Finding the Villain

Hard to figure out who’s the real villain in the destruction of Cami Strella’s graduate program.

The Lenoir-Rhyne University in Hickory, NC?  Evidently not.  A University spokesman told the Washington Post they have no policy against digital sex work (Cami had a risqué Only Fans account).

Unfeeling bureaucracy?  Not really.  Title IX of the Education Act of 1972 has recently been judged to include LGBTQ persons as entitled to coverage.  This reversed the policy under Trump.  So, depending on the timing, Cami might have merited Title IX protection.

A morally indignant student body at this Lutheran-affiliated institution?  Evidently, Cami got some negative feedback from them but, at the end of the day, who cares what they think.’

The Faculty Advisor Drops the Hammer

It was her faculty advisor who evidently took it upon himself, despite University policy, to tell her to drop out.  And without appealing to higher authority, that’s what she went ahead and did.

So, she made the mistake of choosing this dumb-ass moralist as an advisor.  Case closed?

Not quite.  Further down in the story, the Post tell us of another university student, Olivia Snow, whom the moralists similarly persecuted.  A humanities graduate student, she outed herself as a dominatrix.  Bad idea, because S and M (sadism and masochism) is apparently not included under Title IX protection.  (None of the Act’s drafters could even have imagined it existed.)

Why Stigmatize Dominatrixes?

Of all the categories of diversity that are covered by anti-discrimination policy, S and M is not.  In the real world, it is hugely popular.  Yet it remains the last bastion of discrimination, the last fortress from which the moralistic marksmen can rain down their censorial fire.

So, no university protection for student-dominatrixes like Olivia.  No protection from social discrimination, either. Telling someone at a party that you’re into S and M is the equivalent of telling them you’ve just had ECT.  Your interlocutor will soon discover that his or her glass is empty.

Sexual orientation has Title IX protection but S and M, as a  form of sexuality, does not.  And it’s doubly damned, because progressive tribunes see it as a form of violence.

Really, people, if we’re going to be consistent at all about non-discriminatory policies, S and M should be brought within the magic circle.  Stop stigmatizing Sarah Severe!