Q Fall 2011 by Q

ALSO How the Internet is changing queer life 12 Working for equality in West Virginia 18 The Lowdown: Polyamory 24 Oscar Wildeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s visit to Yale 35 The art of Andrew Sotiriou 27

How Queer is Sex Week? Fall 2011 Vol. 2 Issue 1

YOU SERVE, YOU CREATE!

CAMPUS PROGRESS FUNDS, TRAINS, AND MENTORS STUDENTS RUNNING A DIVERSE AND GROWING GROUP OF PROGRESSIVE CAMPUS MEDIA ORGANIZATIONS. FOR MORE, VISIT CampusProgress.org/JournalismNetwork.

From the Editor On any college campus as closed off from its surroundings as Yale is, it is easy to slip into the idea that queer looks a certain way, that there exists in a specific set of signs or signals an apotheosis of queerness or queer self-representation. This is hardly a new phenomenon; in 1882, Oscar Wilde arrived at Yale to meet a campus that had already pre-imagined his queerness and what that queerness looked like. But just as our inaugural issue and recurring “We Are Yale” feature suggest with their diversified portrayals of queer Yale experience, the reality of queer campus culture, and of a broader queer culture outside of New Haven, has never been as finite as it might first appear to be. It is important, therefore, to interrogate the generalizations used to construct this single image, as well as its origins in media and rhetoric, in order to see a more accurate picture; it is important to understand that a young gay Burmese man might respond differently to the unique challenges that he faces than would a gay mayor in West Virginia. Furthermore, this issue seeks to recognize forms of queer expression that may face exclusion from the perceived canon of Yale queer culture, such as polyamorous or virtual communities. The existence of these queer communities serves to best highlight the multi-faceted nature of what is supposed to be an allencompassing queer movement, but their general exclusion from popular queer discourse shows the extent to which queer culture includes hierarchies of its own. Unfortunately, the extremely varied nature of the queer community does not necessarily reflect a smoother integration of queer culture into broader campus life. With Title IX controversy and also with Sex Week 2012 settling so uneasily upon the campus, the discord between this traditional institution and its sex-positive present is clear at once, as the photograph leading into “Gay S.W.A.Y.” might suggest. By placing objects associated with sex into a conventional still-life composition, the image is intended to question not only whether an active and diverse sexual culture fundamentally corrupts the idea of a traditional Yale, but also conversely whether a healthy, sex-positive culture can truly thrive in a university founded on patriarchal and heteronormative privilege. In this way, the juxtaposition of a complex reality with a carefully constructed identity is not just an issue for queer Yalies, but also for the campus at large. The idea that Yalies do or should act in a certain way, or more to the point, behave a certain way sexually, has given a voice to the normative restrictions many students have been quietly battling their entire Yale careers. The time has come for the campus to decide if we are to continue to hold up the particular and conservative mask which Yale’s history has laid out for us or if we are to rework the identity that we present to the world and embrace the existence of a multifaceted student body, rich with political, religious, sexual, gender, ethnic, and socioeconomic diversity, a goal which can only be achieved through the continuation of open campus discourse without shame or judgment. At a university that so values Light and Truth, it is unconscionable that silence should be the answer.

— Mara Dauphin QMAGAZINEATYALE.COM

FALL 2011 VOL. 2 ISSUE 1

We Are Yale From a conservative Burmese family to the Gay Ivy: the evolution of a sexual identity BY EDWARD OO

Cybergays An exploration of the queer-ification of the Internet and its impact on the lives of queer people BY SIMON COZZENS

Gay S.W.A.Y. Amidst a swarm of controversy, Q examines the role of queers in Sex Week and the campusâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s broader sexual climate BY RACHEL LIPSTEIN

The Lowdown

Polyamory Q delves into the meaning and mechanics of polyamorous relationships BY JENNIFER FLYNN

24 2

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FALL 2011

A review of Florence and the Machine’s album Ceremonials

BY TRAVIS TREW

DROP ME A Q

From strap-ons to anal douches, Q has your queries covered

BY RYAN MENDÍAS BY KATIE ARAGÓN, CLARISSA BLAU, AARON LEWIS, AND DERRIK PETRIN

Artist Spotlight

Junior Andrew Michael Sotiriou deals with themes of gender and sexuality in his intricate, thought-provoking artwork

BY NICHOLLE LAMARTINA

Oscar Wilde at Yale

BY CHAMONIX ADAMS PORTER

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Assistant Editor Andrew Craig

Q Critic

Photography Director Christopher Peak

Looking for yet another way to procrastinate? We offer up some tips to put a little Q in your queue

Associate Publisher Wei Yan

Q’s Queue

Managing Editor Travis Trew

BY ANNA NORTH

Design Director Paul Doyle

A personal essay about finding compnionship on the World Wide Web

Publishers Ryan Arnold Jonathan Setiabrata

Finding queer love online

Associate Editors Nicholle Lamartina Rachel Lipstein Edward Oo

Editor-in-Chief Mara Dauphin

BY BEN BERNARD

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Q Magazine at Yale is published once each semester of the academic year. It is edited by Yale College students. Yale University is not responsible for its contents. Two thousand copies of each issue are distributed to the Yale University Campus. Subscriptions are available upon request.

We kindly thank the Undergraduate Organizations Funding Committee for their support. This magazine was made possible with the support of Campus Progress, a project of the Center for American Progress, online at CampusProgress.org.

One former Yalie’s summer of equality in the not-so-deep South

Yale’s LGBTQ Publication

Organizing reform in West Virginia

Q Magazine

Photo by Christopher Peak

We Are Yale

A Proud A-Chaot BY EDWARD OO

“Do you want to be an a-chaot like that?” my mother would ask whenever we saw a transvestite — spotted by her long hair (sometimes dyed to imitate actresses in Korean dramas), traditional female longyi dress, and a distinctly male face — as we drove around the city of Yangon, Burma. She modulated the tone of her question, or rather her threat, in a way that demanded an automatic “Noooooooo, ma” from a younger, more vulnerable me. In Burmese, a-chaot is the equivalent of “gay,” but it is used to refer primarily to transvestites — those people on the streets whom my mother would point to and whom she hoped to implicate as degenerate and worthless in my eyes. A-chaot is also used to refer to hairdressers and cosmeticians since a majority of them happen to be transvestites or identify themselves with female pronouns. “Noooooooo, ma.” The image was successfully repulsive. But as I started to piece together my sexual identity and realized that I might be gay, I struggled to deal with the disparity between who I really was and who my parents were scared I would become. The popular image of an a-chaot and its conflation with transvestitism obscured the idea of what it meant to be gay in my life. My Chinese roots further complicate my personal sexual identity and the uncertain role that it plays in my life. My parents have always emphasized the importance of family, the family name, a harmonious marriage and children to pass on the family name. In light of these values that they themselves were also brought up with, the idea of an a-chaot son (who would be seen as no son at all since he is “no longer a boy”) is terrifying, and they do everything they can to make me more of a “man.” Over the years, my parents have noticed that I am different. I love to create art, watch a lot of dance-related TV shows, and hate the rigidity of my father’s favorite pastime, golf. And as my father wisely put it himself, I like to “use the toilet and not the urinal” when I go to the bathroom, which apparently is problematic because using the toilet to pee is a gay sensibility in his opinion. They seem to have a growing fear that I may “turn gay,” which to them means that (gasp!) I won’t get married and that I won’t have children whom they can hold when they’re old and bored. Mother would point at the a-chaots. Father would — in awkward yet lovingly sincere talks that further conflict me — tell me to “stay away from the gays” in college. It would be easy to go on a rant about my conservative,

homophobic (or rather, anything-unconventional-phobic) parents who don’t even care to understand this part of me. I could even pretend to not give a damn what my parents think. But perhaps because of the way I was raised, I cannot bring myself to downright hate my parents. Sure, that might make it easier for me to embrace my own sexual identity, but I feel that I cannot give up my family whom I genuinely love and who genuinely care for me and shaped me into the person I am today. I therefore feel a need to achieve the impossible act of educating my parents and making them see that this is not a problem but rather a natural phenomenon that makes me stronger. My life in Burma outside of family was more liberated due to the facts that my closest teachers in the open-minded international school that I attended were ‘pro-gay’ and that my friends were accepting enough for me to come out to a few of them. But my underlying assumption was still that if I worked hard enough and became really good at what I did, my gay identity would not matter. I tried hard to relegate my sexuality into an insignificant prop in the backdrop of my life. Coming to America and to Yale as a freshman, however, I knew I had no reason to be discreet about the fact that I’m gay. I knew that, if I really wanted to, I could foreground my sexual identity. After all, my gay identity does matter. It has given me conviction and an awareness about myself and about others that only results from heated introspection. It makes me an artist, who is inspired by the notion of being different and who is unafraid to challenge. It makes me an intellectual who is obsessed with what it means to stand outside the norm and what it means to reflect to others their repressed desires. In time, I will have to assimilate this identity into my family life and find a comfy place for my gayness in the strict, conservative space of my home as well as my country. But I don’t know how. And I don’t know if I’ll ever bother trying to educate my parents or even tell them that I’m … gay. But I do know that if there’s one thing I came to Yale for, it is to figure my life out. For now, I am a proud, gay eighteen-year-old. I don’t consider myself an a-chaot. But I am also no longer so vulnerable as to reply “Noooooooo, ma.” I don’t hate my conservative parents. I do want children in the future. I tried not to let my sexuality define me, but I can’t help feeling like there is something inherently profound and promising about my gay identity. It gives me a purpose. It makes me … proud. QMAGAZINEATYALE.COM

