This past weekend, the New York Times ran a long story about the new generation of pornographers on college campuses: "Campus Exposure." What I gleaned from this 115,000-word article is that at some of the best universities and colleges across America, students are taking pornographic photos of each other and slapping them into magazines called H Bomb and Boink. This is not exactly breaking news. In fact, I believe the Times already covered this very story last year. The point of the piece seems to be that even though these young people are making what amounts to porn, they are not pornographers. What they are, I am not clear on, in all likelihood because these young pornographers are not entirely clear on what they are, except they are not pornographers. Generally, I've found that people who make porn who say they are not making porn are the kind of non-pornographers who on their MySpace pages describe themselves as "pansexual" and have tricolored hair, or they are under the impression that because they are taking pictures of people who are pierced and tattooed and on some kind of shaving their armpits strike having sex, it's not porn. How that works, I am not clear on either. In the end, some chick gets her knickers in a twist when she gets called a "porn girl" because she got naked and covered in paint in the aforementioned Boink. In her defense of why she is not a "porn girl" despite her having engaged in clearly "porn girl"-like porn activity, she explains herself thusly: "It really just started out as a joke. I think it’s good to be proud of your body, especially when you’re younger and stuff, as long as it’s tasteful. Just something to add to the résumé. I thought the body-painting spread was really creative." Indeed, I'm sure the paint was very non-pornographically applied. In any case, the real indignity for Porn Girl arrived when she saw herself dancing around naked in the pages of Boink and wearing nothing but what could only be removed with turpentine and noticed that elsewhere in said issue: "there’s this guy who posed, and he’s masturbating in the picture. It’s really awkward. I’m like: Wow. That was pretty disgusting.” What did she think readers of a magazine named for a sex act were going to do with her nude photos? Maybe they would consider the paint. Or make toast. I remain baffled by this piece and this generation of pornographers, and porn girls, who are not pornographers, or porn girls, not really anyway.
