I get defensive when feminists are accused of being prudes. There’s nothing prudish in critiquing a monotonously promiscuous culture; in despairing of unrealistic body standards, or believing, as I’ve argued before, that porn is healthy, even necessary, when it’s privately stashed under the mattress, but doesn’t belong on the high street.
Then a bunch of students does something so reactionary in the name of feminism that we may as well scatter séance candles about the university library and revive en masse the spirit of the Victorians. At Columbia University – where Emma Sulkowicz’s campaign for redress against an alleged rapist has inflamed debate about universities’ approach to sexual assault – four undergraduates have called on tutors to include ‘trigger warnings’ before assigning students the classic texts that have shaped our culture.
Lest you think this a media storm in a teacup, I can attest it’s an attitude that was well-entrenched when I was active in feminist circles at Yale: in our women’s centre, we once held a discussion on whether Shakespeare’s Rape of Lucrece should be banned from the syllabus.
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