from www.yaledailynews.com – Gay porn star Brent Corrigan is available for birthday parties and fashion shows, but an attempt to book him for Yale’s Pride Month fell through.

Sean Lockhart, a well-known star in the adult entertainment industry who goes by the stage name “Brent Corrigan,” lambasted Yale students and faculty on his blog for rescinding his invitation to visit campus.

Though Lockhart claimed on his blog that Yale faculty did not let him come to campus because they did not find him “appropriate,” Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Trangender Cooperative Coordinator Alejandro Bustillos ’11 said the decision not to bring Lockhart to Yale was made for a variety of reasons, ranging from cost to an already-overbooked calendar of events.

An organizer of Pride Month added that Lockhart could only come to campus one day, and planners could not find a suitable “forum” for him to take part in that day.

Lockhart, who could not be reached for comment, wrote on his blog last week: “Various esteemed professors … and a few students were vocal enough in their opposition to my presence on campus. They didn’t find me appropriate for the scholarly adults that attend Yale University.”

Pride Month organizers had a number of reservations about bringing Lockhart, Bustillos said. He said the co-op had made arrangements to get the requested amount of funding, but Lockhart continued asking for more than planners thought necessary. Bustillos added that because of the many events to plan for Pride Month — 29 in total according to the Yale Pride Facebook page — organizers were already in the process of cutting some events and did not believe it was worthwhile to put extra efforts into booking Lockhart.

Bustillos, who said he was not directly involved in planning Lockhart’s visit, said the nature of Lockhart’s talk had never been nailed down and that discussions were still going on when Pride Month coordinators “scratched off his name.”

“We saw more issues with bringing [him] to campus than not having him here at all,” Bustillos said. “And we were on the rocks about having him anyway.”

Lockhart, who was the subject of scandals in recent years for making pornographic films as a minor and for making films without using condoms, might have spurred a controversy on a campus known for having groups like Community Health Educators devoted to promoting safe sex practices, Bustillos said.

“If we brought [Lockhart] to campus there might be groups that would backlash,” he said.

While Bustillos said it was true that “there was faculty involvement” in the decision not to bring Lockhart to campus, he said he did not know the nature of such involvement. The other Pride Month organizer interviewed said such involvement was limited to discussion with a college master about bringing Lockhart for a Master’s Tea, which did not pan out.

Director of the Office of LGBTQ Resources Maria Trumpler said she did not see Lockhart’s name on of any lists of Pride Month events that she had seen. Dean of Student Affairs Marichal Gentry said he was unfamiliar with the situation.

Still, visits from members of the pornography industry are not unprecedented at Yale. During Sex Week in February, transgender porn star Buck Angel spoke during a Pierson College Master’s Tea about his personal history. Two years ago, Sex Week also brought in heterosexual porn stars Ron Jeremy and Monique Alexander during a “Great Porn Debate” with opponents of pornography.

But Lockhart quipped on his blog that he had moved past his original disappointment about visiting Yale.

“I don’t fit in on an Ivy League campus,” he wrote on his blog. “I would likely leave an indelible impression that, try if they might, denizens of the school could never manage to wash away.”

from www.phibetacons.nationalreview.com – Today, the Yale Daily News announced that a scheduled campus visit by a gay porn star has been canceled. This particular “actor” is best known for two things: making porn while he was still a minor, and not using condoms, which are standard in the gay-porn industry. He was supposed to speak on campus as part of “Gay Pride Month.”

It isn’t entirely clear from the article why the event was canceled. A student organizer cited schedule conflicts, but he also stated, cryptically, that “there was faculty involvement” in the decision. He could not say what that “faculty involvement” entailed.

Perhaps controversy over Yale’s highly pornified “Sex Week” back in February has caused administrators to crack down on the endless stream of porn stars lecturing Yale’s students. Or perhaps a condom-free gay-porn star doesn’t mesh well with the university’s relentless program of “safe sex” promotion.

I think the latter is a more likely source of faculty objections. The fact is, Yale administrators have no problem playing host to even the most extreme pornography. I know because I asked the university directly.

After witnessing a porn star’s live, partially nude instruction on sadomasochism during Sex Week at Yale back in February, I e-mailed Mary Miller, the Dean of Yale College and asked her whether she thought Sex Week received adequate oversight from the university administration. I also asked her whether she felt it was appropriate for students to participate in sadomasochistic exercises with guest lecturers in Yale classrooms. Finally, I asked whether she was concerned that such episodes might send the wrong message to students about Yale’s attitude toward sexual violence.

I received the following response through a university spokesman:

Sex Week At Yale (SWAY) is a student organized and student produced series of events. SWAY is not a registered student organization and is not sponsored, sanctioned or funded by Yale College or Yale University. While the administration may find aspects of SWAY distasteful or offensive, Yale’s policies on free expression permit students to invite the widest range of speakers, politicians, writers and performers to campus.

One could argue that hosting such events amounts to, in a sense, having “sanctioned” them. And the claim that Yale provided no funding for Sex Week is simply not true. Sex Week director Colin Adamo told me that Yale provided grant funds to publish printed materials for Sex Week. These inaccuracies aside, to me, the remarkable thing about Yale’s statement is the fact that live sadomasochistic performances and the screening of violent pornography fall squarely under the university’s definition of “free expression.”