Sex Appeal

To the Editor:

The Crimson Arts Weekly was not only disappointing in its content, it was also offensive. For lack of news, the Crimson resorted to advertisement through sex to make articles appealing. The cover displays Hugh Hefner surrounded by several Playboy bunnies; the titles of the top stories run: "The Habit of Balling," "James Bond Reduced to a Prissy Liberalism," and "Hot Damn: Texas Has a Whorehouse." The cover and titles are catchy for their aggressive male sexual connotation. The Crimson seems to believe that it can disregard its female readership with impunity.

What can be the "obvious attraction" for a woman, Freudian or otherwise, in "battling a steel ball at targets, into holes, and through chutes"? The writer's explicit association of this description of pinball with sex indicates an abhorrent link in his mind between sex and violence toward women. Mr. Attanasio is not selective, though, in displaying sexual prejudice. He also exhibits racial arrogance in depicting Tommy's Armenian restaurant-owner who emits word-like syllables between "aargh's and grzhth's" and a pinball-playing "short Canuck in a bogus leather jacket." Another writer claims that, "For entertainment, "Whorehouse" is about as dead solid perfect as you'll get." Perfect for whom?

Much of this issue was absurd and distasteful, especially from a woman's point of view. Faludi and Devall's articles, about playwright Arthur Miller and feminist Garry Trudeau respectively, relegated to the back of the Arts Supplement, did something to antidote the miasmal matter of the first half. Their writing and those about whom they chose to write reassured me that indeed, unlike most of this week's Crimson Arts Supplement, some art does serve the end of social liberation. Sincerely,   Mary Holland '80-'81