Profs debate Internet role in sexual image

After Karen Owen’s PowerPoint rapidly spread to the public, Duke professors held a panel discussion on social media’s role in portraying sex.
After Karen Owen’s PowerPoint rapidly spread to the public, Duke professors held a panel discussion on social media’s role in portraying sex.

A panel titled “Sex in the Age of Digital Reproduction” addressed the role of the Internet and social media in light of the recent viral spread of a Duke alumna’s PowerPoint.

Victoria Szabo, assistant professor of visual studies, noted that Karen Owen’s presentation reflects the way in which people are now creating identities online through social media.

“It’s a retrospective analysis of her life, where [Owen, Trinity ’10] is reflecting on her ‘body of work,’” Szabo said. She added that forms of social media, including Facebook, serve to blur the boundaries between the public and private arena of sex.

Although a large portion of the talk focused on Duke undergraduate culture, those in attendance were primarily faculty and graduate students. About 30 audience members watched as professors discussed topics ranging from the University’s “hook-up culture” to sexuality and cyber bullying.

Anne Allison, chair of cultural anthropology, discussed how Duke’s hook-up culture factored into both the Karen Owen PowerPoint and the Duke lacrosse scandal of 2006. Allison has taught a class on the hook-up culture at Duke and told the audience about the results of field-work studies done by her students that looked into this culture.

“Hook-up culture has created a relationship that is erotic in some sense, premised on some relation of ‘non-relationality,’ that involves not wanting to continue the relationship beyond ‘the big act,’” Allison said.

She added that students in her class had said that alcohol was a precondition necessary to this hook-up culture and that sexual relations at Duke are often competitive because females students can be brutal in assessing one another’s level of attractiveness.

Kim Lamm, assistant professor of women’s studies, noted that although Owen is not the first woman to use an unconventional medium to display her sexual activities, women lack an “institutional framework” to discuss their sexual experiences.

“[The Karen Owen PowerPoint] not only documents women having sex with multiple partners but also makes a joke about it. I think of it as raunchy, feminist art,” Lamm said.

Sean Metzger, assistant professor of English who specializes in gender studies, discussed the consequences of bullying with regard to sexual orientation. Metzger recalled the 1998 incident of Matthew Shepard, a University of Wyoming student who was tortured and murdered by two other students because he was gay.

Metzger, who was working at the Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Center at the time of the incident, was part of an effort that encouraged students to think about the effects of bullying based on sexuality.

Metzger also talked about how cases of cyber bullying are often results of a cultural atmosphere that has suppressed discussions of sexuality. He noted the recent incident at Rutgers University, when a male student committed suicide after his roommate broadcasted a video of him “making out” with another male student.

Following the discussion, Women’s Studies Chair Ranjana Khanna—who mediated the discussion—said the panel wanted to raise the question of publicized sex within different kinds of media without criticizing sexual activity itself.

“We wanted a discussion that wasn’t ‘anti-sex,’ that wasn’t moralistic,” Khanna said. “We want to understand what is going on in publicizing sexual activity today.”

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