God, they really love us in the mainstream.

from www.examiner.com – Tristan Taormino, the 2010 Feminist Porn Awards’ Trailblazer of the Year and winner of the 2011 AVN Award for Best Educational Release for her Vivid Ed film Tristan Taormino’s Expert Guide to Advanced Fellatio, is causing a stir in Oregon, where she had been invited — and then disinvited — as keynote speaker at Oregon State University’s Modern Sex: Privilege, Communication, and Culture conference, February 15-16.

The root of the controversy seems to stem from the use of the university’s general fee, which includes taxpayer dollars from the Oregon State Legislature, to fund the event. Similar concerns were raised in 2009 when state senators in Maryland threatened to withhold funding from the University of Maryland over a planned screening of the pornographic film Pirates II: Stagnetti’s Revenge, raising questions about academic autonomy.

In April of last year, Taormino’s appearance at Princeton University caused a similar stir but students and faculty there defended her, and Taormino’s “My Life as a Feminist Pornographer” lecture at Princeton went off without a hitch.

Taormino has also spoken at Antioch, Barnard, Brandeis, Brown, Colby College, Connecticut College, Columbia, Cornell, Georgetown, Goucher College, Hampshire College, Harvard, The New School, NYU, Minnesota State University, Oakton Community College, Pasadena City College, Rutgers, Sana Monica City College, Sarah Lawrence, Smith, Southern Connecticut State University, Swarthmore, University of California, University of Colorado, University of Massachusetts, University of North Carolina, University of Toronto, University of Vermont, University of Washington, University of Wisconsin, Tufts, Vassar College, Washington University, Wells College, Wesleyan, Wilammette University, Wooster College, and Yale, according to her website.

In an ironic twist to this latest story, the official OSU website for the conference currently boasts an image of Rebecca West’s famous quote, “People call me a feminist whenever I express sentiments that distinguish me from a doormat.”

I’ll be following the OSU doormat story in the next few days. For starters, here’s the full press release Taormino’s publicist sent out:

Award-winning author, columnist, sex educator, and filmmaker Tristan Taormino was set to be the keynote speaker at Oregon State University’s Modern Sex conference, scheduled for February 15-16, 2011. Yesterday [last week], she was uninvited by a university representative, who cited her resume and website as the reason.

On October 28, 2010, organizers of the OSU Modern Sex conference booked Taormino to give the keynote talk; they confirmed the date and agreed to fees, and Tristan’s management received a first draft of the contract on November 1. That contract was incomplete and sent back to OSU for revisions. As with many negotiations, the contract was pending as all the paperwork got done, but in late December, OSU again confirmed Tristan’s appearance and conference organizers told her manager to purchase airline tickets, for which OSU would be reimburse her.

On Tuesday, January 18, 2011, Steven Leider, Director of the Office of LGBT Outreach and Services contacted Colten Tognazzini, Tristan Taormino’s manager, to say that the conference had come up short on funding. Tognazzini told him that since the travel was booked and the time reserved, they could work with whatever budget they did have.

Leider said that would not be possible: “We have to cancel Ms.Taormino’s appearance due to a lack of funding. It has been decided that OSU cannot pay Ms. Taormino with general fee dollars, because of the content of her resume and website.” At OSU, ‘general fee dollars’ include taxpayer dollars given to the University by the Oregon State Legislature to defray various costs. They differ from ‘student activity dollars,’ which are part of every student’s tuition and help fund student groups and activities.

Taormino’s resume includes her seven books on sex and relationships, the 18 anthologies she has edited, numerous television appearances from CNN to The Discovery Channel, and her award-winning adult films.

She was a columnist for The Village Voice for nearly ten years and has given more than 75 lectures at top colleges and universities including Yale, Princeton, Cornell, Brown, NYU and Columbia.

Her website, www.puckerup.com, includes sex education information, advice, and information about the films she directs for Vivid Entertainment, one of the largest adult companies in the country.

“In my ten years of booking Tristan at colleges and universities, of course there has been some controversy. But I have never had a university cancel like this last minute,” says Colten Tognazzini, Taormino’s manager.

“It’s not unusual for contract negotiations to drag on. Once they confirmed we should book her travel, I felt comfortable the event was a done deal. I continued to work with them in good faith that a signed contract would be forthcoming. I believe that the conference organizers’ hands are tied, and this decision came from much higher up. They have cancelled with less than a month’s notice during Tristan’s busiest season. She gave up other opportunities to go to Oregon. Without a signed contract, we may have no recourse, and were told we will not be reimbursed for her travel.”

Tognazzini spoke to a source at OSU who speculated that the University feared that when it went before the legislature in regards to future funding, legislators would use OSU’s funding of a “pornographer” on campus as ammunition to further cut budgets. This source, who wishes to remain anonymous, told Tognazzini, “I think they’re uninviting Tristan because they don’t want to have to defend her appearance to conservative legislators.”

“I’m extremely disappointed that OSU has decided to cancel my appearance. I’ve been protested before, but never uninvited. I have never misrepresented who I am or what I do. I am proud of all the work I do, including the sex education films and feminist pornography I make,” says Taormino.

“The talk I planned to give at this conference, titled “Claiming Your Sexual Power” has nothing to do with porn, but the porn is such an easy target for anti-sex conservatives and censors. I find it ironic that one of the missions of the conference is to understand diverse perspectives of sexuality. Apparently, my perspective—one of educating and empowering people around their sexuality—isn’t welcome at OSU.”

If OSU students and others still want to hear Taormino speak, she will be teaching two workshops at She Bop (sheboptheshop.com) in Portland on February 13 and 14.

“She Bop supports a healthy perspective on sex and sexuality and we are proud to have Tristan Taormino present two years in a row at our shop in Portland. Tristan is a leading educator paving the way for others to help break down the stigma around sex in this country. It is part of our mission as a female friendly adult shop to support sexual empowerment and growth,” say co-owners Jeneen Doumitt and Evy Cowan.