Porn-ing Your Way Through College 101
Syllabus
Instructor: Conner Habib
Course Description
Every year, hundreds of thousands of barely legal teens are coerced by people more powerful than them, as well as societal pressure, to make the life-altering, no-going-back, always-on-your-permanent-record decision to go to college.
There are serious consequences for this, including discrimination based on your performance, not being able to find a job after college ends, and having to disclose to your partners and lovers what your major is.
Nevertheless, here you are, in a financially and sexually exploitative environment with no foreseeable way out.
Never fear! Pornography is here to help. Porn-ing Your Way Through College will help navigate the ins and outs of pornography, how to enhance your pornographic experience by being in college, and how to pay your way through porn by being in college.
Course Goals
Porn will help you develop valuable skills for navigating the difficult world of college and beyond. These include:
Understanding your sexual boundaries.
Sex is constantly present and potentially dangerous in any college environment. Being in porn will help you develop your boundaries by providing a safe space to experiment with your sexual preferences, constitution, and comfortability. The general rule on porn sets is that performers have a right to say no at any time to any sexual act. Developing this detailed understanding of what boundaries are absolute, and which of your own boundaries you’re interested in pushing, will make sex and the possibility of sexual interaction more pleasant for you off set. Porn will help you understand not just how to say “no” when you don’t want to engage sexually, but also how to say “yes” when you do.
Understanding Sexually Transmitted Infections (STIs).
Most porn studios have some STI protocol in place. This means you’ll be engaging with some combination of basic STI education (including how STIs are transmitted and how to prevent and be aware of transmission), STI testing, and condom or other barrier use. You’ll also learn how to be more aware of your body and sexual health, since your livelihood will depend on it. This will give you important information in your four years of college, as well as potentially transform you into a valuable health resource for your friendly but reckless peers.
Understanding How To Choose What You Want.
Choosing to be in porn is like choosing to be art history major: It’s widely discouraged by our culture. Yet many people find porn and a career in other humanities rewarding and fulfilling. By deciding to be in porn, you’ll be casting away social pressure by deciding your desire and integrity is more important than what our culture says you “should” do. This makes you an ideal role model for incoming freshman who would otherwise throw their lives away traveling a path and choosing a major that’s expected from them.
Understanding How To Create Intimacy.
In porn, you’ll be expected to perform sexual acts with people you may not find immediately attractive. While some people may deem such sexual acts “mechanical,” you’ll find, instead, that they can be fun, athletic, and create a sense of healthy detachment. One of the reasons sex workers are sometimes hired as hospice caregivers in other countries is because they don’t fear the touch of or touching a body that they may not feel drawn to. The detachment that being in porn can help develop the ability to create intimacy rather than to expect it. This will make you a better listener, communicator, and less apt to make kneejerk decisions with strangers, professors, or administrators.
Grades
Whether you pass or fail in Porn-ing Your Way Through College will be assessed by a few factors.
These include:
Integration of Porn into Your Present and Future Life.
Let’s face it: Your friends, family, and coworkers, as well as your future employers will probably find out that you’ve appeared in adult scenes. Make sure you’re ready for that. Be able to approach them without apology (ie “I’m just working my way through college!”) or resentment (ie. “Yeah I’m in porn, fuck you, so what?!”). Being able to calmly own your choices and sexuality presents a strong statement to other people and culture, and is more respectable than trying to hide your porn career, which is mostly impossible.
Managing the Rest of Your Affairs.
The down-to-earth nature of performing filmed sexual acts for money may make college, with its emphasis on theories, obedience, and beauracracy seem ungrounded and arbitrarily demanding. Make sure you keep your affairs in order, though. Even though the academia is unreasonable and demeaning, it’s important that you stay the course and attend to your responsibilities. It’s also important to keep your financial situation in order by keeping track of your taxes (ask your accounting professor for help!) and saving some money in the event that you’re unable to appear in porn during busy times like finals week.
Responsibility to Promoting Sex-Positivity and Other Sex Workers.
Now that you’re in porn, you’re in the public eye, people are going to have expectations of you, and be looking to you for guidance when it comes to the confusing and culturally fucked up world of sex. People will appropriately or inappropriately bring up sexual topics and express their curiosities prejudices about what you and other sex workers do. Everyone should have the right to express themselves sexually provided consent is present for all parties, sex work is work, and you should hold your head high for yourself and others. Make sure you’re able to patiently hear questions about your sex worker peers, including other porn performers, escorts, strippers, online sex cammers and amateurs, and to answer with compassion.
Don’t worry about being perfect, just do what you can!
Join an organization like the Adult Performer Advocacy Committee (APAC) or lend a helping hand at St. James Infirmary to interact with and support your peers. Meet with your on-campus LGBT or sex positive student groups.
Recommended Reading
Playing the Whore by Melissa Gira Grant
My Dangerous Desires by Amber Hollibaugh
Porn Studies edited by Linda Williams
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With thanks to Christopher Frizzelle, Bravo Delta, and Belle Knox for the inspiration.
Conner Habib 
You are such a brilliant, insightful, humorous, and truthful writer. Thanks!
Well done… very humorous and clever. Really nailed it with “Understanding How To Create Intimacy” in particular.
Conner while I always get kick out of your wry look at life, what’s far more important is that you say things that are so rarely said in public but really need to be heard by so many people!
Nice reading. Where did Bryce Star end up?
In West Holywood. 🙂 I don’t know what he’s up to these days, but I see him around from time to time.