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Lights, camera, action: Desiring to explore new things, Yale students to film porn flick

When envisioning the typical Yale student, one might picture a productive person who acts decisively and has direction. One group of Yalies embodies that description — though perhaps not in the way expected.

The members of Yale's Porn n' Chicken club — who gather weekly to eat fried chicken and watch pornography — are producing, directing and acting in a full length pornographic movie named "The Staxxx." The name comes from the University's Sterling Memorial Library stacks, a possible shooting location.

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Porn n' Chicken, founded in 1996, has a large following, according to members, that sometimes exceeds 100 viewers in a week. In an e-mail, the club expressed its goals to be more than watching pornography: "At the deeper level, [the group exists] to force Yale students to reevaluate the social constructs and stigmas surrounding sexuality and all of its broader implications."

The motivation for the film, according to the e-mail, was to reach a broader audience of Yale students, to depict "the complexity and aesthetic beauty of the sexual experience as well as the intellectual aspects of seduction," and to empower women's roles in pornography.

The film's plot is said to be centered around Yale's secret societies, one of which counts both President Bushes as members. According to Porn n' Chicken's e-mail, the film "is essentially a Bildungsroman revolving around the simultaneous intellectual and sexual coming-of-age of a Yale freshman."

Shooting for the film began in late January after the club posted notices around campus for those interested in the production, according to the group.

The "action scenes," as the club calls the explicit scenes, will involve all genders and sexual orientations and forms of sex. The group wrote that "safe sex will be the exceptionless rule." The club members film plans may seem contradictory to the other parts of their lives; the producers, directors, and staffers have among them an a capella singer, a member of the debate team and a political science major.

One actor, giving the alias "Mississippi Mudd," said in an e-mail, "We're keeping everything really confidential in case anyone winds up being a senator or something!"

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Apparently, the group has already kept a low profile.

"I was pretty surprised to see the cover of The Yale Daily News running the headline 'Sex in the Staxxx,' " said Ben Rose, a freshman at Yale. "I don't really feel it reflects well or poorly on Yale as a school. I didn't know there were people here that were that kinky."

Mackenzie Blumer, a sophomore, agreed, explaining that she doesn't know anyone in Porn n' Chicken and that "no one really does." Blumer says that though she personally objects to the club's activities, it raises important questions.

"It brings up an interesting point," Blumer said. "What is art, and what should Yale and Ivy League students be doing with their educations?"

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Whether it's art or not, "The Staxxx" is scheduled for release on the Yale campus in April. And upon successful completion of its first film, Porn n' Chicken has a new project in mind: " 'Dubya,' a quasi-fictionalized chronicle of George's collegiate sexual exploits," the group announced in an e-mail.