4 - The Michigan Daily - Tuesday, February 14, 1995 c E Ntrbt#kiNqgrwlwwn tftiv f.. JEAN TWENGE THE ERASABLE PEN :I 0 420 Maynard Ann Arbor, MI 48109 Edited and managed by students at the University of Michigan MICHAEL ROSENBERG Editor in Chief JULIE BECKER JAMEs NASH Editorial Page Editors When healthy sex fantasies turn ominouslyforeboding Unless otherwise noted, unsigned editorials reflect the opinion of a majority of the Daily's editorial board. All other articles, letters, and cartoons do not necessarily reflect the opinion of The Michigan Daily. Hash Bash 'U' must abide by judge's latest ruling Tt's an all-too-familiar scenario: The Na- J tional Organization for the ReformofMari- juana Laws (NORML) applies to the Univer- sity for a permit to hold its annual Hash Bash; the University hesitates, and then tries to attach a number of "fees" before issuing the permit; NORML goes to court and sues for the right to hold Hash Bash without paying these fees; Judge Donald Shelton rules that the University must extend the permit, sans fees. Once again, Shelton has shot down the University's attempts to stop Hash Bash by imposing fees on the event permit. The deci- sion, issued last month, ends the latest in a series of legal battles between NORML and the University. In spirit, the latest ruling ech- oes another Shelton decision from April 1993. At that time, the judge barred the University from attaching "security fees" and pre-paid clean up costs to an event permit. Ignoring that precedent, the University tried to charge NORML a fee of up to $9,000 for holding the annual hemp fest. University officials should have knownbetter, since notonly did they defy the earlierruling, it is clear that the same judge, faced with an identical situation, would rule in an identical manner. Spokeswoman Lisa Baker said she is unsure whether the University will appeal Shelton's latest ruling. To appeal his unambiguous decision would be a grave error, not to mention a waste of legal fees. The reasoning behind Shelton's decision is based on the First Amendment right to free speech extended to U.S. citizens. A part of Shelton's opinion censures the University for failing to understand "the basic premise of our Constitution that a peaceable person exercis- ing the right to free speech may not be re- stricted because of... how others may react." In a statement made last year, Baker declared, "We don't want to prohibit free speech so long as people are gathered in an orderly way." If that is the case, then why is the University trying once again to stop the Hash Bash, one of the most visible symbols of First Amendment rights on this campus? The University's shop- worn argument that the Hash Bash encourages violence and disruptions is increasingly hol- low. Past tumultuous history aside, the last few bashes were comparatively tame, with few arrests for disorderly conduct. At least some of the problems over Hash Bash are caused by the Diag policy currently in force. While it is more permissive this year, it still does not allow for truly free speech. Com- pounding this problem is an administration that inconsistently applies the policy. As it is written, all groups are responsible for cleaning up after their events, but only in the case of NORML has the issue of pre-paid fees come up. It appears that the University is singling out NORML for special mistreatment because of the group's message. Judge Shelton has once again made the correct decision in ordering the University to issue an event permit with no monetary strings attached. If the University tries to force the issue by defying Shelton's latest ruling, it will most likely be stung again by an adverse ruling. An appeals court would likely adhere to Shelton's precedent by ruling against the Uni- versity. The University should comply with the ruling, allowing NORML to express its First Amendment rights to free speech. By most accounts, Jake Baker was a fairly quiet young man who did well in his classes and had no history of trouble. Yet he had a secret vice: Sitting alone in front of the glow of a computer screen, he indulged in fantasies of sex and sodomy, rape and torture. Baker's private vice became public last week when he was suspended by the University and arrested without bond by federal authorities. He could face up to five years in prison. Baker's case has attracted national atten- tion, probably because it brings up so many difficult and important questions. As a soci- ety we are ambivalent about all of its issues: pornography, feminism, violence against women, sadomasochism, free speech and the new world of the Internet. Baker's sto- ries were gruesome. Women were tortured, raped and beaten. Yet in the free-speech- gone-wild environment of the Internet, such stuff is commonplace, if not entirely ac- cepted. Alt.sex.stories, the newsgroup on which Baker's story appeared, publishes pornography of all types. Users' servers are filled with pornographic pictures and mov- ies depicting everything from healthy erotica to women bound and gagged with chains. Baker's story went farther than most, but it was just that: a story. Except that linguistics major Baker had trouble thinking of names for his victims. There he made his fatal error, using the real name of a woman who he remembered from his Japanese class. At that point, according to the authorities, the story became a threat. If he had not used her name, he would probably be a free man. The use