Her Mom and Dad Must Be Proud

Oh, yeah, it's controversial: the idea that women "want" to get raped.

And some ditzy blonde "editor" at the UW-M Post tells the world that it's true. With pictures. On the front page of the 11/23/05 issue, no less.

The photo essay, which was published Nov. 23, shows Sara DeKeuster, the publication's photo editor and a senior at the time, being attacked in a parking garage. In the staged scenes, which are titled "Bedtime stories," DeKeuster is slammed against a car by a man posing as a stranger and forced into what photo captions describes as "unexpected intercourse" that leads to her feeling "guilty and rejoiced."

Diego Costa, a graduate student who is the Post's arts and entertainment editor, said in a note to readers that he and DeKeuster conceptualized the essay "in order to explore the age-old repressed female sexuality in its attempt to strip itself of social and feminist constraints." In a follow-up article, Costa, who took the photos, said the work was an "art piece" that expressed DeKeuster's "guilt-ridden sexual desire of getting raped."

....

DeKeuster, who graduated this month with a degree in fine art photography, said the essay was originally done for a class. Her aim, she said, was to use self-portrait film stills as a way of "liberating my sexuality." She said Costa, a graduate student of film who serves as a teaching assistant, took the photos and came up with the captions.

It turns out that those who question the sanity of Sara and Costa are just the usual Neanderthal Red-State schlumps who don't get it:

Critics were even more upset when the Post ran a follow-up story Dec. 7 about the angry reaction on campus, in which Costa dismissed it as "typical of people whose understanding of art is so superficial" - a sentiment that he and DeKeuster maintain today.

...

Costa, meanwhile, said he will strive to publish "other things in the future that will question the order of things."

The dumb jack evidently thinks the phrase "Ars pro gratia Artis" actually has some foundation in rightly-ordered Western thought.

UW-M, of course, is helpless. They can't take action "because the Post receives no University funding," --only FREE OFFICE SPACE AND PARKING!!

"They see themselves as an independent newspaper, and we treat them as such," [Provost Rita] Cheng said this week. "This is a very sensitive issue of independence and freedom of speech."

Earth to Ms. Cheng: FREE OFFICES AND FREE PARKING ARE STATE SUBSIDIES. Get your act together and toss these morons out into the real world.

You're damned right, by the way, if you think I'm a little exercised about this particular topic.