women, among men, and between the sexes, about issues of desire and responsibility. We need to do a better job of making young men stewards of their own sexuality, just as we need to do a better job of allowing young women to experience their sexuality without shame.

Is this what I’m supposed to be doing in a college classroom? In a youth group? Judging by the responses I get, and the interest it generates, I suspect it is. I surely hope so. But Christ almighty, sometimes it feels like a hell of a lot of responsibility. Then again, I volunteered with enthusiasm.

I’ve rambled enough. I’m off.

Originally posted May 10, 2005