GAY S.W.A.Y. Closing the gap between queers, Sex Week, and Yale BY RACHEL LIPSTEIN

Photo by Christopher Peak

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A WEEK FOR ALL QUEER YALIES? At first glance, Sex Week at Yale seems to be a perfect week for queer Yalies. The focus is broad and the demographic encompassing. It fosters a discussion of sex, in all amounts, all modes and all kinds. Sex Week at Yale (SWAY) — most recently conducted in the spring of 2010 — seeks to provide a sex-positive, nonjudgmental forum to examine all types of sex, sexuality, relationships, and intimacy. For many queer Yalies, finding an affirming space situated in the larger context of a campus-wide discussion without being made to feel marginalized is something miraculous. Sarah, a junior in Morse, remembers a presentation and discussion on cunnilingus, the description of which, from the Sex Week website that has since been taken down, promised a lesson on “the anatomy of the vagina and how to please it with your mouth, tongue and everything in between.” Sarah attended with hesitation, fearing she would be the only female there. To her surprise, she walked into, as she describes it, “a room filled with a huge tribe of lesbians. It was awesome.” Awesome might be an understatement. Though the jury is still out on the size and makeup of “a huge tribe of lesbians,” the mere fact that Sarah felt comfortable and represented among a presumably larger tribe of straight men is notable. The tone of the discussion was neutral and affirming. “The speaker wasn’t heterosexist at all and didn’t assume that everyone going down on a girl was going to be a guy.” More remarkably, the event had been advertised with an inclusiveness and appeal apparently strong enough to draw sizably on a notoriously amorphous demographic at Yale — queer women. Anna North SM ‘13, Executive Director of Sex Week 2012, elaborates on the exceptional value of Sex Week as a resource for queer students. “There are very few forums on campus for queer students to talk about intimacy that include both queer and straight individuals. SWAY is unique in that it brings together a broad range of individuals from our community and opens a space where they can discuss campus issues together and become aware of how members of different sub-communities view these issues.” The openness of discussion intuitively seems like it would align with queer interests. Frankness about sexual practices and a view of physical intimacy as an intrinsic good to be celebrated are often accompanied

by a parallel openness about queer sexual practices. Frankness might also be an understatement. At the end of an event on “how to give a blowjob,” now firmly embedded in the collective campus memory of Sex Week 2010, one audience member recalls another student going up to the front of the room. For apparently demonstrational purposes, “he deepthroated this spectacularly large banana. Everyone was really impressed, and no one was being at all weird and homophobic about it. It was such a great Yale moment.” However, lately there has been some contention over the greatness of such moments and whether they belong at Yale at all. The Undergraduates for a Better Yale College (UBYC), for example, have conducted a loud campaign to end Sex Week. Co-founder Eduardo Andino TC ‘13 states that Sex Week trivializes "the most intimate interpersonal experience" to a meaningless physical act. The frank, explicit presentations of pornography, sexual techniques, and fetishes, Andino suggests, promote a vulgar and pernicious promiscuity, “sex sought for its own sake, without love.” This “selfish” sex, he says, necessarily fosters the kind of sexual misconduct that has received attention following last year’s Title IX complaint. UBYC, upon questioning, presents their message as applicable to all people, regardless of sexual orientation, and couches most of their language in gender-neutral terms. Andino states, “Sex occurring solely in the context of a loving, committed relationship is a universal vision we certainly would call on any person — gay or straight — to consider. Orientation falls outside the scope of what we’re addressing. Sex Week is meant to challenge the paradigm of chaste, committed, married love, while we want to return to a timeless sexual morality that has been woven into the fabric of societies.” UBYC frames their entire discourse around the assumption that monogamous, long-term relationships are the necessary context for sex. The queer sexual culture, however, has largely broken down that normative ideal; by definition, it encompasses non-heteronormative and gender-binary sexual minorities and “fringe” practices such as BDSM, polyamory, and open relationships. Following the UBYC’s universal vision to its logical conclusion leads us back to a restrictive paradigm of monogamy particularly antithetical to the queer modus operandi of acceptance and alterity. While the UBYC is not homophobic in its ethos, QMAGAZINEATYALE.COM

its effects run contrary to the hard-won freedom of expression and behavior so cherished by queer individuals. This strain of the antiSex Week discourse is hostile, and perhaps uniquely so for queer individuals on campus. Sex Week, however, is not the perfect space for queers. Several students complained of the overriding sensationalized tone of the programming, such that it seemed to preclude intellectual discussion and detract from the program’s mission. One queer student stated that she had been alienated in advance by the tone of their advertisement. “This is the impression I get from them: when they talk about lesbian sex at all, it's always portrayed as different from ‘normal’ sex.” She was one among several people who felt that lesbian sex was otherized by being presented as somehow more titillating, with the hint of a straight male voyeuristic perspective. “Most of the people involved with Sex Week are pretty liberal, so I wouldn't say it's a wholly negative type of ‘difference,’ but I feel like it makes lesbianness oversexualized, and that makes me really uncomfortable. Like all lesbian sex is wild and exotic sex! That's totally not true, it can be pretty normal.” Even basic inclusion has remained an issue for some. Lake McManus ES ‘12, a Community and Consent Educator (CCE), doesn’t necessarily find that events sensationalize gay sex, “but sometimes they do ignore it, though that may just be because of the limits of the speaker's experience and expertise.” Much of past Sex Week programming has also been characterized by heavy corporate sponsorship and commercialized inflection. Amalia Horan Skilton CC ‘13, founder and coordinator of Fierce Advocates, an LGBTQ community service and political organization, said, “I am more concerned about Sex Week promoting a culture of sex as commodity than I am with it promoting casual sex.” Sex Week’s corporate sponsors gave away free merchandise at many of the events, one student happily recalling the underwear and “cute little bras” provided by American Apparel. Marketing strategies — including provocative images of slender, silhouetted girls tossing back their heads in ecstasy or the Sex Week magazine, which buried thoughtful articles amidst a range of sexy, eye-catching glossy images — were criticized sharply in a 2008 YDN editorial. At the last Sex Week, pornographic actresses Sasha Grey and Mad-

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The publicity materials for Sex Week 2012, emphasizing discussion over sensationalism.

ison Young both gave provocative talks, the latter speaker conducting part of her talk topless. Free materials and items for purchase were constantly available. One of 2010’s biggest events — where the aforementioned banana was fellated — was an instructional presentation on oral sex entitled “Babeland’s Lip Tricks,” conducted by a representative from Babeland, a woman-centered sex toy retailer. However, some would object to the notion that a corporate conduit of information and sexual education are mutually exclusive. Claire Cavanah, co-founder of Babeland, told me that, “commerce, sex information and an altruistic desire to improve people’s sex lives are intrinsically linked. We’re a mission-based company, so, while we have to be a savvy retailer, we are committed to taking the shame out of sex. We believe that our products empower women to find pleasure in their sexuality. In our capitalistic society, commerce is sometimes the only way to present sex.” Anna North also defends Babeland. She suggests that the lack of “intellectually stimulating” discussion of sex had less to do

with a corporate presenter and more to do with audience immaturity. “Babeland often does health and how-to workshops. At the event, they focused a lot on communication with your partner. They presented it really well, but people were just immature about it, which is why we're trying to direct how they think about it a bit more this time. We hope to make them ask the critical questions through talkbacks both on the website and right after the events, which will directly encourage people to have the discussion.” Connie Cho SM ‘13, an Executive Director for Sex Week 2012, points out that everyone has a different metric for determining what is offensive or sensational. “SWAY 2012 absolutely recognizes that there have been events or images in the past decade that may have [been] those things, but there is a huge diversity of opinion on which events and images those are. For example, to some people, the term 'gay sex' is scandalizing and sensational in and of itself, but I doubt the general queer community feels that way. The most important thing we can say here is that if there are specific complaints, we would want to hear them, and we want to hear them

