How times have changed. I made my undergraduate short film about . . . water. Yes, H2O. And, I have yet to observe live people having sex. (My intake of porn has been extremely paltry, too.) Am I lame or what?

So, Brian, where would you draw the line? This is a college student. What if she were in high school? Junior high? Elementary school? Why?

I also would appreciate hearing from parental units. Eric has a daughter who is a freshman, I think.

I have been thinking hard about this: I understand the free speech and artistic freedom aspects of it, and I don't have a problem with the content of the film per se, but I would, as a parent, object to the film being shot in the classroom, even if all the students are "adults," i.e. 18 and over (which is also problematic - I was 17 my entire freshman year of college and actually had a summer class while I was stil 16).

Therefore, I don't have a problem with the administration banning the taping in class - whether or not the film project should have been allowed is another matter and I don't imagine wouldn't object if it had been allowed or even shown in class, but the actual creation in class I think steps over some boundaries. That's real life, not just art, even if art is being created in the process.

And speaking of live sex acts: one of the first sights I encountered as a 17 year-old freshman in 1975 was a pair of seniors going at it in broad daylight on the hood of a Cadillac as it very slowly toured the main drag of the campus. They had been drinking.

I have mixed feelings here. On the one hand, Pierce has sais some clearly foolish things. Equivalent to arson? Hardly.

Still, I think that it is reasonable for a school administration to impose rules for classroom conduct over and above those imposed in the general public. Further, I note that the filming would be illegal in the "general public" as well, as a public indecency issue.

Perhaps a good compromise might have involved asking each student to anonymously vote on whether they were willing to observe the filming, and if any objected, disallow it then. At least then it would have been the choice of the class (more or less) rather than having been handed down from on high.

And am I naive in thinking that the voting would probably run 100% FOR from the guys in the class, with AGAINST votes (if any) coming from women?

Maybe that's just my own memories of that age creeping up. Never mind.

Eric,

And speaking of live sex acts: one of the first sights I encountered as a 17 year-old freshman in 1975 was a pair of seniors going at it in broad daylight on the hood of a Cadillac as it very slowly toured the main drag of the campus. They had been drinking.

Perhaps a good compromise might have involved asking each student to anonymously vote on whether they were willing to observe the filming, and if any objected, disallow it then.

And am I naive in thinking that the voting would probably run 100% FOR from the guys in the class, with AGAINST votes (if any) coming from women?

Uh, Brian. You've heard of publicity indecency acts, right? I don't think what the young lady planned would be legal in most jurisdictions, including NYC. Yes, I know about live sex acts and clubs. But, those go out of their way to define themselves as private, including requiring membership or signed agreements in many cases. Even though NYU is a technically private, it is quasi-public in many ways, like most colleges.

Not that I think that is the main reason no administrator in his right mind would go along with this. Those guys have to think about endowments. The likelihood thy will do anything to endanger donations is nil.

Hmm. Actually, I don't know the law in NY. Here in California we can videotape each other having sex--and pay each other for the performances--all we want.

Certainly the classroom could have been made private enough that only those who wanted to be there would be there.

There are things that go on in the biology department at NYU, such as, oh, dissecting a human corpse, that would also probably be illegal in some way if done on a streetcorner, or in the quad.

But I should point out that the most outrageous thing in this story is the school's response to the controversy. They didn't just say "No live sex acts in the classroom." If they'd said that, I probably wouldn't have even written about it at all.

But they've gone much, much farther than that. Responding to this controversy by ruling that all content in all films must conform to MPAA guidelines for "R" rated movies is truly outrageous. They could have just said "No live sex acts in the classroom."

It seems that they don't just object to live sex acts in the classroom, though. They also object to any NC-17 material ("Henry & June" was NC-17, "Midnight Cowboy" was X) making it into a student film at NYU. I can't imagine that NYU alums Spike Lee and Jim Jarmusch would approve.

That could be First Amendment problem, Brian. Sounds like the guidelines they say they are going to apply are overly broad.

I agree that applying "commercial" standards to a educational setting is overly broad and perhaps inappropriate but I would not describe it as "outrageous." I agree the more specific and narrower standard would have been most appropriate, but they are clearly trying to set the bar low enough to preclude content-related controversy, which in turn has probably generated more controversy.