An Ivy League professor received immediate backlash for describing an article promoting sexual relations with animals as "thought-provoking." After being lambasted online, the Princeton professor said the journal that supports zoophilia is fighting back against "cancel culture."
On Wednesday, Princeton University bioethics professor Peter Singer shared an article from the Journal of Controversial Ideas – a website where he is an editor and that he co-founded.
The article in question is titled: "Zoophilia Is Morally Permissible."
The premise of the article is: "As one of our most deeply entrenched social taboos, zoophilia is widely considered to be wrong, and having sex with animals is illegal in many countries. In this article, I would like to go against this de facto consensus and argue that zoophilia is morally permissible. This would have major implications for how we legally and socially deal with zoophilia."
The author – who wrote under the pseudonym Fira Bensto – claimed, "There is in fact nothing wrong with having sex with animals: it is not an inherently problematic sexual practice."
Singer posted the article on the X social media network, and said the article about humans having sex with animals is "thought-provoking."
"This piece challenges one of society's strongest taboos and argues for the moral permissibility of some forms of sexual contact between humans and animals," the Ivy League professor said. "This article offers a controversial perspective that calls for a serious and open discussion on animal ethics and sex ethics."
— (@)
Suggesting that bestiality is morally permissible was skewered by online commentators.
TheBlaze columnist Auron MacIntyre: "The enlightenment was a mistake."
Anti-abortion activist Lila Rose: "The pro-infanticide Princeton professor of 'bioethics,' Peter Singer, thinks the moral case for humans having sex with animals is 'thought-provoking.' Our Ivy Leagues are beyond depraved."
Theology professor Andrew Snyder: "'If you are on the wrong road, progress means doing an about-turn and walking back to the right road; and in that case, the man who turns back soonest is the most progressive man' (C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity). Turn back. Now."
Associate professor Jennifer A. Frey: "So, we can't eat animals but we can use them to satisfy our lust. Progress is amazing!"
Historian Joshua Charles: "'And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a base mind and to improper conduct.' St. Paul (Romans 1:28) Without grace enlightening his intellect and strengthening his will, the natural man cannot perceive, let alone follow, even the natural law."
Rutgers professor Gary Francione: "Peter Singer continues his campaign to get people to rethink bestiality. He has had a very negative impact on animal ethics in a number of ways. This is one. Another is his view that animals have to have humanlike self-awareness to have a moral interest in continuing to live."
Writer John Nolte: "What is 'thought-provoking' about torturing an animal, which is what this is, which is ALL this is? Good GOD."
Singer responded to the avalanche of criticism by defending the publisher.
Singer noted that he did not write the article, and claimed that the Journal of Controversial Ideas is a "journal that pushes back against 'cancel culture' by providing an outlet for controversial ideas, which authors can publish under a pseudonym."
"The fact that we judge an article worthy of publication does not indicate that I or my co-editors agree with the views contained in it," Singer added.
Singer attempted to justify the position of being pro-bestiality by comparing sex with animals to eating animals.
The Princeton professor juxtaposed animals in a factory farm that eventually gets slaughtered to "an animal living with a person who cares for you and loves you in all the ways that most people love their companion animals, but in addition, this person sometimes has sexual contact with you, making sure that the contact does not hurt you, and leaving you free to move away if you don't like it."
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The cost of tuition, room, and board for a single academic year at Princeton University is $79,540. For that princely sum, depending on which potentially regrettable degree is pursued, a student might enjoy a relatively conventional education — unless, of course, they enter the humanities.
The university, ranked fourth in Forbes' Top Colleges list for 2022, released its 2023 course catalog earlier this month, revealing that classes in BDSM, body positivity, and fetishism will be on offer in the spring semester.
The listings have been met with criticism, with some denouncing the university for funding the dissemination of demeaning, potentially-harmful, and addictive material.
Princeton purports to provide a liberal arts education that broadens students' outlooks and helps "form their characters and values." A new Fox News Digital report highlighted what the university might have in mind in the way of character and value formation.
For starters, there is the "Black + Queer in Leather: Black Leather/BDSM Material Culture" course, which will have students go spelunking through BDSM archives "in research libraries, community groups, and [with] individuals and their personal ephemera."