Photo courtesy of Sex Week 2012

from the mouths of the queer community members.” THE ADMINISTRATION NEGOTIATES SEX WEEK AND QUEERS AT YALE As the UBYC initiative might suggest, members of the queer community are not the only ones voicing their objections to Sex Week. In the wake of the Title IX complaint, the Yale administration has reaffirmed its commitment to fostering a safe sexual culture at Yale and has turned its baleful gaze upon Sex Week. In President Levin's November 10th "Response to the Report of the Advisory Committee on Campus Climate” he states, “After comparing the event's initial purpose with its current iteration, the committee strongly recommended that the students in charge of this event not be allowed to use the Yale name or Yale's facilities. At Dean Miller's suggestion, I have allowed her to give the current student organizers the opportunity to propose a program for next semester that might warrant the continuation of this event on campus. We have no intention of

suppressing the students' right to free expression. But we will not allow the University's facilities or name to be used in the service of corporate sponsors and the private inurement of student organizers.” While this may smack of Dolores Umbridge-esque despotism or a transparent move to mitigate the negative media attention, Sex Week, according to North, transcends any public relations move. “For ten years, the administration has not supported or funded Sex Week. We believe that in this time when the campus is so interested in talking about the atmosphere on campus regarding sexual activities, it is the ideal time for the administration to begin supporting open discourse among students about relationships and sexuality.” Cho adds, “Quite frankly, we went to the administration on September 24th with open arms saying ‘use us as a tool.’ SWAY is a great platform for a discussion of sex and sexuality. SWAY is nimble — it has the flexibility to make extensive outreach and respond to students on the ground. Yale students are its first priority, not any politics about what the world is ready to hear. The administration missed an opportunity to take its students and peer leadership seriously.” Under a new brand of administrative scrutiny and oversight, this is a crucial moment for Sex Week to prove that it has a positive influence on the community. While the administration is holding a gun to Sex Week’s head to do just that, Cho feels that is unnecessary. “This idea of SWAY proving ourselves is natural to us — we’ve been evolving for the past ten years. Sex Week 2012 has not only looked at the past but is making active changes in response to its community. We hope that the Yale administration has the same priorities in mind.” Cho also notes that issues in queer relationships and sexuality tend to get swept under the discursive rug. “There happen to be queer Yale students who have historically had to fight to have a voice on issues that concern them the most on an isolated platform.” North is still waiting for an administrative queer-focused response regarding Sex Week 2012: “I personally, have seen no reference to or acknowledgement of the queer community at Yale in talks about administrative changes and concerns. I am very worried that there will be no changes or acknowledgement of their existence, despite the fact that this would be the ideal time to address the often overlooked fact that issues of consent and relationship abuse are just as

THERE ARE VERY FEW FORUMS ON CAMPUS FOR QUEER STUDENTS TO TALK ABOUT INTIMACY THAT INCLUDE BOTH QUEER AND STRAIGHT INDIVIDUALS ANNA NORTH

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THIS IDEA OF S.W.A.Y. PROVING OURSELVES IS NATURAL TO US —WE’VE BEEN EVOLVING FOR THE PAST TEN YEARS CONNIE CHO

frequent within queer relationships. However, I have faith in Maria Trumpler in her role as the Director of the Office of LGBTQ Resources to provide the best resources possible for this part of our community.” Maria Trumpler has a more sanguine view of queer representation. “All of the discussion of sexual culture at Yale has included queer perspectives and pretty much all of the people working on this include them, so it does not fall to one person.” Skilton confirms this positive view of administrative support and highlights that they have effectively put their money where there mouth is: “Yale has hired two paid staff members for the Office of LGBTQ Resources, and also pays for five LGBTQ peer liaisons to counsel freshmen, plus ten hours/week of staffing for the Queer Peers counseling service. By comparison to Yale's resources, this is not an enormous investment, but it is significant.” Trumpler agrees. “We do — through PLs, Queer Peers, CCEs and Co-op — do a lot of programming around social relationships and helping students to articulate how they feel about the options and how to help actualize what they would like to see.” STRANGE BEDFELLOWS: QUEERS & TITLE IX But can the programming by the administration overcome what’s already programmed 10

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into our society? One queer student, who requested to remain anonymous, stated that she has often felt objectified and harassed on campus when affectionate with another girl. “I’ve gotten catcalls, invitations, all of it. I’ve had snow thrown at me by some frat boys at another Ivy for holding hands with my girlfriend. (“You fucking dykes.”) Usually people hold hands with their partner while crossing the green at night to feel safer; with queer couples — just not the best option.” McManus, however, cannot really recall instances of sexual-orientation-based harassment at Yale. “I do feel like people go out of their way to say things like ‘You guys are cute,’ but that's nice, even if it may stem from the novelty of gay couples.” Though these are isolated instances, queer women and queer men undoubtedly have different experiences on campus in terms of sexual harassment. Where does the objectification of women intersect the harassment of queer women? Where does sex-based harassment overlap sexual-orientation-based harassment? This ambiguity becomes even more problematic when Title IX is the standard by which the administration is evaluating Sex Week efficacy and campus sexual culture in general. Melanie Boyd, Special Advisor to the Dean of Yale College on Gender Issues, says, "We're sometimes caught within the heterosexism of the Title IX paradigm, but

in general we are very cognizant of LGBTQ issues, especially the emerging data that LGBTQ students are especially vulnerable to sexual assault.” An example from an Office of Civil Rights (OCR) publication illustrates this heterosexism and the serious limitations a gender-based discrimination law has for protecting queer students from sexual harassment. “A gay high school student was called names (including anti gay slurs and sexual comments) … physically assaulted, threatened, and ridiculed because he did not conform to stereotypical notions of how teenage boys are expected to act and appear (e.g., effeminate mannerisms … apparel, and personal grooming choices).” The letter goes on to say, “Although Title IX does not prohibit discrimination based solely on sexual orientation, Title IX does protect all students, including … LGBT … students, from sex discrimination.” Because of this overlapping harassment, according to the OCR, the school was obligated to protect the student under Title IX. In other words, should the student have been beaten, sexually intimidated and teased every day of the week but been a gender-normative male whose masculinity was never specifically targeted, he would not have been entitled to protection. This dangerous gap in protection, in addition to the square-peginto-a-round-hole legal contortions used to protect a gay, non-gender-normative student, clearly demonstrate the difficulties fitting queer students into the Title IX paradigm, which is necessary because there is currently no federal protection of sexual orientationbased harassment. To address this, Boyd highlights the administrative commitment to gender neutrality: “for example, in our avoidance of the Title IX phrase ‘a safer sexual climate for women’; instead, we say things like ‘an environment that is safe and supportive for people of all gender and sexual identities.’” One queer CCE thinks that language is not enough. “No one cares about the gays. I think there's this overarching assumption that gay people are so open-minded and liberal by virtue of the fact that they're gay that they would never sexually harass a fellow homo and that straight Yalies are so liberal that they would never harass or discriminate. This means that 98% of all the Title IX discourse on campus is about preventing men from victimizing women, which is far from many queer people's realities.” However, some say this discursive bias is simply a numbers game, rather than deliber-

Photo by Christopher Peak

ate neglect. As Alexandra Brodsky DC ‘12, editor at Yale feminist publication Broad Recognition, notes, “The administration needs to take into account that most of the violence that happens on this campus is from men toward women. The tricky leap that a lot of people don’t make is that that doesn’t mean that the rest of it doesn’t count.“ Therefore, the administration walks a fine line between the pragmatism of addressing an established problem of male-female sexual misconduct and inclusiveness to LGBTQ populations. While not intending to minimize issues in the queer sexual culture, the administration’s response is heterocentric much to the extent that the problem is heterocentric. Another CCE corroborates the difficulty of walking that line between talking about a largely heterocentric problem without ignoring the real queer issues on campus. “The biggest challenge for the CCE program right now is how to be inclusive to non-heterosexual relationships and issues without just censoring gender-specific pronouns. Because you can’t talk about sexual violence without thinking about the gendered power dynamics in situations of violence, and how gender affects the ways people acknowledge (or ignore) sexual misconduct as it exists in their communities. So instead of making conversations gender-neutral, we need to think about what violence looks like in differently gendered relationships and contexts, and how we as CCEs can be resources for the entire campus community, not just the straight folks.” THE FUTURE OF SEX WEEK Sex Week 2012 faces the daunting prospect of incorporating this complex interaction between the specific and differentiated needs within the queer community’s population, delineated along gender lines as well as other overlapping identities. The coordinators recognize that this year’s Sex Week is occurring in the context of a tense, highly charged debate of campus sexual climate and will be watched carefully. North is confident in the potential to make a significant change in the tone of the program to accurately reflect the change in the tone on campus. North says, “We want to make Sex Week more thought-provoking, inclusive, and relevant while retaining the element of fun and positivity that Sex Week has always had." She would like to see a more sober discussion emphasizing the critical questions

that will stimulate introspection and push students to challenge their conceptions regarding sexual intimacy. In addition to the talkbacks and structured questions, North hopes Sex Week 2012 will have a grassroots feel, presenting more events co-sponsored by student groups. For example, there are plans for an event on consent, which will be discussion-based rather than prescriptive. Another event, co-sponsored by Broad Recognition, will focus on how the law regulates sexuality. Coordinators are also committed to ensuring that the queer perspective will not be lost. Cho notes, “We don't want [queer students] to have to waste time fighting for that voice; we are more than ready to give it to them in the context of a host of events dedicated to sex and sexuality.” North continues, “Sex Week 2012 is quickly becoming

a very queer event. We have a commitment to making every event at Sex Week inclusive of our community, and our close relationship with the Co-op, as well as the fact that two of our executive directors are queer, will help to ensure that Sex Week is a resource for the queer community and as much of an open platform to talk about queer intimacy as it is to talk about straight intimacy.” Cho quips, “The Sex Week coordinators have discussed whether or not every general event should simply have ‘queer’ as assumed and instead label all the ‘straight’ events. We thought we would confuse more people than we were ready for this year. But we look forward to that day.” With the debates raging, the language changing, and student discussion of sex evolving, perhaps that day is not so far off as we might imagine. QMAGAZINEATYALE.COM