of the name is serious, and Baker was obviously not thinking clearly when he made this mistake. But does he deserve to go to jail for it? The story itself probably does not vio- late obscenity laws, according to Joan Lowenstein, a communications lecturer who teaches a class on First Amendment Law. "You can buy this same kind of stuff in Hustler," she said. Yet the gruesome acts of violence Baker's story portrays strikes many people as sick, and many others as frighten- ing and dangerous. Where does free speech end and pathology and threats begin? Baker was suspended because he was viewed as a threat to the University commu- nity. But was he? "I'm into SF (science fiction), roleplaying, anime, & computers," Baker says in his X-500 description, sounding like any other University student with slightly geeky tendencies. His stories seem to be the classic case of the young man without much experience with women who lets out his frustration and fear of rejection through violent fantasies. In their stories, they are powerful; in real life, they are quiet guys who spend their time calculating maximum skill points for role-playing games. On the other hand, one could argue that fantasy leads to action - that sooner or later, Baker would have acted on one of his stories. Supposedly many mass murderers start out by fantasizing. But Baker's story, twisted as it is, was intended as a sexual fantasy. Sexual fanta- sies come in all shapes and sizes, and sado- masochism is not uncommon. Many people fantasize about sexual acts which they would never want to try in real life. There are women, for example, who have rape fanta- sies. This does not mean the woman wants to be raped - in the fantasy, she controls what happens and enjoys the imagined lack of control. Real-life sex is not immune to these impulses either. Although many people be- lieve that pain and humiliation are not part of healthy sexuality, other perfectly normal adults indulge in sadomasochism with their partners. "The sexuality of most male hu- man beings contains an element of aggres- siveness - a desire to subjugate," Freud wrote in his Essays on Sexuality. Like it or not, the human sexual drive has strong ties to the aggressive impulse, and having power or not having power can be a turn-on. The explicitly feminist Ms. Maga- zine once published a number of letters from liberated women who admitted that they liked to be spanked during sex. As long as both parties are consenting, sadomasoch- ism can be an exciting and healthy part of sex. Baker's story goes beyond garden-vari- ety S & M, but our ambivalence about deviant sexual practices in general is evi- dent in this case. Baker's story was a fantasy, so he didn't need anyone's consent but his own. How- ever, the useofareal woman's name changed this: She was not a consenting party in this fictional account. Yet it was fictional and not real ... and the debate continues on and on in circles. Cases like this almost always become personal. From that vantage point, I can come to only two conclusions. First, if the details of Baker's story and correspondence are enough to land him in jail, I'd be obliged as an upstanding citizen to turn in about half of my friends. Second, if I saw my own name attached to such a violent and fright- ening story, I would be upset, angry and scared. As both a feminist and a defender of free speech and sexual freedom, I can only come away from the case more confused than before, wondering if these questions will ever be answered. 01 0 11 " I 01 Activism gone awry Just what are Rutgers students protesting? Jim LA SSER SRAR AS TOAST 00 0 0e 0ULJ o r0 ailt ( r NoTABLE QUOTABLE "It's time to get off our duffs, get on our feet and fight for the values we believe In." - Mark Brewer, newly elected head of the Michigan Democratic Party, on the party's efforts to reinvigorate itself The recent uprisings at Rutgers University demonstrate the double-edged sword of student activism on college campuses. In this particular case, it shows how student demon- strations can promote student awareness of campus affairs. All too often, major issues on campus that affect students are easily swept under the carpet of student apathy --students may collectively disagree with something that occurs on campus but fail to do anything about it for lack of incentive. Unfortunately, the demonstrations at Rutgers also represent how students can react too swiftly to a hot-button issue such as racism without carefully examining all the facts. Rutgers President Francis Lawrence made a jumbled statement during a speech in Novem- ber essentially saying that minorities lack the genetic and hereditary backgrounds to score well on standardized tests. The statement does not fall in line with the content of the rest of his speech and is clearly taken out of context. Furthermore, as the governing board ofRutgers has duly noted, Lawrence has an outstanding track record on minority recruitment to the university. Lawrence has also made every ef- fort to repudiate his statement and apologize to all those involved. Unfortunately, all sense of reason has been lost in the student demonstrations. The yelling and screaming for Lawrence's resignation have crossed the line from open debate and dis- course to quasi-riots. These actions have nearly resulted in violent attempts to disrupt univer- sity meetings on the issue of Lawrence's per- ceived racism. The rush to judgment by student groups to label