We are pleased that Brian Zack ’72 agrees that Princeton should establish a center to support students who seek to lead chaste lives (letters, April 22). Dr. Zack’s endorsement is especially impressive in view of his own commitment to an extremely liberal view of sexual ethics.
Zack insists that “Sex on a Saturday Night” is designed to discourage date rape and not to promote liberal sexual ideology. Videotapes exist. Why not let readers decide for themselves? Will Dr. Zack join us in asking the University to post the tapes on the Internet so that alumni, parents, and young men and women who are considering applying to Princeton can see what Princeton requires its entering students to attend?
Dr. Zack also defends “Safer Sex Jeopardy.” His desire to “desensitize taboo topics” is not in the least surprising given his views about sexuality: He says that the University should support all sexual values that do not harm others. He regards no consensual sexual practice as so degrading, depersonalizing, or dehumanizing as to warrant exclusion from the University’s support. “Sex Jeopardy” does a very good job of inculcating in students a view of sexuality very much in line with Dr. Zack’s own. It’s no wonder he wants the University to continue strongly encouraging it.
Dr. Zack claims that we are guilty of an “an uncritical imposition” of our “personal value judgments, as if [our] concepts of morality are unarguable.” Nonsense. We have no power to “impose” our values on Princeton’s administration, faculty, and students, or on readers of PAW. All we can do is state our reasons and arguments. Does Dr. Zack not see the difference between imposing — as, for example, when the University makes attendance at “Sex on a Saturday Night” mandatory — and stating one’s views?