CYBER

HOW THE INTERNET IS CHANG BY SIMON COZZENS

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RGAYS

GING GAY LIFE

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he concept of Queer, both as a rights movement and as a personal identity, relies heavily on communication. Since the interests and issues that help queer individuals conceive of their identities are essential for activists and for the community in general, it is no surprise that the Internet has been a revolutionary communicative innovation for queer politics and social networks. We can now share any message instantly, anonymously, and universally. Politically, it has transformed the frontier of queer activism. Socially, through groups like bara-chat, Gaymers, and countless other small queer populations, the Internet has fostered interest-based communities and relationships that transcend the limits of distance. This shift has been especially monumental for those spreading pro-queer messages, namely queer activists. Lena Chen, a Harvard graduate who writes and blogs professionally about queer and feminist issues, spoke to me about queer Internet activism. For queer activists, the Internet is a remarkably handy toolbox. Even something as simple as email communication can be monumental for activists. The Human Rights Campaign (HRC), for example, the United States’ largest LGBT civil rights organization, benefits tremendously from simple emailing lists. One of their emails tells a story of a girl in Connecticut

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who was kicked out of school for being a lesbian. Thirty years ago, the extent of this girl’s reaction would have been limited to perhaps a quiet rant in a local newspaper. Included in the email sent by HRC, however, is the opportunity to write an email directly to Connecticut lawmakers as well as to the girl’s school. It is by way of Internet activism that when a girl is mistreated for being queer, a worldwide network of people can respond immediately to defend her. In this way, explains Chen, queer activism uses the Internet as a quick and efficient way to create a cross-geographical response to a small, localized problem. The moment a queer issue arises, the queer Internet can mobilize a strong response. Queer advocates also have the benefit of being able to easily reach queer youth. According to a health survey (conducted a full ten years ago) by the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonprofit health care research and informational foundation, about 75% of youth use the Internet as a health and sex resource. The anonymity of the Internet allows a teen to search for health, sex, and relationship information without having to ask in real life. For advocates, then, the Internet becomes a medium through which they can offer sound advice and information to gay youth who otherwise would, like the youth of previous generations, have no safe and

easy access to safe and healthy guidance. The queer Internet is thus an increasingly valuable health resource for queer youth, and it is a means by which queer activists can inform and provide support for a young queer audience. The audience for queer activists need not be queer. In fact, the Internet has no doubt played an integral role in making queer issues more visible to heterosexuals. By way of social networks and news sites, the message of queer activists can reach beyond a single post on a website. When any queer issue arises, it will not only be read directly on an activist’s blog but also on Facebook walls and on news feeds. It will be reblogged, linked, emailed, tagged, and tweeted thousands or millions of times. The power of the Internet to integrate queer content across so many networks makes the queer movement highly visible to anyone who explores even the shallowest ponds of the social Internet. The web, however, does not provide a strong, clear voice for the queer movement or for queer people at every click. The Internet, for example, is not immune to the issues of race and class division. Even though Facebook is a hotbed for the circulation of queer news, we overlook that its population is homogeneous. While most of us recall the mass migration from MySpace to Facebook in recent years, few of us notice that it has

to select pieces to publish which will stimulate enough hits for the site to survive. This means that a blog about gay legal issues might also need posts about Lady Gaga, or that, as Chen mentioned, a feminist blog will have posts about make-up and losing weight. Ad space must be filled in order to profit from a website, and there are often ads whose product is counter-productive to a queer blog’s message or ethos. One popular story that queer blogs continue to publish is outing the closeted politician. While many queer activists see outing as hypocritical or an ethical overstep of boundaries, the stories are reliably click-heavy and ensure so much traffic that queer blogs continue to rely on them for profit. If a professionally-managed blog is too narrow or specific in topic, it will likely not garner the readership necessary to survive. If it is too broad, it runs the risk of tokenizing minorities in order to seem inclusive to readers. Just as Chen remarks that there are many feminist blogs all run by straight white women, one quick survey of queer blogs is enough to gather that most are run by gay white men. Thus, the power and expanse of the queer Internet is controlled by too narrow a group, and the economics of online writing limits the amount of attention that can feasibly be given to a specific issue facing a small subpopulation.

Photo by Patrick Hamm

been a disproportionally white and upperclass migration. Though most of us are not aware of it, working-class kids and immigrants are still flocking to MySpace, and Chen argues that those kids are not seeing queer articles and other educational posts like we Yalies see on our Facebook walls. Since class division in the United States has been less an issue of income as it has been an issue of social and cultural capital, the Internet can sometimes organize people in ways that work against the broad sharing of content and thus against the cause of race and class equality. The nature of queer online content also poses issues for queer content providers. Because of the professionalization of activism and the growth of the non-profit sector, there are many people (arguably predominantly upper-class white gay men) whose job it is to write for queer blogs and news sites. The problem according to Chen, though, is that the competition for income and readership does a disservice to the queer cause. Activism by competing professionals from wellestablished online platforms may shuffle out and diminish the voice of average queer who wants to be involved in the cause. Additionally, as a writer or publisher, you must provide content that attracts a broad audience. Even though a queer blog may aim to raise awareness of subtle issues, it will also have

“Sex and the Ivy” with Lena Chen.

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Representatives from Bears in the Woods, 5th Annual Proudmoore Pride March, 2009. World of Warcraft screenshot.

Although there are several worries about the organization and effects of the queer Internet, the world of queer activism benefits overall from the power of the web. While there will be issues of reader and writer inclusiveness, the degree to which queer content is generated, distributed, and read by both queer and non-queer people on the Internet is a monumental step for the queer movement. Never in history has there been such a significant queer presence in peopleâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s personal or public lives.

magine being a queer teenager in the 1950s. If you wanted to find out more about yourself, there would be little to access beyond a handful of psychology articles. Today the web provides a diverse selection of answers for almost any

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question.The world of queer activism is just one of the facets of the queer Internet. In less than a minute online, the average person can access thousands of queer blogs, images, literature, art, message boards, chats, videos, and profiles. If you wanted to meet other people like you in the fifties, you would have to find the right bars and parties in town. If your queer interests were highly specific, you would essentially have to move to a big city and rely on luck. Today, you can meet other queer people and allies instantly and in a variety of contexts. One doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t have to come out of the computer cluster to find queer spaces online, let alone risk coming out of the closet. As we look at a few small communities around the Internet, we can see the problems of accessibility and creation of communities have been (literally) virtually

eliminated. A few pokes of the keyboard will yield pages upon pages of any kind of queer content imaginable. One way content is generated and shared is through message boards. The infamous 4chan.org, for example, offers a rainbow of topics on which people can post and see messages of images. Occasionally, a message board will become something more than just a forum of people who share a specific interest. It can become a community, as in the case of one image thread that has evolved into a small group, which I will call barachat for lack of a better term. This community was begun on the yaoi boards of 4chan in pages of images and messages. Yaoi is a genre of Japanese art and fiction created for girls that involves two male lovers, usually fitted with the heteronormative dominant/

submissive dichotomy. Many gay men visit the yaoi boards, but they were upset that the content catered to girls and did not represent a gay take on gay love. These men moved, then, to a place where they could share bara, which is similar to yaoi but is created by gay men, for gay men and is inclusive of larger manly characters. They wanted, as one member of the bara chat room explains, something ‘distinctly not-yaoi.’ They moved to another website where they could have a posting community of exclusively bara content. “I found the term bara somewhere…searched it…which led me to several different iterations of the bara boards,” explained one bara chat member when asked how the Internet has put him in touch with the group. The handful of members of this chat, mostly 20-something gay men who are represented on nearly every continent, discussed the evolving identity of bara and its community, the history of the sites and the online activities of the group. The Internet has enabled the development of this queer space, as it has allowed a small, sparse group of individuals with a specific interest to speak in message boards, chat rooms, and through webcams. The Internet has been both the medium and the format of this specific queer community. Queer social content online, like queer Internet activism, induces a set of problems unique to the Internet. While 4chan is the host of several queer message boards, one need not look deep into the boards to find vicious queer hate speech and other unwelcoming content. While the anonymity of Internet communication protects the identity of queers, it also allows an unchecked stream of anti-queer voices. In addition, the visible online content can work against a positive

and complete representation of “queer” as a multifaceted identity rather than a genre of sex. A proliferation of pornography, hookup sites, and other related content often overshadows the advocacy and other positive components of the queer Internet, and may associate all queers with content considered by some to be perverted, shallow, or offensive. Moreover, it perhaps sends a message to queers and non-queers alike that queer sex is anonymous, loveless, cheap, and dirty. Though subject to these issues, there are nonetheless countless forums that serve specific gay communities very well. One satisfied customer says, “I love the queer Internet, it helps me find other queers with similar interests, especially Reddit … There aren't many places I can find other gay dudes who are also into, say, this.” I was shown a picture of a Calvin Klein underwear model with a Storm Trooper helmet. “My favorite sub-forum is Gaymers,” he says, “because we share nerdy shit we find online … and hot shit … but also dudes meet up and have WoW and Minecraft servers together.” Indeed, there are even places in virtual reality where queers find each other and form communities. A visit to SpectrumGuild.com will include rainbow-colored World of Warcraft (WoW) weapons and the greeting: “We are a GLBT-friendly guild focused on providing a friendly and supportive community.” Beyond a mere hub for gay gamers to meet each other, the queer Internet is a valuable resource for processing the issues that arise outside the games. “Sometimes people post about real life difficult shit like cheating boyfriends, feeling unattractive, coming out, etc … there are posts by gaymers in the Deep South who rely on the gaymers forum to give them some sort of hope and community.”

