By Ben Hoffman
In a shocking turn of events, nearly all of the issues of last week’s Gauntlet disappeared from around campus. With the shelves bare of our perverse attempt at journalism, it was decided that pen ought to be put to paper in an effort to find the culprit; as such, we would need to appeal to the trinity of all detective work: the motive, the means, and the opportunity.
The latter two of the three would prove for naught, since the stands are oft left unguarded, and the paper is free; But what of motive? It would seem simple in this case: the issue contained an image deemed in poor taste by many on campus. The photo in question was of a naked woman, part of a story reporting on the Students’ Union’s sexual awareness show recently held in MacEwan Hall. It seemed like a more stringent look at the communities on campus who could find the image offensive was warranted.
Could it have been feminists? The article was not intended to be offensive to women, unless having a woman speak about openness to sexuality is offensive. The image portrayed a male caged by a woman, and domination fetishism is usually liberating for the finer of the sexes. Arguably, sexual openness benefits women more than men; consider that when sexuality was less open, doctors often spoke of sexual tension in females as though it was an affliction to be cured.
If not the feminists, could it have been the Students’ Union, trying to cover their error in allowing the striptease to occur in their facility? Were this the case, then we have struck an instance of journalism being deprecated because it recounts the truth to people. This event happened and coverage of it is not to be implicated in its tactless allowance. After all, this allowance was perpetrated by the Students’ Union.
Finally, we have reached the most difficult case: the case of concerned, organized citizens looking out for what they deem the benefit of children. One only has to look so far as the cultural trend of the Internet, however, to see that the human body is more exposed to the young then it ever has been historically. Is propagating this trend necessarily evil, though? Only insofar as the human body should not be exposed, that we should be ashamed of our flesh–a paradigm that the Europeans appear no worse off for not having accepted in recent times.
Whoever the culprit of our crime is, it needs to be said that the ends pursued by Sexual Health Awareness Week are valid. Having received such responses to the event’s occurrence and our coverage of it, it appears we really do need to be more open to our sexuality. To those who would argue contrarily, ask yourself: what is so bad about feeling free to be sexual, what is so wrong with relieving a tension we have arbitrarily placed ourselves under?