Dear Editor:

Yesterday, I was privy to the most bizarre scene of misplaced outrage and assumption since the last time the Church of Kent demonstrated. A prefrosh’s mom stomped into the MCLS office, after her tour passed, while I was waiting to speak with a prof, and she slammed a copy of this semester’s Fusion on the desk and asked ‘So, your school promotes pornography?!’ And as she turned and stormed off, I corrected her by saying it wasn’t pornography, even calling her ma’am.

Now, I respect the Fusion staff for remaining provocative in tastefully showing a male form not unlike my own. I admire their articles and have been proud to say that I’ve known — at the very least — one or two members of staff or interviewees for this groundbreaking periodical. I even have the first issue somewhere.

The fact is that JMC’s student publications have always been a little edgy, and often misquoting of people they interview, but they never go into the realm of smut or bad taste. The last thing this university needs, considering our fabulous history during the last century, is some middle-aged mom telling the other parents in the PTA back in wherever that our school hands out free porn mags. Frankly, I read this year’s Fusion cover to cover and thought that a lot of it was really insightful and interesting.

These days, all a person needs to access pornography is the Internet or some premium cable stations. Heck, they sell adult magazines at convenience stores and XXX videos at Family Video. Frankly, there’s nothing that this university does at all to promote anything sexually promiscuous or discriminatory. We fire female security guards for making out at a private party when they’re off duty. We get rid of guys who scream lewd remarks in the plaza to our students. The most provocative title I’ve even seen at the campus bookstore was a book called “How to Make Love to a Woman” and the author talks more about attitudes between healthy, happy, communicative couples, many of them married, rather than promoting looser sexual morality. In fact, it even promotes a healthier attitude toward women and the reader himself, deeply set in respect for people, regardless of their sex.

But it was easy to tell that this lady had no class, even before she stormed away without regard for someone speaking to her, because of to whom she was taking this. All things considered, the secretary for a college department is hardly going to be able to do anything about a naked man on a student publication run by a department in a different school of a different college of the university. I felt sorry for all involved, because this mother was clearly looking for something to say the school was too liberal and we’d somehow corrupt her kid; but moreso for our department’s secretary, as she doesn’t get paid to handle such bizarrely and maliciously ignorant people (except for students).

I realize that KSU is reputed as the party school of Northeast Ohio, but what does that really mean? It means that people come to the area to party in the bars and at some residences/frats. It doesn’t mean that within a week of being here, your daughter is going to be on a “Girls Gone Wild” commercial.

To put it simply, for those parents who send their kids here and come here to take tours and spot problems, wait until my book comes out, and until then, remember that since your kid is going to be away from here for a while, they’re going to do stupid stuff that may or may not get them in trouble, and they’re going to forget who they were in high school, because they can live it up a little; but they make these decisions for themselves, and they choose with whom to hang out. It doesn’t matter if they keep a clean, ordered, anal-retentive life or are at the bars every Thursday night and blazing up every Monday, because they are your kids, and they make decisions based on how you raised them.

I’ve never binged. I’ve never bar-hopped. I’ve never drank irresponsibly, or slept with someone I didn’t know; but I’ve had great times, and the best way to live clean and have fun, is to stay away from the morality patrols (Dive, Late Night, ‘Gators), and stay away from the out-of-controls. My family and friends know what goes on in my life, but I have privacy.

If your kid takes away anything from college, it should be this: Always be as nice as you can to any secretary of any department anywhere, because anything you want to know, any help you need, and anything you need to do, will have to go through them, and they are the phenomenal dynamos that make it all possible. The sooner that visiting parents and students learn that secretaries are the most awesome force in our sphere, the better they understand that complaining to them about naked men is just dumb. If a hairy guy with a little chub on him is what you consider pornographic, and that’s all it takes to get you going — call me.

Karl Hopkins-Lutz

Senior German major