Conner Habib, Porn Star Canceled by Corning U President
Connor Habib / Provided photo
CORNING — An adult film actor, TV host, lecturer and writer whose invitation to speak at Corning Communty College was rescinded came to Corning anyway and spoke somewhere else.
Conner Habib, 35, of San Francisco, gave his lecture, “Sex, Sexuality, Pornography and Culture,” on Thursday at the Southeast Steuben County Library instead of at CCC.
Habib said he was asked to speak at the college by Equal, a student group that represents lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, questioning, intersex and asexual students and supporters, as part of CCC’s Sex Week events.
Other topics in the weeklong educational series included “Getting Good at Getting it On: The Importance of Pleasure and Communication,” “Latex, Toys and Bonking,” and “Play Ball: How Society Dictates Your Sex Life.”
The Sex Week schedule that was announced last Friday didn’t include Habib’s talk, which had been set for Thursday.
“The president decided to cancel the talk against student wishes ... because of who I am and what I do,” Habib said in a phone interview with this newspaper.
Bill Little, executive director of the office of institutional advancement at the college, said the college would not let Habib participate because of his fame in pornography.
“Mr. Habib’s celebrity status as an adult film star is inconsistent with the educational theme of this program,” Little wrote in an e-mail to this newspaper.
Little added that the school had no intention of interfering with students’ rights. “Our students are free to express themselves and attend any events they choose,” he said.
Habib said his talk was in line with the other programs during Sex Week. “My talk at Sex Week wasn’t going to be about pornography at all,” he said. “I mean, maybe a little bit.
“It was mostly just going to be a really sort of broad lecture on how we’re as a society kind of screwy when it comes to sex, a little messed up about it, and it’s hard for us to think clearly about it whether culturally or just as individuals in our own sex lives,” he said.
His weekly web show, “Ask The Sexpert,” discusses sexuality and sexual health; it appears on Newnownext.com, a website owned by the Logo TV network.
For his presentation at the library, Habib slightly changed the content of his talk, which had “pornography” in its title.
“Because (the original talk) was sort of silenced because of who I am, not because of the content of the talk, ... I’m mostly going to just try to create discussion, so it’s going to be much more people talking with each other, people talking with me about certain issues surrounding sex and sexuality,” Habib said before speaking at the library.
The talk and open discussion would cover “healthy sexual attitudes, sexual rights, freedoms and civil liberties,” according to a poster for the speech.
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