While the Internet fosters subcultures for those who share interests, it is also a community in which individuals can share the common issues of being queer. For the young queer population, communities like the gaymers are vital for meeting people with similar interests. In fact, the plethora of online queer outlets is so effective that it has reduced the centrality of traditional queer social spaces. While the Internet has made it exponentially easier to meet and seek relationships with other queers, it has drastically changed the way this communication happens. The gravity of a culture of community has shifted from the physical gathering spaces of the past—gar bars, bookstores, sports leagues—to the virtual. One queer Internet user describes the change well: “Things like Craigslist, Adam4Adam, and Grindr are killing the gay bar. There’s no more reason to go to try to pick up a guy in person at a bar. You can just type away and have him at your doors in 30 minutes, like a pizza.” Even with these complex issues that arise from a radical change in communication, a cursory google of the word ‘queer’ will instantly reveal a world of queer people and the queer movement. No longer does a small-town gay teen have to travel to the city to meet other gay teens, and no longer does a lesbian have to respond alone or quietly to workplace discrimination. No longer is there a limit to the forms the queer community can take. From emailing lists and queer blogs to WoW guilds and message board communities, the size, depth and voice of the queer world has exploded through online communication, establishing a vast and powerful network that is the queer Internet.

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Photo by Bradley Joel Shew

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RHYMES WITH QUEER Organizing Reform in West Virginia

BY BEN BERNARD

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hen I realized I’d be living in West Virginia for two months, I didn’t know much about the state. I knew there was no Apple store in the state anywhere between Wheeling and Bluefield. What’s more, the “Wild, Wonderful” state consistently ranks as or near the worst on indices for obesity, smoking, wealth, and education. Furthermore, it is still legal to fire someone simply on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity. The state does have, however, a small but fierce coalition working to win new legal protections and combat homophobia: Fairness West Virginia, the statewide LGBT civil rights advocacy organization that was founded three years ago. After two years of behind-the-scenes fundraising, the board of directors made its first full-time hire — a program director. They selected Bradley Milam BK ’10, who wrote his senior essay at Yale on the

Charleston, West Virginia at dusk.

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history of gay life in West Virginia in the 1960s and 1970s, proving that even the most esoteric academic paper can be translated into a marketable skill. People often say your successful post-graduation endeavors will be those things you spent your college nights rigorously debating and otherwise dorking out over. For Bradley and me, that was LGBT history. Upon accepting the position at Fairness WV, Bradley invited my classmate Sam Schoenburg SM ’11 and me to spend the summer helping him consolidate Fairness’ supporter base. After piecing together funding thanks to support from Yale GALA and the fine brothers of Sig-Ep and stopping off in New Haven to graduate, Sam and I were ready to journey south. It took several days to drive from my suburban Massachusetts hometown down to Charleston, West Virginia. I must have stopped in every major East Coast city on the way in order to meet up with scattered Yalies. Crossing the state line into West Virginia, for miles there was nothing but emptiness, until somewhere along the highway a behemoth

of a steel skeleton rose up from behind a hill. “Noah’s Ark Being Rebuilt Here,” the sign read. So that’s what rural means, I thought. After arriving at last in Charleston and unloading the contents of my car into Bradley’s guest bedroom, the two of us went to dinner. At the restaurant, I looked around at the largest collection of West Virginians I had ever seen. I considered how everyone sitting in the room had chosen to live in this state, before turning to the menu. “What does the turkey sandwich come with?” I asked the waitress. “Chips,” she replied, and “served on a brioche.” “Brioche” became a threesyllable word in her mouth, the last of which being “shee.” As for wine, she offered ”pinot noir” — which in those parts rhymed with “queer.” We adjourned from dinner to Amosphere Ultra Lounge, one of Charleston’s two gay bars, to meet Sam and his host, Bob, who housed Sam for the summer as a way of supporting Fairness. A smallish single-room boîte, one length of the hall was taken up by a long bar with tables and a dance floor on the other side. Atmosphere came with more

nization had three needs: supporters, money, and the advancement of policy goals. Sam and I could help Bradley solicit the public’s support and plan fundraising events throughout the state. Our first major outreach event was Charleston’s LGBT pride festival. We hoped to sign on as many new supporters as possible to our email list. We woke at 8:00 a.m., the crack of dawn to a very recent college graduate, to head down to Kanawha Boulevard, the main thoroughfare that ran through the center of Charleston parallel to the river. Armed with clipboards, stickers, and Fairness t-shirts, we descended into the crowd. Taking my time chatting with guys, I looked down to the amphitheater in amazement to see Sam already halfway through the crowd. Having taken a semester off to work for President Obama’s 2008 campaign, Sam was our organizing guru. He made emailing into a science: to write to our thousands of supporters, Sam crafted missives designed to maximize the number of responses and donations we would receive. That day, he showed us how to walk up to a stranger and

walk away with a new devotee. We focused on anti-bullying. The ACLU of WV had won a grant in conjunction with Fairness WV to launch a public education campaign about school bullying. Many people in the state either refused to acknowledge or didn’t realize there was a problem. One state legislator, himself a 30-year veteran teacher in the public school system, denied ever encountering anti-gay bullying. “It was too fat, too thin, not athletic, being in the band, so on and so forth, but gay and not gay — I don’t ever remember having it,” he said in subcommittee. We had to bring real stories to the public’s attention. In order to collect those real stories, I took on the task of working with the ACLU and a local marketing company to build our public education campaign. I would travel around the state interviewing on video all kinds of queer youth who had been bullied, and put the videos on a new website — www.wvbullyfree.com. We would build public support for our cause in preparation for the Department of Education’s upcoming policy review. Other young people in West Virginia

Photo by Bradley Joel Shew

tacky lights and louder music than the scene seemed to merit, more plaid than I had ever seen on gay boys, and drinks half the price of their New York counterparts. It seemed like an awkward mix of people: all generations, from jocks to twinks to bears to women to that one teenage boy who always brought glow sticks to the dance floor. What were we all doing at the same bar? In the office on Monday morning, Bradley introduced us to Fairness’ files, reports, and website. He had decided to focus on two realistic medium-term advocacy goals: securing an employment and housing nondiscrimination law (EHNDA) that included LGBT people and securing an anti-bullying policy that would enumerate classes of students commonly targeted for bullying, including LGBT students. In my history classes, I had learned about the macro-level politics of social change. The details of my job were uncharted, though. How could I help on a day-to-day basis? How could an outsider in an unfamiliar state build a political coalition? We held a strategy session in our war room. The orga-

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could share their experiences and voice support for our movement online by uploading a Youtube video. It was easiest to start in Charleston, a small city to which many young gay people from around the state migrated. Bradley and I went to hunt for interviewees at a local PFLAG chapter meeting, held in a small church just outside Charleston city limits. Sam and I joined a young gay men’s social group called MPowerment that worked on HIV prevention. At their game night with dozens of young gay twenty-somethings, we introduced ourselves and announced our project. “Now is the time to start telling our stories in order to create change for the next generation of students,” I told them. After my remarks, a steady stream of boys approached with stories. We dutifully marked down their email addresses to interview them later. In practice, the campaign was far more difficult to enact. Few of those who expressed interest responded in the end; few queers were willing to speak out. M., for example, was not out to both of his parents. B., on the other hand, couldn’t afford the gas money and the time off from work to drive half an hour to meet us for an interview. With some poor, rural youths, we found phone lines disconnected and emails undelivered. G. might have spoken with us, but he was going through a stressful relocation; his dad kicked him out for being gay when he came of age. Happy 18th birthday, G. How do you start a social movement in a place where institutional barriers keep people from speaking up in the first place? We posed that question behind closed doors to the openly gay mayor of a liberal town with 300 inhabitants, one of only a handful of openly LGBT politicians in the state. He reminded us that in tight-knit communities, you cannot simply list on camera all the people who wronged you. It would disrupt the peace. In a small community, conflicts are amplified. Everyone knew his partner, for example, but J. did not want to be labeled “the gay mayor.” He was reluctant to support Fairness too vocally. His constituents didn’t make an issue of his sexuality, J. told us, so he was not going to be the first one to bring it up. It seemed just like another kind of closet, but perhaps that’s a natural epiphenomenon of small-town life; it has benefits and drawbacks. We did find some willing to speak out. I sat with A., the toughest 16-year-old dyke I’ve ever met, in the middle of the road one Sunday night at sunset to talk about girls, the 22

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television show Glee, and whitewater rafting. Queer students at her school, she said, talked to a supportive vice principal, or hung out with a cool theater teacher, but had no institutionalized support like a Gay Straight Alliance. Back in Charleston, college student Michael came into our office. He was so thrilled to be interviewed, he said, because he didn’t want anyone else to go through what he went through — and by telling his story, just maybe he could help. Michael told us about the isolation and the harassment he experienced. About the football player who pissed in his gym shoes. About how he walked to middle school every day past a bridge and just wanted to jump into the gorge below. I looked over to our videographer — she sniffled. That’s when we all started to cry.

