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To the Editors:

Although I may not be the intended audience for The Oberlin Review, being a parent in Oberlin and not a student, this paper inadvertently reaches many, including children, through its wide availability in town. On this basis alone, the content of the Review should be appropriate for any of those who have access to it if such broad access is to be desirable.

I was shocked to see what at best could be called extremely tasteless photos with adjacent text in your coverage of Safe Sex Night. From what I could see and read in the Review, this event was more a display of exhibitionism by a group of students than a serious attempt to disseminate information. Perhaps a Health Center sponsored workshop would be a more suitable and certainly a far more tasteful way to present such information than what appeared to be a public display of sexual activity. Rather than Safe Sex Night, it looked more like just... Sex Night.

While The Oberlin Review functions as a student publication, it does reflect the college, to parents and their young children who may be considering Oberlin as their college choice. Is this kind of press the result of a highly visible minority, and not the ‘silent’ majority of students in attendance here?

Is the college administration and faculty, in part, to blame for losing sight of their responsibility to instill the highest standards of public conduct in these young people as well as the highest level of education?

I no longer bring the Review into the home to protect my children from inadvertently being exposed to inappropriate material. A sad comment on an Oberlin College publication... As a consumer and a parent of children who have a serious interest in Oberlin College, I find this kind of public image skewed at best and very disturbing at worst.

–Gina McKay Lodge
Town resident