BDSM (bondage, discipline/dominance, submission, and sadomasochism) is an umbrella term for degenerate and frequently violent sexual relations.
According to the course description provided by the Office of the Registrar, Lewis Center for the Arts lecturer Tiona Nekkia McClodden will have students read: Amber Musser's "Sensational Flesh: Race, Power, and Masochism"; Ariane Cruz's "The Color of Kink: Black Women, BDSM, and Pornography"; Jennifer Nash's "The Black Body in Ecstasy: Reading Race, Reading Pornography"; and other graphic books.
Musser's book allegedly "employs masochism as a powerful diagnostic tool for probing relationships between power and subjectivity."
Cruz's book is said to reveal "BDSM and pornography as critical sites from which to rethink the formative links between Black female sexuality and violence."
One book on the course syllabus is by Mireille Miller-Young, the feminist studies professor charged with grand theft, vandalism, and battery in 2014 for assaulting a 16-year-old pro-life student. Miller-Young pled guilty.
Princeton students won't only be provided with an insight into how to navigate the world as racially-obsessed sadomasochists.
Judith Hamera, a dance professor and the chair of the Lewis Center for the Arts will once again be teaching "FAT: The F-Word and the Public Body."
Hamera, who has taught the class since at least 2016, will return to guide students keen on answering the questions: "How does this 'f-word' discipline and regulate bodies in /as public? ... How might fat be a liberating counterperformance?"
Although a dance credit can be obtained through the completion of the course, no previous performance experience is necessary. Instead of intense physical activity, students will read Susan Greenhalgh's "Fat-Talk Nation: The Human Costs of America’s War on Fat," Cat Pausé's "Queering Fat Embodiment," and "Hunger" by the morbidly obese essayist Roxane Gay.
Extra to violent pornography and rejections of healthy body standards, Princeton students can look forward to learning "about the colonial history of the study of religion and the role of fetishism therein."
In "Anthropology of Religion: Fetishism and Decolonization," students will apparently gain the "tools to critically intervene in ongoing conversations about race, sexuality, cultural difference, and decolonization by becoming familiar with debates on fetishism in anthropology, critical theory, and Black and queer studies."
Fox News Digital suggested that Princeton's forthcoming "Current Issues in Anthropology: Liberalism, Racism & Free Speech" course has also been the subject of some recent controversy.
The course listing suggests that "In the U.S. and Europe, far right activists use 'free speech' to justify hate speech," and indicates that students will "use comparative studies of racist and Islamophobic hate speech" to determine how to manage speech.
Some Princeton undergraduates have expressed concern about the new courses, McClodden's in particular.
Paul Fletcher, a Princeton junior and president of the university's chapter of the pro-marriage Anscombe Society, told the College Fix that he takes issue with the BDSM course's "employment of pornography," noting that according to the course description, "pornographic content is required reading."
"Pornographic content of this sort is highly addictive, particularly to men and women of college age, often correlating with severe anxiety and depression," said Fletcher. "Students cannot just watch it, 'study it,' without consuming it. This is the equivalent of a Princeton course requiring every student to smoke a cigarette each week and 'study' its effects."
Fletcher is not the only student who believes that the course "has no place in a university that prioritizes the wellbeing of its students."
Julianna Lee, a sophomore at the university, told the College Fix that "cultural discourse and understanding are good things, but there is no need to do it in such a way that students are exposed to content that has been scientifically proven to be harmful."
Lee posed the question, "Plenty of people would be vehemently opposed to the idea of glorifying domestic abuse or gun violence, so why is it okay to have a class dedicated to concepts that promote unsafe sexual practices?"
In addition to the paid promotion of deviant lifestyles, Lee suggested that there is no counterpoint offered at the university: "I have not yet seen a single course here dedicated to exploring what it means to love in such a way that minimizes damage, including a clear dating timeline and how to truly will the good of another."
Benjamin Woodard writing for the National Review similarly criticized Princeton for rolling out its identitarian BDSM course, suggesting that the "class should be nauseating to any well-adjusted individual. Desires to harm oneself and others are signs of mental unwellness; exploitative and demeaning pornography is not art."
"To treat the use of other humans for pleasure as a subject of academic appreciation corrupts students’ character. Why would a student spend a whole (expensive) semester taking such a class? Why are students studying sexual perversion in classes at all, outside of, perhaps, the psychology department?" asked Woodard.