The queer social life in Charleston has its own character. I spent the weekend with Bob when Sam and Bradley were out of town. A 65-year-old retired civil servant, Bob had started a small stained glass business, crafting his art in the studio he created in his basement. He kept the most intricate, colorful works as windows in his house, filling every room with color. Vibrant tchotchke collected from decades of gay life lined every square inch of wall space: joke bumper stickers everywhere (“Quit whining — you’re making the cats horny”); an orange pin from an antiAnita Bryant party; an old bicycle wrapped in Christmas lights hanging from the ceiling; wind chimes hung in the central landing at precisely head level so that you’d hit it when walking past. In time, Bob showed Sam and me The Broadway, Charleston’s second gay bar, where we found an older crowd without so

much dancing. It was the private parties, though, that served as the nexus of community in a rural state. One Saturday night, driving home from the Putnam County Fair, Bob took us to a house that seemed like any other and pointed out a red light bulb on the side. “When the light’s on, it means they’re open.” Past a chain-link fence and around the back, a cellar door led down a dim set of stairs to a basement. I coughed from the cigarette smoke as my eyes adjusted to the darkness. Apprehensive, I could make out a bar and silhouettes of large, leather-clad men through the haze. Someone tossed me a beer. It was Gregory, who I had met at an LGBT open mic night at the Unitarian Church, standing chatting with his boyfriend. Bob introduced me to his friends, but between the Pride festival, gatherings around town, Facebook, and Atmosphere, I had met many of them already. In Charleston everyone seemed to know each other. Sam and I began to, also. This summer at Bob’s house, over many dinners in the Key West Room — the dining room decorated with posters, colorful streamers, photos of men in swimwear, and a stunning stained glass masterpiece depicting an ocean sunset — Bob told us about the changes in Charleston gay life. Bars rose and fell. New faces came and left. His house filled with memorabilia is not a novelty — it’s an archive. It’s no wonder Bradley interviewed Bob for his Yale senior essay. When we attended the “Dance For Those Who Can’t,” an annual gala at The Broadway to benefit Charleston’s AIDS Memorial Garden, it was not just to represent Fairness and to watch sassy drag queens raise money. It was also for all of Bob’s friends in that photo hanging on the bedroom wall who had died at the height of the AIDS crisis. Bob had become more than a tour guide: as our adopted uncle, he was our kin connection to West Virginian heritage. We took a five-hour roadtrip to the northern part of the state, the Eastern Panhandle near Washington, D.C., to reach out to potential Fairness supporters at “Gay Day” at a whitewater rafting establishment in Harper’s Ferry, WV. Our hosts for the night, Vic and John, were a couple that Bradley interviewed for his essay. Vic, glass of scotch in hand, came to the door and welcomed us to their renovated log cabin. John, a chemistry professor and paleontologist who specialized in the triceratops, was inside finishing a chapter of his next publication. Vic took us out onto the patio — the sign hanging above it read “the Cock Walk” — overlooking the chicken

Photo courtesy of Ben Bernard

A float drives by in Charleston’s Pride Parade.

coop and showed us the property. For years, Vic organized a monthly gathering of gay men called the Lambda Panhandlers. At its peak, hundreds of men would come from all over the region and fill the function hall at a nearby lodge to dance and drink. If I was surprised at richness of gay West Virginian history, I was astounded by the character of the state. Although West Virginia is the farthest south I have ever lived, it is hardly the reactionary Old South relic I imagined. At the outbreak of the Civil War in 1861, most Virginian delegates from the western part of the state actually voted to stay in the Union. Two years and three conventions later, they formally withdrew from the secessionists to become a new state, West Virginia, June 20, 1863 — now West Virginia Day. A statue of Abraham Lincoln still stands on the lawn before the State Capitol — certainly not the figure I expected to see presiding over the Charleston green. At the end of two months, however, I was ready for New York’s diversity, ready for my friends back in the northeast, and ready to apply what I learned in West Virginia to other projects. It was time to move on. Though none of our projects were complete at the end of the summer, I knew other people continued to care about them. In other cities

around the state, Bradley continues the fundraising event series Sam began. Volunteers continue to add video testimonials to the WV Bully-Free website, and the campaign has been featured in the The Charleston Gazette, Associated Press, and the The Huffington Post. The Board of Education recommended an LGBT-inclusive anti-bullying policy. At the time of publishing, their text is open to public comment. Before we left, Sam and I even brainstormed a list of future projects that will take future interns. Most important of all, we had organized our supporters around an issue. When the next fight comes, they’ll be ready to act. Bob threw a farewell party for us at his house before Sam and I left town. Volunteers from Fairness, our friends from MPowerment, our anti-bullying project colleagues from the ACLU and the Americorps VISTA program, and some of Bradley’s friends all came. I presented Bob with a framed photo of all of us smiling at Fairness’ Charleston fundraising party for him to add to his wall, if he could find space somewhere. Bradley and Bob thanked us for our hard work. One friend of Bob’s couldn’t attend, but left me a note: “Your energy and enthusiasm for social justice is inspiring to me,” he said. “You give older guys like me hope

that somebody is gonna be there to carry the torch.” Drinking and laughing, at midnight we made a final toast, finished what was left of the sushi, and headed over to Atmosphere for a final night of dancing. I said goodbye to the drag queens, to the leather daddies, to Bob’s friends, to the boys I hadn’t seen for three weeks, to that cute but straight bartender. In a larger city, all these people could not be found at the same bar. Everyone in this room chooses to live in West Virginia, I thought, and I can see why. Some have long family histories here. Others can’t afford the gas money to drive away. But when you find a community that fits, maybe there’s no reason to leave. I looked around at our crew on the dance floor at Atmosphere and thought about all the people who would stay in Charleston to continue fighting for equality. West Virginia was full of small, progressive community efforts of people coming together around meaningful ideas to make change. Fairness WV may be only three years old, but the movement has existed in these hills for far longer. Visit www.fairnesswv.org to find out how to contribute to achieving equality in the Mountain State. QMAGAZINEATYALE.COM

The Lowdown

Polyamory BY JENNIFER FLYNN

Introduction Relationships are complicated. I can barely find the time to grab coffee with someone I like, let alone go on dates and have cuddle time and long walks on the beach (or short walks to GHeav, as the case may be) and talk about our hopes and dreams. And that’s just one relationship. Now imagine that times two or three or five. Sounds complex, doesn’t it? Welcome to the world of polyamory. Most people find the word utterly foreign (and my roommate, a Classical Civilization major, insists that it should in fact be polyphilia since we’re mixing Latin and Greek). However, you might have heard of polyamory by a host of other names; most commonly, it’s referred to as “open relationships” or “ethical sluthood.” The latter comes from the 1997 book The 24

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Ethical Slut by Dossie Easton and Catherine Liszt. It’s a great resource for people who may be considering a poly lifestyle. But before you commit to a couple hundred pages of dogma, you might be wondering what the heck polyamory is anyway. Put simply, polyamory is the practice of having multiple romantic relationships at the same time. Honestly, that’s the only simple explanation you’ll get when talking to a poly person, since the specifics vary so widely. The essence of polyamory comes from what has been called a “starvation economy” of love. For econ majors, this might make sense. If I have an apple, and I give it to someone, I no longer have an apple. I can’t give it to anyone else. This makes sense with finite physical resources, and it underlies the practice of monogamy. If I love my partner, I love only my partner. The problem is that love is not finite. Polys (as practicers of polyamory tend to identify

A BRIEF GUIDE TO

themselves) generally believe giving and receiving love only increases the stores of love to go around. The same way that making a new friend does not necessarily decrease the quality of your old friendships, polys explore multiple loving relationships with the full knowledge and consent of everyone involved. To some, this may sound like little more than the “hook-up culture” we so often hear debated. Polys are quick to refute this assertion. Inherent in the word polyamory is amo, from the Latin root to love. Making out with five different guys at Toad’s isn’t polyamory. That’s just Saturday night (or Wednesday, if you like to party hard). In contrast, polyamory implies some level of emotional intimacy and commitment as well. In this respect, it’s pretty much identical to those good oldfashioned monogamous relationships we so often regard as the romantic ideal — with the minor caveat that it explicitly challenges the mono part. While there is no “typical” practice of polyamory, a local practitioner describes his love life as an example of one of the many ways to be polyamorous. Nick, the founder of an online support group for polys, is a heteroflexible man in his mid-twenties. He has one woman that he would describe as his “girlfriend,” in that that they are in a more or less committed relationship. She also has one other boyfriend. In addition, Nick is romantically involved with a woman whom he used to see monogamously. She decided to scale back the commitment so that she could focus on her education, but they still see each other casually. He also casually dates and is intimate with two more women. He says he’s interested in one additional woman. Everybody involved knows as much as they wish to know about everyone else. In fact, Nick gets along well with the other boyfriend. For this group, polyamory has been fulfilling everyone’s needs so far.

