A quiet young sophomore in one of my classes wanted to know if she could ask a question about college "etiquette" (her term). I expected her to ask about a roommate squabble or a tricky club membership issue.
Instead she surprised me with this: "Is it impolite for me to ask the guy who sits in front of me in one of those huge lecture courses to turn off his porn while the teacher's speaking? It's, like, really distracting." The tone she used was one she'd employ to inquire which fork to begin with at a formal dinner. This student watches dirty movies on his laptop during a 9 a.m. class. She doesn't want to move because she's left-handed and snagged one of the few seats designed for lefties.
Naturally the university where I teach has a detailed policy against discrimination and harassment explicitly stating that "academic and professional excellence can exist only when each member of our community is assured an atmosphere of safety and mutual respect." Sexual harassment may include the "public display of pornographic" materials, so my bet is that the kid watching hard-core movies could be disciplined were he brought up on charges.
But my student didn't want to press charges or even tell the professor. All she wanted was to figure out how to pay attention in class without making the porn-watcher feel "uncomfortable" or making herself seem like "the sex police."
But watching porn in class raises other questions as well, such as: Why on earth would anybody do that?
I also want to know who's paying for this kid's education, because somebody is picking up the bill: either his family, the state or the institution is securing him the right to occupy that seat.
It isn't just where I teach, and it isn't even just college. In a recent issue of Time magazine, Belinda Luscombe describes a 28-year-old named Gabe Deem as growing up "in an era when what used to be considered X-rated was becoming mainstream," so that he and his friends watched "explicit videos constantly ... even during class on their school-issued laptops."
I wanted to help my student understand that the problem was not hers, even though she was upset by it.
I remembered that Judith Martin, aka Miss Manners, addressed the issue of dealing nicely with smut-watchers at work. It was in response to a woman asking how she might innocuously make her male co-workers stop showing her degrading material. Martin summed it up wonderfully: "Your question is almost like asking for a polite way to let a flasher know that his trousers are open."
I suggested that my student needed to embrace some outrage, find some humor and use a loud-girl voice to say, "Hey, friend, how about keeping your private tabs closed? Don't do that here. Thanks."
Some things transcend etiquette. Watching porn in public is one of them.
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Gina Barreca is an English professor at the University of Connecticut.
Editorial on 04/30/2016