Coming clean about quotes
By Minkin Zhang
Published on Monday, May 8, 2006
To the Editor:
I'd like to respond to last Thursday's article on pornography ("Pornography becomes more socially acceptable," May 4). The article misrepresents my opinions of pornography, presenting comments I made in a joking fashion in a way that was totally out of context.
The author asked questions that were random and unrelated, yet my candid and exaggerated jokes were woven together in a way that made it sound like I recognized a campus need for porn, found a source nobody knew about and proudly distributed it. Although I used Direct Connect for file-swapping purposes, it was not to distribute pornography as the article suggests. My comment that porn distribution was some kind of community service was obviously a joke, yet the article made it sound sincere.
Had I known that only my most outrageous and joking comments would be used for the article, I would have never allowed my name to be published. I am disappointed that my most obviously sensational comments were presented as serious opinions in a fashion that was disingenuous.