The Basics Right now, you’re probably experiencing one of two reactions. You might be thinking, “That sounds awesome, why doesn’t everyone do this? Where can I sign up?” Or, you might be scoffing, “That could never work. People get jealous. It’s too complicated.” Either reaction has some truth to it. Poly relationships have all the complexity and challenges of monogamous relationships, but multiplied by the number of partners involved. So how do they do it?

That’s where it gets tricky. No two polys practice in the same way. Relationships can be open or closed. Triangular, square, Vshaped, or branched. Equal or in a primary/ secondary archetype. Deeply personal or communal. Gay, straight, bisexual, pansexual, or any other -sexual you can think of. Permanent or casual. The list goes on. For outsiders, perhaps the most confusing part of poly relationships is figuring out the “shape.” There are a few basic structures that are common. The first, and possibly most common, is a “V.” This set-up is common among bisexual or bicurious females looking to explore their homosexual desires while still maintaining a heterosexual relationship. In this case, the point of the V is the bi woman, with her male and female partners poking out as the arms. Many bi women may have explored such relationships without ever realizing that their experiences fall under the umbrella of polyamory — five minutes on Craigslist and you’ll see dozens of women looking for a playmate outside of their hetero relationships. Of course, Vs can involve two women and a man, two men and a woman, or three of either gender with the “split” or “focal point” being any one of the three. Now, in the Man-Woman A-Woman B V, the Man and Woman B would not be involved with each other. They just happen to both be partnered with Woman A. A closely related relationship archetype is the “triangle,” in which all three partners are involved with each other. This is particularly popular among bisexual women who feel that it’s more “fair” if their boyfriend also gets to explore another woman. Another popular scenario is a “square” relationship. Again, the relationship can consist of any combination of genders. Perhaps it’s two straight couples who swap hetero partners. Perhaps it’s two bisexual or gay couples, allowing each person to have three other partners. Or perhaps it consists of four uncoupled individuals. While two couples would be a more personal, private form of polyamory, “communal” relationships are also possible and common. Let’s say we have a square with two straight men and two bisexual women. Perhaps Woman A and Man A are a couple, while Woman B and Man B are also a couple. But the women are involved with each other, and Woman A and Man B/Woman B and Man A also have a relationship. Work that over in your head. Got it? Okay. These are all personal relationships. Man A might not be interested in the

Polyamorous Relationships

THE V / THE TRIANGLE

THE SQUARE

THE COUPLES SQUARE

THE BRANCH

COMMITTED RELATIONSHIP POSSIBLE RELATIONSHIP QMAGAZINEATYALE.COM 25

There’s a lot of gray area, which absolutely necessitates that everyone talk openly and honestly about what they want and need. nature of his relationship with Woman A and Man B as a unit. Each interaction is individually oriented. However, maybe Man B likes to go on dates with both women at the same time. That could be a more communal relationship. Now, remember how there were two partnered couples, A and B? This is indicative of a “primary/secondary” structure. Man A’s primary partner in this case is Woman A. Their relationship is of primary importance to him. If the square eventually breaks down, it’s likely that couple A would continue on together to form other poly relationships. If Man A and Man B can’t stand each other, the primary structure essentially serves as a commitment to pick A over B. Many, but not all relationships involve this structure. In some relationships, all partnerships are completely equal. In some there is a more tiered hierarchy. Perhaps Woman A is committed to Man A, Man B, and Woman B in that specific order. In hierarchical relationships, it is not unheard of or even uncommon for primary couples to marry and carry on what looks to outsiders very much like a typical monogamous relationship. No exact statistics exist, of course. Out of the approximately 2.1 million marriages in the United States in 2009, there is no way to know how many of these happy couples were part of other equally happy relationships. So far, we’ve looked at relationships with a finite number of people. These relationships are referred to as “closed.” They include a specified number of partners. Generally all the partners will actually know each other, and will be aware of the intricacies of the relationships between all the individuals involved. Another option is the “open” paradigm that lends itself to a “branched” schema. In this case, any given partner may have an infinite number of other partners. Each of them has their own independent and potentially infinite number of relationships. There may be crossover: Woman A might be dating Women B – E. Women C and D might also 26

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be dating each other, while Woman E brings in Man A and his boyfriend Man B. These relationships are the most complicated to explain to the uninitiated but allow the greatest freedom for each individual involved. To kick the complexity up one more notch, it is possible for a branched relationship to also be closed. Perhaps the group is finite; there may be a group of ten people who are involved. However, the interactions between any two people are unscripted. Any two or more of the people may or may not become involved with someone in the group, but not with anyone outside the group. On the flip side, in an open branched relationship, there’s a good chance that any two people in the network may not even know each other. Perhaps they don’t share any immediate partners. Or perhaps they do, but they choose not to know. An individual might choose to talk openly about all of their relationships and treat the network as a group of common friends or family. Others might choose to keep a relationship a private, discrete entity. However, this brings up the cardinal rule of polyamory: communication. Every single person involved needs to be explicitly aware of the expectations. Not every relationship within a network has to follow the same rules, but each individual must simultaneously follow the rules of all of their own relationships. If Kate and her boyfriend Alex agree to tell each other when they add additional partners, Kate does not necessarily need to tell her girlfriend Amanda about Alex. No conflicts arise. On the other hand, if Amanda explicitly asks Kate not to talk about their relationship, there could be a problem depending on how much detail Alex wants. Sometimes partners want to meet each other. Sometimes they merely want to know of the other person’s existence. There’s a lot of gray area, which absolutely necessitates that everyone talk openly and honestly about what they want and need. Another major concern related to communication has more tangible effects — nonmo-

nogamous relationships hold a higher risk of STI transmission. Frequent and frank discussions about test results, consistency of barrier protection, and risk factors are vital. This becomes even more important if partners are “fluid bonded.” Fluid bonding can be a way to express commitment, particularly among primary couples. For example, some of those aforementioned married poly couples might agree to have barrier-free sex with each other; that is, they agree to the exchange of fluids (to put it in the least romantic way possible). However, they would likely agree to continue using barriers with all secondary partners.

Conclusion Really, polyamory isn’t nearly as scary or foreign as it seems at first glance. Honesty, communication, love, and commitment — not quite the keywords you might think an “ethical slut” would live by. Admittedly, it isn’t always easy. Jealousy is a very real and common experience for many polys. For younger people who are not looking to cohabitate or have children immediately, or people who feel claustrophobic within a monogamous relationship, or people who are still exploring their sexual orientation, polyamory can be a viable short term option. An eventual decision to switch to pure monogamy with a primary partner is not unheard of. However, many polys remain polyamorous throughout their lives. If a poly lifestyle sounds like it could make you happy, there are resources to get you past the basic lingo and structure discussed here. The free online dating community OkCupid.com has an active poly scene that would love to add you to their ranks. The website fetlife.com (which functions as ‘Facebook for kinky people’) includes many poly individuals as well as discussion boards. The Ethical Slut is an invaluable starting point for people searching for a more in-depth discussion of polyamory from authors who actively practice it. So read up, and share the love.

Artist Spotlight

Andrew Sotiriou Birth of a Drag Queen

We live in a world of construction, where everything must fit together and be labeled to create a seemingly perfect understanding. But through his fluid, organic geometric shapes and abstract forms Andrew Michael Sotiriou SY ’13 turns these constructions, the labels of gender and of sexuality, on their head. He rebels against the idea of masculinity, and reconstructs this masculine form; he glorifies the “sacred feminine” found within everyone, a femininity that should be celebrated instead of suppressed and hidden away. Society’s current vision of beauty is something we have made and manipulated, and these artworks aim to create a new understanding and perspective of beauty through the exploration of the different transgressions of norms. One of the strongest examples of this is seen in “Birth of the Drag Queen.” Before his transformation to graceful beauty, the man is literally stuck between heavy, jagged rocks confining him to the body and actions that are expected of those who are “masculine” — masculinity being a construct that binds and traps, which is distinguished from being a man. It is not until the man in the illustration slides through these heavy constructs of society that he finds life, displayed in the form of a flower, and true bliss.

The soft color of the drag queen’s hair that dissipates into the air displays the openness and naturalness of this transformation. In “Masculine Longing for the Feminine” we see the cruel results of the labels society puts on gender. The masculine figure is created out of harsh lines that create a flat and fractured human. He is trapped within his own body and finds no way to become what he truly desires. His subconscious pokes out and points at the feminine figure that stands next to him in a harmonious trance; he longs to be like her and is saying “Look there, that is something I shall never have.” Sotiriou’s illustrations are intricate pieces of art that you can get lost inside of. They explore evolution of man and society, and embrace the harmony found within the sacred feminine. He confronts the inescapable difficulties of those who are bound to the labels of their gender and the beauty and celebrates the freedom of breaking down gender divisions.

