The Home Page · The Integral Worm · My Resume · My Show Car · My White Papers · Organizations I Belong To
Technical Writing · Exposition & Argumentation · Non-fiction Creative Essays · Grammar and Usage of Standard English · The Structure of English · Analysis of Shakespeare
Analysis of Literary Language · Advanced Professional Papers · The History of the English Language · First Internship: Tutoring in a Writing Workshop · Second Internship: Advanced Instruction: Tutoring Writing
Visual Literacy Seminar (A First Course in Methodology) · Theories of Communication & Technology (A Second Course in Methodology) · Language in Society (A Third Course in Methodology) · The Writer's Guild
UMBC'S Conservative Newspaper: "The Retriever's Right Eye" · Introduction to Journalism · Feature Writing · Science Writing Papers
Local Article 1 · Local Article 2 · Local Article 3 · Local Article 4 · Local Article 5 · Local Article 6 · Local Article 7 · Local Article 8 · Local Article 9 · Local Article 10 · Local Article 11
Opinion Article 1 · Opinion Article 2 · Opinion Article 3 · Opinion Article 4 · Opinion Article 5 · Opinion Article 6 · Opinion Article 7 · Opinion Article 8 · Opinion Article 10 · Opinion Article 11 · Opinion Article 12 · Opinion Article 13
Darla Mercado, Retriever Staff writer, November 23, 2004
It’s not every day when UMBC students can get a free peepshow on their way back to their dorms, but Harbor Hall residents got more than a mere eyeful on Wednesday, November 17.
Heather Preston, senior, started undressing in front of her third-floor window around 5:30 p.m. Below, in the Harbor courtyard, Mark Beckhardt, sophomore and confederate in the whole event, took notes on the reactions of passersby. At first, the spectacle attracted several groups of students who happened to be passing by.
However, after a while, students began to collect underneath Preston’s window, staring up at her and shouting, “Naked lady, I love you!” All the while, Preston walked around her apartment and stood in front of her brightly lit window.
“She attracted about 25 people,” Beckhardt said, “A lot of them were blowing kisses and whistling, but some of them even took pictures of her on their cell phones.”
Much of Beckhardt’s and Preston’s chagrin, Katie Walrod, Patapsco’s Community Director, witnessed the spectacle and according to Beckhardt’s informed him that she was filing a report on the event. “The whole situation was handled poorly,” said Preston, “the community director was claiming that the students’ laughter was a sign of distress. No one was distressed!” Preston said that she informed her suitemates of the impromptu show. “They were okay with it, but the community director later claimed that they were distressed — when they actually weren’t,” said Preston. Both Preston and Beckhardt said that when they were reported, they were threatened with legal action for indecent exposure, and they were also told that they might lose their housing. “They were all old enough to behold a nude female body,” said Beckhardt. “Yet the authorities treated us as if we had been offering sexual favors to the students.”
Interestingly, the entire event was a part of Beckhardt’s sociology 101 project: he had to find a way to break a social norm. While Beckhardt’s project was probably one of the most extreme, his classmates broke norms by invading the “personal space” of strangers in casual conversation and by carrying a blaring boom box into the local Giant supermarket.
It’s a norm to keep your body literally under wraps,” Beckhardt stated. “Nudity is something you must go out of your way to find.” After coming up short on ideas for norm-breaking activities, Beckhardt decided to ask Preston, his friend for help. Preston actually undresses regularly in front of her open window; however for the sake of the experiment, she remained nude longer than usual.
As of Friday, November 19, neither Preston nor Beckhardt received any phone calls from ResLife. Beckhardt summed up his take on the situation: “People were having a fun time and those who didn’t want to see it just left.
Christopher Paul, unpublished November 30, 2004
In reference to Mercado’s article, “Spur-of-the-Moment Strip Show,” the problem is not that Beckhardt’s project or “social experiment” was extreme, but that the campus of UMBC is extreme.
Compared to other college campuses, UMBC is conservative, which is one of its weaknesses. A university is meant to be a “think tank,” where one can experiment with concepts and explore ideas. A university should provide an atmosphere that nurtures thinking outside the box which is exactly what Beckhardt did.
If this experiment had been performed at say, Drexel University, New York University, S.U.N.Y. Farmingdale or Nassau Community College, it would have been a non-event. Bear in mind none of these universities are considered party schools. These universities allow for exploration in the penumbra. As an example, these universities offer courses in erotic writing. They have sex education as a phys-ed elective and show films of making love.
I looked at our course catalog to find that the art department does not offer courses where artists hone their skills in drawing and painting nudes. Drawing nudes is a fundamental concept in art. I’m a conservative thinker in some areas, but there does have to be a “loosening of the reigns” here at UMBC in some areas, such as when Mercado voiced her disappointment in not being able to order a martini in “Flat Tuesdays.”