Princeton University’s Board of Trustees fired classics professor Joshua Katz for having a consensual sexual relationship with a student over 15 years ago. Katz, who had called a former student group, the Black Justice League, a "small local terrorist organization," was accused of having committed "egregious violations of University policy."
Citing this incident, Woodard underscored how Princeton's ethical pretensions do not appear to comport with the university's promotion of sadomasochism, dehumanization of women, and violent pornography in illegitimate academic fields.
Princeton University student Misrach Ewunetie, who had been missing, was found dead on Thursday.
A press release from the Office of the Mercer County Prosecutor noted that there were no apparent indications of injury and that the young woman's death did not seem to have been suspicious.
"Mercer County Prosecutor Angelo J. Onofri and Kenneth Strother Jr., Princeton University assistant vice president for public safety, announced that at approximately 1 p.m. on Thursday, October 20, 2022, authorities located the deceased body of missing Princeton University student Misrach Ewunetie," the press release noted.
"Ms. Ewunetie's body was found outside on the Facilities grounds behind the tennis courts at approximately 1 p.m. on Thursday by a Facilities employee. An autopsy by the Middlesex County Medical Examiner's Office will determine Ms. Ewunetie's cause and manner of death, however there were no obvious signs of injury and her death does not appear suspicious or criminal in nature," the release added.
\u201cBody of Missing Princeton University Student Found\u201d— Mercer Co Prosecutor (@Mercer Co Prosecutor) 1666294786
Princeton vice president for campus life W. Rochelle Calhoun described the girl's passing as "an unthinkable tragedy."
"Since Misrach was reported missing on Sunday, the Department of Public Safety has been working closely with local and state law enforcement and does not believe there is any related threat to campus or the surrounding area," Calhoun noted. "Misrach’s death is an unthinkable tragedy. Our hearts go out to her family, her friends and the many others who knew and loved her. We are planning an opportunity for students to join together and remember Misrach. Information about the gathering will be shared separately when details are known."
Here is a video report about the story:
Missing Princeton University student Misrach Ewunetie found dead www.youtube.com
A CNN segment on Thursday featured a random college classmate of Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito, who was interviewed because she organized a letter protesting his leaked draft opinion that would overturn the landmark abortion decision Roe v. Wade.
Appearing on CNN's "New Day" Thursday, Susan Squier, a member of the Princeton University graduating class of 1972, slammed Alito's draft opinion, saying it reads like "a greatest hits of misogyny" and that it reminded her of the Salem witch trials.
"When I read the document -- I read all 98 pages of it, and mind you, I'm trained as a scholar of literature and medicine, and I look at nuance. And when I saw that he had smuggled into the document the wording from the Mississippi Gestational Age Act, which, as I understand it -- now I'm not a lawyer -- but isn't even law yet. And he was referring to unborn children rather than fetuses. I was just stunned," Squier, a Penn State University professor, told host John Berman.
"I mean, I have read a lot of medical history going back for doing literature and medicine, and his is like a greatest hits of misogyny," she said.
"He doesn't consider the context. And this man was a historian at Princeton. He was a double major in history and Poli sci. But it is as if he doesn't believe history actually involves a record of things changing. Instead, it is history as, 'let's go back to the Salem witch trials.' It makes me so angry," she continued.
Alito's draft court majority opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization was leaked to Politico last week, which set off a political nuclear bomb. In his draft, Alito writes, "Roe was egregiously wrong from the start. Its reasoning was exceptionally weak, and the decision has had damaging consequences. And far from bringing about a national settlement of the abortion issue, Roe and Casey have inflamed debate and deepened division."
Since the opinion was leaked, abortion rights advocates have sounded their fury, protesting outside the homes of the six Republican-appointed Supreme Court justices and demanding that Democrats act swiftly to codify Roe into federal law.
Squier and a handful of other women who were a part of Alito's graduating undergrad class in '72 joined the protesters with a letter published on May 9, in which they declared their shock and outrage over the conservative justice's draft majority opinion.
"As a pioneering class of Princeton women, we find it bitter indeed to see the draft Supreme Court opinion reverse the strides we thought we were making, as part of one of the first classes of Princeton women, towards a world of equity and fairness for women of all races and social and economic positions," the Princeton grads write.