Lawrence as a symbol of racism and oppression are clearly misguided and have not taken his exemplary academic record toward minorities on campus into account. Any at- tempts at reconciliation by leaders or individu- als have caused further problems with students and faculty being labeled "sellouts" to the "racist cause." The demonstrations at Rutgers must be stopped by the organizers themselves. The emotional issue of racism is far deeper and much more complex than one statement taken out of context can reveal. What the students who chose to disrupt the recent Rutgers-Mas- sachusetts basketball game fail to realize is that their tactics of harassment and disruption are doing nothing to serve their greater pur- pose of subverting racism on campus. Rather, they are serving to destroy a man who has already paid for his mistake. Student groups across the country should take notice of this sad case at Rutgers and learn from it: Emotional demonstrations that seek only to destroy one man do nothing to solve the problem of racism itself. The governing board of Rutgers is to be commended for recognizing Lawrence's record and standing behind him. In the best interest of the university, student groups should do the same. p LETTERS 'U' actions in Baker case deplorable To the Daily: Something's rotten in the state of this University. Many of us have recognized for years that the so-called code is a thinly disguised attempt on the part of the current administration to extend its powers to non-aca- demic aspects of students' lives under the guise of giving stu- dents more voice by allowing them to prosecute (persecute?) each other. Now we see, to paraphrase Monty Python, the power-mad- ness inherent in the system. A University student has the te- merity to post a sado-masochis- tic sex fantasy on the Internet. He compounds his folly (and opens his judgment to serious question) by using the name of another Michigan student (re- grettably, a female: Would we be seeing quite this response from the administration had he chosen another male? Is it po- litically correct to interfere in a homosexual fantasy, even if it involves rape and torture? If provisions of his own code: In humiliating fashion the Kampus Kops grab Baker as he is leaving class and inform him that he is suspended. The justification for this presidential intervention: According to Mary Lou Antieau, Duderstadt invoked powers granted him by the regents to deal with a "psychological emer- gency." This is almost too rich. The two months that passed between the post and the suspension with- out Baker doing anything other than spewing his socially "un- usual" sexual imagination in a public place suggest that he is hardly in a state of emotional emergency. It appears he has never contacted the female stu- dent in question. Indeed, she would be blithely unaware that her name had been used in the story, had the administration perhaps exercised more com- mon sense than it did political expediency. Without debating the wis- dom or taste Baker exercised in making his Internet entry, I sug- gest that neither foolishness nor vulgar taste are crimes, that Mr. Baker has not received due pro- cess under the code because the 'U' overreacts to Baker post To the Daily: I have followed the story of a University of Michigan student who is on the verge of being expelled from the University for posting an article which was a description of a sado-masochis- tic fantasy involving a fellow stu- dent on an Internet newsgroup. I have not read the article in question, the subject not being my cup of tea, but Iam perplexed and disappointed by the Univer- sity response to it. It is my under- standing that the student in ques- tion had not made and is not accused of having made any overfly threatening acts. His only guilt is that of writing down and publicly expressing a fantasy. It is a matter of historical fact that the Internet newsgroups have been largely self-policing, with people freely expressing views and other people commenting on those views in public forums or privately, through electronic mail. This free and frank ex- change of opinion is what has been attracting public and lead- ing to the phenomenal growth of the Internet. Actions such as your ever pressure in can to bear in thi. case so that the right to express oneself freely is not infringed now or in the future. Oleg Rovner Poway, Calif. Honor Marley To the Daily: Last Monday, Feb. 6,.was th birthday of a "Legend.". In pas years, the Daily has printed a tribute to Bob Marley on his birth- day. I was very dissappointed by the lack of one this year -Bob Marley 50th birthday. Bob Marley is not just a dead pop music star. He is not Jim Morrison, not Janis Joplin, and not Jimi Hendrix , he is morO than these people. Although these musicians and rebels helped to define a period in history and rock music, Bob Marley's legacy transcends time and music. He was a poet and a messenger. He wasthe voice for all the oppressed of the world, and his lyrics con- tinue to hold meaning today. The words, not the music, are at th* base of Bob Marley's songs. The catchy beats and melodies of his music were his way of getting people to listen to his mesage. Until his death in 1981 he Freedom of Information Act Officer Lewis A. Morrissey, chief freedom of information officer 2012 Fleming Administration Building 1340 763-5082 Handles all requests for University documents publicly available under the Michigan Freedom of I