DARTBOARD

NO MORE SINGLE-SEX SMUT

What's so wrong with penises?

The announcement last week that Playboy would come Harvard came as no surprise to the men of the campus. They have long been victims of sexist phenomena. It's constantly the women being photographed and fawned over. Well, Richard A. Round '69-'95, for one, is sick of it.

Mr. Round, president of the Harvard Association for Equality of Opportunity in the Pornographic Arts (that's HAEOPA--you would have thought they could come up with a snappy acronym), believes that male genitalia are highly undervalued by imagemakers. "Where is Playgirl when you need it?" he asked in an interview with The Crimson. "Porn makers shouldn't discriminate. Harvard guys have just as much to offer as the Cliffies."

Despite the tremendous exposure of social exploitation, the violations of men's rights in this field have been overlooked. In its efforts the destrigmatize pornogrpahy, the self-possessing radical female movement has ignored male models. This neglect is unacceptable.

Preaching from his usual perch in the Square, Mr. Round eloquently expressed the minority opinion. He pleaded with the public: "I want to see scrotum, testicles, penises. Those pornographers don't even realize that the public wants to see us men. Hey, hire me!"

We at Dartboard wish to join Mr. Round in begging the lucrative pornography trade to join the tradition of equal opportunity. We would go so far as to encourage an Affirmative Action program for men to make amends for the past's wrongs. In short, give men a chance.

A BEEF WITH BAMBOO SHOOTS

As if the posted lists of organic chem exam grades weren't bad enough, something new and dreadful has taken up residence in the Science Center lobby. An untitled display about Asian American identity and the value of "Asian American" as a label now occupies a space across from the Green-house Cafe.

The exhibit consists of pieces of imperial red parchment mounted on sticks of bamboo. Yes, you heard correctly: bamboo. Using bamboo sticks for a display that questions Asian American stereotypes is the equivalent of triumphantly shouting, "Ah-so! Me breakee stereotypes!" Come on people, get with the program. This is the nineties and the medium is the message.

Written on the pieces of red paper are students' responses to the question: "Do you strongly identify with being Asian American, or is it just another label?" The responses are plagued by pathos-laden drivel, minority activist jargon and ethnic angst of the Amy Tan variety. They are exactly what one would expect from self-serious Asian college students looking to add excitement to their petty bourgeois existences.

No spectacle would be complete without a gimmick, and this one is no exception. The text of the exhibit is broken up in entirely random places, frequently in the middle of words. In this case, form mirrors content: both are equally bad.

The result of this cheap word ploy? Paragraphs like this one, in which the essential "message" of the exhibit is expressed: "...for the/next time you/see someone wi/th dark hair and/brown or yello/w skin and wan/t to identify the/m with the term/asian american/realize that ho/w you see them/may or may not/be how they ch/oose to/identify/themselves."

The display has taken free verse to a ridiculous and grotesque extreme. We speculate that this was done for (melo) dramatic effect, but it does not succeed in moving us. Call us unfeeling. Call us not trendy enough. But the exhibit's stubborn refusal to acknowledge the wholeness of words and the rules of grammar just gives us a headache.

To top it all off, the organizers of this shameless display of self-pity do not even have the courage to claim responsibility for what they have wrought.

Whoever produce d this maudlin and hideous ass emblage deserves t o be condemned. Please step for ward now and take the b lame.

FEARLESS LEADERS IN LOVE

We try hard to take the Undergraduate Council seriously here at Dartboard, really we do. But don't they have better things to do with their valuable time than running a computer-dating service?

At last week's council meeting, many members protested a motion that would have added a House office hour to their regular council office hour. Now we ask, why do the council members want to squander that precious hour on matchmaking?

The answer, we believe, is simple. Former council president David L. Hanselman '94-'95 has a wife, but look at all those other council heavyweights. Label, Gregoire, Fine, Liston, Coffey, Kaufman, Hyman--they're all men in need of romance and, we're sure Dave would agree, someone to come home to after a long meeting in Sever 113.

We can see the blazing headlines now: "Dating Surveys Found Scattered Around Council Office as Executives Try to Find Matches!" Sure, we know who'll really be doing the processing once all the surveys are in. But why stop there? With questions about children on the surveys, we fully expect that next year's council candidates will run campaigns on "family values."