Sometimes Being in the Wrong Feels so Right

In the fall semester of my second year of college, my Danzig-loving anti-masturbation roommate from the prior year and I moved in with an awesome third roommate. Dianne and I somehow were on the same strange wavelength. One day, as we strolled through the East Village, we decided that it would be extremely funny to decorate our dorm room door with pictures of naked men cut out from porn magazines. We purchased a variety of select publications, and rushed back to the room, where we spent hours laughing hysterically as we snipped out pictures of men water flowers with their hoses and other cheese. Eager to share the laugh riot with our fellow students, we taped these pictures to the outside of our door, which faced the elevator.

Yeah, for reasons I cannot fathom, other students did not find the pictures as amusing as we did. The elevator door would open, someone would gasp, and then the doors would shut again and they’d be whisked away, their eyes bleeding. Several other residents on our floor insisted that they were degrading to men and that we take them down immediately. They took their case to our floor’s resident assistant, who knocked on our door on behalf of all the offended souls and told us to remove the obscenities.

I happened to hate our RA because he was an idiot, and while I was well aware of the fact that we had crossed a line with our artistic vision, I would not back down. I asked him why we had to remove our pictures of humans in their natural state. He replied that it offended people. I asked him who it offended. He said he could not tell me. I insisted that I had the right to confront my accuser. He had no idea what to say to this ridiculous, but official sounding charge, so he just told me that I could not do so. I asked why not. He said because. Blah blah blah.

At any rate, I eventually told him that I was offended by the pictures on his door (of photocopied Star Wars characters, one with a light saber) and said that he had to take his pictures down if I had to. He replied that there was nothing I could possibly be offended by, thus he would do no such thing. That’s when I nailed him. “But I am very sensitive to depictions of violence, and these pictures are upsetting to me because of the fighting portrayed.” Oh shit. He had no idea what to say to that. He just stood there with his mouth hanging open while I said I planned to report him to the building manager. The sad conclusion to the story is that the building manager moved him off my floor at the end of the semester because he could not handle me. (Really, he should have been fired for being an incompetent ass, but NYU management loves idiots.) To remain in housing, Dianne and I drew fig leaves and taped them over the crotches of our naked men and pretended to be incensed that we were so wrongfully censored.

Damn, that makes me laugh.