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


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