A scholar teaches a course on pornography. She argues that
pornography promotes the meat industry.
The course is very popular. Examples ranging from erotic paintings to
cheap porn mags are minutely examined and found at their core to
champion a meat-based diet. The scholar describes how the pornography
industry employs tactics of control and domination developed by
factory farmers. The iconography of milk, beef, oysters, and pork in
decades of centerfolds is examined. Similarities are noted between
veal pens and sadomasochistic scaffolding. Advanced statistical
methods are used to compare the diets of cattle and porn actors.
Every class features new compelling examples. Links are sought and
established. Principles which might be used to defend pornography are
evenly considered and found wanting. The problem, explains the
scholar, is a classic case of wanton predation by the power elite.
Hundreds of fascinated students attend her analyses.
The course is criticized by a fellow professor for its explicitness.
The scholar defends her thesis curtly and convincingly. Her academic
qualifications bear scrutiny well. The administration pays no
attention. Enrollment increases.
From time to time the scholar comes across a slighting mention of her
theories in obscure periodicals of pornography or the animal
industries. She devotes a class to demonstrating pornocarnivoric
elements in the publication in question. The problem, she says, is a
standard case of dissimulation and denial. The students cheer
sympathetically. Enrollment increases.
A politician begins to take her case seriously. Pointed questions are
asked and find no ready answers. A motion is taken up to put some of
her suggestions into law. On the third attempt to the surprise of all
the motion passes. Purchase of meat is restricted. Pornography is
banned. Sectors of the public complain initially but soon let the
matter drop.
Students wonder how the scholar's course will have to change. At the
end of the summer the course resumes but the professor does not show
up. Enrollment is down.
After a week of missed lectures the police are dispatched to the
scholar's home. They find her absent and the house abandoned. Three
starving cats are found in the house, plus two others dead. Rumors
eventually surface that the scholar is now in Amsterdam.
Trial legislation bans all consumption of meat. A former
slaughterhouse is rechristened as a nonexplicit museum of pornography.
Students hold a party in the scholar's remembrance at the museum,
where numerous students are arrested for possession of pornography. A
rumor circulates that the scholar appears in a German porn film.
Despite the cheap availability of pornography, the video in question
is never found. Meat remains difficult to find.
Jacob Eliosoff, 1997
Back to Jacob Eliosoff's Home Page