The letter encourages others to protest, stating, "We ask our classmates, and the community of Princeton, to protest the logic that ties us to a constitutional originalism which resists any movement toward justice but, rather, moves us backwards."
Squier told CNN that the decision to put the letter together happened very quickly.
"It is not that we're doing this because we hope it will change things. I don't know. Wouldn't that be lovely? I don't know, maybe. I'm not that naïve, but there is a time when you just have to speak out," she said. "And those of us who went to Princeton have a privilege of having gone there, we can get listened to. So, we have to speak for the women who cannot get listened to, the women who are going to be massively impacted -- I hate that word -- by this horrible new decision."
(h/t: Mediaite)
Princeton University is offering a Black Lives Matter course, which will teach students about the "historical roots and growth of the Black Lives Matter social movement." Starting this fall semester, Princeton University students can enroll in the "#BlackLivesMatter" course, which will feature readings from a former Black Panther member and avowed Marxist, as reported by The College Fix.
The course description reads:
This seminar traces the historical roots and growth of the Black Lives Matter social movement in the United States and comparative global contexts. The movement and course are committed to resisting, unveiling, and undoing histories of state sanctioned violence against Black and Brown bodies. The course seeks to document the forms of dispossession that Black Americans face, and offers a critical examination of the prison industrial complex, police brutality, urban poverty, and white supremacy in the US.
The course includes readings from Angela Davis' book "Freedom is a Constant Struggle." Davis is an avowed Marxist, former Black Panther member, two-time vice-presidential candidate of the Communist Party USA, and was awarded the International Lenin Peace Prize by the Soviet Union.
The class at Princeton, which has a tuition of $56,010, will be taught by professor Hanna Garth, who is a sociocultural and medical anthropologist.
From Garth's website:
I am most broadly interested in the ways in which people struggle to overcome structural violence. My recent work is focused on the connections between food systems, structural inequalities, health, and wellbeing. This work has looked at the ways in which macro-level changes and shifts in local food distribution systems impact communities, families, and individuals. I have studied how food scarcity and reduced access to affordable food influence individual distress, and household and community dynamics. I have also studied the ways in which food justice organizations attempt to improve access to healthy food for low income communities.
The professor adds, "All of my research, teaching, and mentoring is designed around my commitment to feminist methodologies and critical race theory."
Garth has taught other classes, such as "Race and Racisms," "Postcolonial and Decolonial Theory," and "Theories of Social Justice."
Garth wrote a book titled "Black Food Matters: Racial Justice in the Wake of Food Justice," which "analyzes how Blackness is contested through food, differing ideas of what makes our sustenance 'healthy,' and Black individuals' own beliefs about what their cuisine should be."
"This comprehensive look at Black food culture and the various forms of violence that threaten the future of this cuisine centers Blackness in a field that has too often framed Black issues through a white-centric lens, offering new ways to think about access, privilege, equity, and justice," the overview of the book states.
Garth and Princeton administrators did not respond to requests for comments about the Black Lives Matter course from The College Fix.
In 2020, Princeton University offered a course titled: "Sociology 102: Police Violence, #BlackLivesMatter and the Covid-19 Pandemic." The course will "introduce students to the concept of race and discipline of sociology."
"Students will learn to study systematically how human groups interact with one another and how social networks and a variety of institutions help shape those interactions and outcomes," the course description reads. "How are these interactions and outcomes categorized and understood? Where do different people fit into the social categories we use to make sense of our societies, and why? And how are different actors able to transform those spaces in which to fit?"
In March, Princeton University welcomed Black Lives Matter Global Network co-founder Alicia Garza to hold a lecture titled: "The Purpose of Power."
In a 2015 interview, Black Lives Matter Global Network co-founder Patrisse Cullors said that she and Garza are "trained Marxists."
"Myself and Alicia in particular are trained organizers. We are trained Marxists," Cullors said in the interview. "We are super-versed on, sort of, ideological theories."
The Black Lives Matter Global Network website previously declared that the organization was against the nuclear family.
"We disrupt the Western-prescribed nuclear family structure requirement by supporting each other as extended families and 'villages' that collectively care for one another, especially our children, to the degree that mothers, parents, and children are comfortable," the BLM organization stated in its "About" section before deleting it last September.
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