Porn Wins Cambridge Debate

The Cambridge Union Society, founded in 1815, likes its debates. Last week, the historic union tackled pornography, concluding — by 44 votes — that it “provides a good public service.”

The debate attracted a great deal of attention in the media last month because of the amount of people from the adult industry who were on board to participate. For the proponents, there was Anna Span; Johnny Anglais, the Essex teacher who was outed as a porn star last year and dismissed; and the sex educator Jessi Fischer. On the side of the opposition was the born-again-Christian and former porn star Shelley Lubben; the antiporn feminist Dr. Gail Dines; and Dr. Richard Woolfson, a child psychologist.

Anna Span focused a great deal of her discussion on Lubben, which is not very sporting, but then these events seldom are. For her part, Lubben did a phenomenal job of completely alienating the audience, which essentially lost the opposition their victory at Cambridge.

Per the Cambridge First:

But when Ms Lubben took to the floor, arguably the headline act, her passion and anger hid her argument. The audience did not react well to this. Resting on the lectern, her high-heeled shoe subconsciously beating on the floor, her impassioned attack on the porn industry strayed from the academic debate.

“This is nothing funny or glamorous about this industry,” she said. “Pornography doesn’t do a good public service because it is lying to you. I have the evidence. It’s lying to you. It’s modern day slavery.”

And with that, the Cambridge students voted for porn.

It may not be this simple. Or it may be more simple than this. Porn-positive proponents celebrate this victory, clutching it triumphantly. But we can’t help but wonder what, exactly, this debate has achieved? The battle rages on, no closer to resolution than it was before all these publications took hold of the story, eager for the pageviews that any porn-related story promises to deliver.

What we can celebrate is Cambridge Union Society’s president Lauren Davidson for having the balls to approach the topic. We can only hope it’s based on an honest interest and not just a passing fancy for a “hot topic.”

MORE:
Did Shelley Lubben Blow the Cambridge Porn Debate? on AVN
Does Pornography Provide Good Public Service? on the BBC