Here are some not so well known facts and observations I have made while attending UMBC through the years:
Fact: While viewing “Room with a View” on DVD in ENGL301, during the Fall 2004, there was a scene where the men were bathing outdoors, in the country, at a pond and the director chose to shoot the scene with full frontal male nudity depicting the scene splendidly as though the camera was not there. Afterwards, some students voiced their complaints about the full frontal male nudity scene to the professor. The day the video was shown, the regular professor was not able to attend class, so there was a substitute professor standing in the substitute assumed that a junior level college class audience was mature enough to deal with the showing of a nude male scene and never made mention of it. The next week, the regular professor had to apologize for not being in class during the presentation to “shield and protect,” sensitive members of the audience.
Fact: Members of the Bartleby nonfiction staff voiced complaints about my nonfiction submission “First Date with Coco.” Reviewers’ distressed over the carnal thoughts revealed by both the authors and the characters within the story, especially the “Ice Cream” scene.
Fact: Retriever’s staff writer, Grace Lo Porto, letter to the editor response published, December 7, 2004, in the Volume 39, Issue 14 of the Weekly Retriever voicing her distaste and other fellow students, for what she said was “morally offensive images” in “Ding’s Works,” artwork published in the Weekly Retriever November 16, 2004, Volume 39, Issue 12. It is difficult to determine whether Lo Porto was referring to the image of a young man sitting on the edge of a bed, a woman with her back to the camera and wearing a “strap-on dildo,” with the camera angle being shot from behind her and between her legs, or was it the image of the black couple in a sexual encounter inside an elevator, or was it both images? Either way nothing is really shown in both images and it is a matter of the power of suggestion that plants the canal thoughts in the viewer’s mind. One could move to further speculate that many of the images portrayed in this display are all of an explicitly expressive sexual nature if one takes a careful look at all the images and if one’s imagination is to run amok.
Fact: Weekly Retriever “Spur of the Moment Strip Show,” Darla Mercado, Weekly Staff Writer, Volume 39, Issue 13. Letter to the Editor, Rebuttal to Spur of Moment Strip Show, Christopher Paul, goes unpublished.
Fact: The disappearance of Bartleby 2005 advertisement announcing that Bartley 2005 was now accepting submissions had a dominatrix on it and disappeared from being posted on campus in two days flat.
Fact: Submission Reviews of “Orange Kiss” in Nonfiction category of Bartleby 2005, Angela Taury said on December 21, 2004, “Wow, this is really creepy, in a Michael Jackson sort of way. What sick weirdo principal worries about students ‘touching themselves’? That’s just gross.” Taury continued, “This was just as disgusting. I didn’t want to know about some guy touching her boob. Gross. These awkward adolescent moments are better left hidden, and for good reason.”
Kayleigh in reviewing the same submission said, “I don't like the sex scenes in this... It's just too awkward. It's not interesting or romantic or really even discussing the fact that it was awkward... Instead, it just makes the reader cringe. I didn't get much of a theme from this one. I guess it's about accepting your own sexuality, but it just seemed a bit gross to me. I wanted to tell this girl that maybe if it feels so awkward, she shouldn't be having sex. She just sounds really naive and as if she's not mature enough to be discussing this topic. It kept me interested in that it weirded me out and I didn't like it. I think that most people that read this would just be grossed out. This girl sounds slutty (sorry, but that's def how it comes off) and unsure of herself. It almost makes me angry. I don't understand what was so great at the kiss at the end, it seems like she's just continuing to not really understand herself. I felt like this author doesn't know herself enough to characterize herself and all the other characters seem to be glossed over. I'd be especially interested to learn about the final guy she's kissing-- what makes this different? This should have been the climax, but it cuts off without any explanation so it doesn't work. I just didn't like this essay at all.”
MATTman said, “If I might digress a moment...why do some girls allow guys to get away with such shallow crap as telling her "Well umm your boob got bigger" and then feeling her up after begging her? Here I am, playing the chivalrous gentlemen caller whereas there are jackasses like this Ben dude--who apparently has the sensitivity of a troll--who grunts to the effect of "huh huh, your boob are purdy"! Christ Almighty. If I said anything like that, I would get hit...HARD. But I am getting carried away with myself. Back to the review... Otherwise, it was just confusing. I was never sure when or where we were. I'm not even sure that there is an audience that would accept such blatant sexuality. This piece was just largely incoherent for me.”
It is interesting to note that the subject was a “nude woman.” Imagine the uproar if it had been a “nude man.” Oh My! Lastly, in the not so famous words of the Method Actors, “You’ve got a brain, you’ve got a sex, some day you’re gonna die. That’s one of the joys of being alive.”
The Home Page · The Integral Worm · My Resume · My Show Car · My White Papers · Organizations I Belong To
Contact Me · FAQ · Useful Links