Last week Daily Illini columnist Brian Pierce urged students to take advantage of the anonymous HIV testing McKinley offers. To me, the most memorable part of the piece was when he frankly and nonchalantly told DI readers his answers to the sexual history questions McKinley asked. Without going too much into detail, I’ll say I was quite a bit taken aback by what he wrote, and I know I was not the only one.

I completely understand and sympathize with those readers out there who were surprised, shocked and even a little offended at Brian’s candid sharing. I do not want to hear about the sexual escapades of others, and I believe there are certain things that you just do not talk about – at least not to the entire University. I was further scandalized by the fact that I actually know Brian, and to me he’s not just some guy who writes columns in the paper.

But Brian, while I wish I knew far less (or better yet, nothing at all) of your bedroom encounters, I still support your right to tell me.

In their 1972 ruling of Miller v. California, the Supreme Court handed down their standard of obscenity in an edict which decreed that both community standards and the literary, artistic, political, or scientific value of a work must be taken into account.

Community standards refer to what the average person in that community would find offensive. The community for the DI is the student population of the University of Illinois. While this is admittedly an incredibly diverse population, on average the U of I community is a more liberal one. George W. Bush is more reviled on campus than Mephistopheles himself, and you’d think Barack Obama had just allotted us the money to repair every musty, dilapidated building on the Quad for the effect he commands.

This liberal slant applies not only to the political landscape but the social and cultural ones as well. Certain aspects of humanity which are not only tolerated, but celebrated here, would never take root elsewhere. It’s that over-arching campus attitude which brings us the Ally program, the Booze news and the protest-friendly Quad (I know that is an odd triumvirate of things to place together, but just go with it). And although I personally thought Brian’s column went a bit too far, I recognize that my own beliefs fall just right of center.

The second guideline set down by the Supreme Court deals with the literary, artistic, political or scientific value of the work. If the work lacks value within those four categories then it is obscene, which is to say the work must serve some purpose other than cheap thrill or shock value. Sometimes, it is easy to draw these lines – who questions the artistic value of Michelangelo’s David?

Other times it can be hazier. You could argue that Brian wrote what he did just to jar his readers and held no such value. But perhaps the embarrassment I felt even as reading that column was supposed to mimic the embarrassment Brian felt when he had to answer those questions. Maybe not, but regardless he and the editor had the right to print such material.

Political science professor Thomas Hoffman said the issue was “really a matter of editorial discretion,” and the question is “the idea of tastefulness.”

Tastefulness is a good key word for this topic. I certainly would have chosen a much different approach to the subject and believe the same point could have been made with less personal information. But the Supreme Court offers no promise of protection to ensure any and every individual’s sensibilities are never affronted. Despite the repeated victories by the politically correct enforcers, there is still no such thing as the right not to be grossed out.

All preferences aside, I hope we can all agree that the freedom of the press is much better than the freedom not to be offended.