The Offensive Game

Try Drawing Your Way Out of This One

From the Professor Diaries:

ONE DAY IN CLASS, I told everyone to push the chairs out of the way and get ready to draw. I don’t think many of these undergrads had been asked to draw since kindergarten.

I had about a hundred colored pens in my purse and a huge roll of butcher paper. I told them to get comfy with pen in hand, because I was going to ask them to draw a few images for me.

First off, I wanted them to draw something non-erotic, non-sexual, that truly offended them. It had to gross them out and upset them in the worst way. I told them it should be very personal, and that I didn’t care if it was the most common thing in the world or the weirdest.

Since the 1980s, I’ve given lectures, and sometimes taught university courses, on “the Politics of Sexual Representation.” This story is about such a class at UC Santa Cruz in 1995 and 1996.