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from www.courant.com – Sex Week is coming to Yale – complete with a porn star, anti-porn advocate and a “love week” alternative.

Sex Week 2012’s porn princess, Maggie Mayhem [pictured], is not expected to wreak havoc on the Yale University campus as her stage name might suggest. Mayhem, who declined to give her real name for personal protection, is scheduled to be part of a panel discussion about the ethics of pornography during the series of events from Feb. 4-14.

Student organizers — who fought long and hard to have the event this year after facing much friction — say pornography is an important part of the series, but a small part. Besides Mayhem, they have other speakers on their itinerary, including authors and activists.

“We don’t think an issue has to be either exciting or educational. We really think it can be both. That’s doesn’t mean we’re doing anything explicit or inappropriate,” said student organizer Paul Holmes. “The discussion itself should be interesting, and some students will find it stimulating.”

The question for panelists: “Is it ethical to film sex?”

But not everyone on the New Haven campus is attracted to Sex Week. For the detractors, there’s a smaller alternative: True Love Week.

The Undergraduates for a Better Yale College are sponsoring their own event from Feb. 5-14 on Yale’s campus to counteract what they perceive as the casual “hook-up” culture promoted by Sex Week, which they had petitioned against.

“They’re trying to make their agenda look more palatable by putting an educational cloak around it,” co-founder of Undergraduates for a Better Yale College Eduardo Andino said.

Mayhem, a self-proclaimed “sex positive activist” and “sex educator,” said in an email that she’s still working on creating a format for her participation in Sex Week 2012, the controversial continuation of a biennial series of events that started 10 years ago at the Ivy League school.

But, she shared that she entered the world of porn later than most — at age 24 — upon the request of a studio.

“I thought about it long and hard and I realized that I wanted to have the opportunity to immortalize my youth. I’ve been a long time defender of free speech who is unashamed of my sexuality and empowered by sharing it with others,” said the California-based porn actress whose web site www.missmaggiemayhem.com boasts she has coordinated a free and anonymous HIV testing clinic.

“Sexuality is a part of the human experience and censoring the human experience only serves to harm us and maintain our ignorance. The prohibition of porn is not an option but challenging the capitalist structures of the porn industry is…”

Also at the round table taking a position on the matter will be author Gail Dines, an anti-porn activist. The work of the Boston-based professor and “feminist activist” has focused on the “hypersexualization of the culture and the way that porn images filter down into the mainstream pop culture,” according to her web site, www.gaildines.com.

Dines, who notes she has a doctorate in sociology, makes it a point to say will be giving a lecture on the harm of pornography before participating in the panel discussion, where various views on pornography will be presented.

Dines says her main beef is not with Mayhem.

“She’s basically a really small player; she’s not a player, really,” Dines said.

The author of “Pornland: How Porn Has Hijacked Our Sexuality,” Dines says her beef is with the porn industry which, in the past decade, has made hard-core films mainstream. She rattles off the names of web sites like http://www.evilangel.com and others too raunchy to mention in a family newspaper.

“It becomes part of the culture because you can’t have that part of sex ed and not have it leak into the real world,” she said. “If advertising can shape human behavior, then why can’t porn shape sexual behavior?”

The roundtable discussion and the other events of Sex Week are no small accomplishment. Students organizers had to fight to keep Sex Week going this year.

After an Advisory Committee on Campus Climate was formed following reports that some Yale frat boys had chanted, “No means yes, yes means anal” on campus, the committee recommended to university president Richard Levin that Sex Week be banned.

But Levin decided to give Sex Week organizers a chance to show their drive.

“We have no intention of suppressing the students’ rights to free expression,” Levin wrote, “But we will not allow the University’s facilities or name to be used in the service of corporate sponsors and the private inurement of student organizers.”