— Nicholle Lamartina QMAGAZINEATYALE.COM

Portrait of a Lady

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Masculine Longing for the Feminine

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Finding queer love online: a personal essay BY ANNA NORTH After I came out, I was reluctant to meet other gay girls. Where did I go to find them? What if they thought I was ‘late in the game’ not realizing I was gay until college? Or what if they just weren’t interested? I never had that kind of gay mentor that many people have, or Mama Gay as I like to call them, to introduce me to other lesbians and assay my worries. Instead, my straight friends grappled with how to help me with issues they had never dealt with and introduce me to a group of people they weren’t a part of. With the weeks of my conflicted thoughts quickly becoming endless, my roommate decided my dilly-dallying wasn’t getting me anywhere, and, not being one to waste time, took matters into her own hands. She announced one night that our summer in San Francisco would not be complete without meeting new people, people whom we wouldn’t simply run into on the streets. “We’re creating online dating accounts!” she announced. This struck me as a risky idea. Weren’t there creeps on it? And wasn’t everyone on dating sites pathetic and undesirable? But eventually, I had to admit that I had considered it several times, and my roommate’s participation gave me an easy out; we were just doing this for fun, and we were doing it together. Under my roommate’s tuition, I created

The Flower Child

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my account on OkCupid and spent night after night perusing profiles, joking loudly about the obvious weirdos and secretly hoping that one of the normal-looking girls would contact me. I was afraid to admit that I needed the technological device and support of a friend to put myself out into the dating scene. I wanted to pretend that I was only looking for quirky characters like she was, but I knew her real impetus for starting the accounts and my real desires for its outcome were precisely what the site was designed for. I wanted to meet girls I could date. The first date was a fluke. She was an Academy of the Arts student, a free-spirit with gorgeous red hair and some unique stories to tell, but too out there for me. A few more attempts led me to some loose friendships or at least a couple nights of fun. But while my friend met up with the characters of San Francisco, I continued to hope for that person I could really connect with. And, by luck, fate or her daring, I happened to find her. Or rather, she found me. She initiated contact, and we sent messages back and forth for a few weeks while our schedules kept putting us in different places at different times, until finally we made a date. She was coming to my place to make dinner on Friday. For the week leading up to our big date, I felt like I was in middle school again. I was so nervous to meet this girl, the first person I ever really felt a reciprocated interest in. It was glorious. On Friday, I spent all day getting ready, cleaning the apartment, making a playlist, rereading our messages, trying to force myself to wait until an hour before to get dressed. Then she called; she’d gotten off work an hour early and wanted to come sooner than planned. Of course I said yes, and threw my clothes on (well, not really, as I hadn’t made it to the hour-mark for waiting). She arrived in an old red Volvo, hands full of grocery bags containing all of the ingredients necessary for risotto plus a bottle of wine. We hugged and made our way to my apartment, chatting nervously (and thus loudly and enthusiastically). We got right to work making dinner to cover any awkward pauses in conversation. It felt more like meeting a friend of a friend than meeting someone entirely new. After all, we had talked to each other almost every day for two weeks, and I had researched her thoroughly online to make sure she was who she said she was. I knew the basics of her life, and she knew mine. We even found an acquaintance in common. As we sat down to our beautifully plated risotto and squash, she

mentioned the party she might be going to with her brother that night. I was reassured that she was the kind of girl that had a way out if things didn’t go well. But as we ate and I became bubblier and bubblier on wine, it became clear she wasn’t going to the party. She stayed for an hour of after-dinner chatting, then for dessert, then a bit longer. Around ten she headed out. I walked her to her car, and we hugged goodbye. Being the bold one, she asked, “When can I see you next?” We set the second date for the next Friday, then another for the next, and then saw each other every night of the following week. My roommate will tell you with a little smirk how she facilitated what has now be-

come a year-long relationship, and it’s true she had the right idea and the right sneaky way of getting me to do it. Even though I was wary of online dating initially, and prepared myself with a get-away at every date, it relieved a lot of my internal tension over my coming out. The pressure of being the new gay girl at school disappeared in this online forum, and I was not responsible for creating my identity as a gay person right away. It was the anonymity of online dating, the ability to introduce myself to people whom I could never see again if I didn’t want to, that gave me the courage to put myself out there and risk looking stupid. Though even when I look stupid, my now-girlfriend seems pretty okay with it.

MUSIC REVIEW

Ceremonials by Florence and the Machine

With her debut album Lungs, Florence Welch of Florence and the Machine managed to find a sizeable audience, widespread critical acclaim, and a terrible Glee cover by combining the eccentric charm of Kate Bush with a radio-ready pop rock sound. To be fair, the Kate Bush comparison only extends as far as their shared enthusiasm for witchy clothes and tribal drumming. Yet despite crowd-pleasing singles like “Dog Days Are Over” and “Kiss With a Fist,” Lungs didn’t quite hold together as a cohesive album, and Welch came off like an artist frantically trying on multiple hats in an attempt to define her artistic identity. Well, on Ceremonials, Welch has most definitely found a hat. And it just so happens to be a big-ass, gaudy, velvet hat that’s really pretty to look at the first time but kind of hurts your eyes after a while. Just about every song has been stuffed to the max with bells and whistles and topped off a little too aggressively by Welch’s distinctive wail. At first, the decision to embrace everything inherently huge-sounding about Welch’s voice by pairing it with equally epic music seems like a good move. Early highlights like “What the Water Gave Me” and “Shake It Off” build to satisfying levels of bombast, sounding like the ideal soundtrack to a revival meeting

presided over by Annie Lennox’s long-lost banshee cousin. Yet somewhere towards the middle Ceremonials gets a bit bloated. The songs don’t necessarily get any worse, but even a vocalist as talented and charismatic as Welch can’t sustain a level of feverish intensity without this unrelenting intensity overstaying its welcome. By the time the choir-backed, electronic harp-accompanied, altogether very shouty chorus of closing track “Leave My Body” set in, this listener had grown rather weary of his banshee friend. When Welch does calm down for a sec on the rather lovely and relatively hushed centerpiece “Breaking Down,” we get a much needed palate cleansing, though it is unfortunately short lived. To be fair, this isn’t the kind of album that rewards solitary, stationary listening. But, on the other hand, it could be the perfect accompaniment to nice, energetic jog or a long trip across the Scottish Highlands on the back of a unicorn. But what is irrefutable is that while Welch seems to have grown more confident as a performer, she still hasn’t managed to translate this confidence into an album that’s both cohesive and multifaceted enough to demonstrate the true breadth of her abilities. — TRAVIS TREW

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Q’s Queue QUEER FILMS ON NETFLIX Milk (2008) Milk is the widely acclaimed biographical film of the life of Harvey Milk (Sean Penn), a gay rights activist and the first openly gay elected official in California. The story focuses on the political years of Milk’s later life in California, showing his struggles in both the political arena and his personal life. It is a truly inspiring story of one of the early victories for the political side of the gay rights movement, showing the power of numbers and passion for a common cause, led by individual perseverance and sacrifice. However, it is also a tragic story with a heart-stopping climax that mirrors the two-steps-forward-one-stepback battle that the movement has fought, even in recent years. The dual Oscars were not won for nothing, and if you have not yet seen this movie, the stirring story carried by Sean Penn’s spectacular performance as Milk will make it well worth your while. — D.P. Plata Quemada (2000) Plata Quemada (or Burnt Money), directed by Marcelo Piñeyro, is a crime thriller set in Argentina. Inspired by a true story, it follows two hitmen and lovers, El Nene (Leonardo Sbaraglia) and Ángel (Eduardo Noriega), from a failed bank robbery, through a haphazard flight to Uruguay, all the way to a fiery shootout between the men and the Argentine government. An offbeat movie with offbeat characters, Plata Quemada offers not only an action-packed adventure but also a rare reimagining of male sexuality and the stereotypical idea of what“gay” looks and acts like. [INSTANT PLAY] — K.A. Boys Don’t Cry (1999) Boys Don’t Cry embodies the spirit and struggle of real-life Brandon Teena, (Hilary Swank), a transgender young man trying his best to fit in. He travels to the small town of Fall City, Nebraska to create a new life for himself and slowly but surely makes friends with the locals who are unaware of his secret. He eventually becomes romantically tied with Lana (Chloë Sevigny), who completely accepts and loves Brandon no matter what. However, there is tension from her former boyfriend John (Peter Sarsgaard) who is willing to do anything to get Lana back. Inevitably, John reveals to Lana’s family and the town that Brandon is transgendered, propelling a violent eruption exemplifying the inability to accept someone different. [INSTANT PLAY] — C.B. A Single Man (2009) A Single Man is a fictional film about a gay English professor living in the early ‘60s who contemplates suicide after his partner dies in a car accident. However, there is much more to the film than a man’s struggle to accept the death of a loved one. The day George prepares for his suicide, putting all his affairs in order, several events conspire to save him. His closest and perhaps only friend, a colorful and dramatic woman, attempts and fails at seducing him, and later a stunningly handsome student of his succeeds where she fails. All of this occurs with the tense overtones of the anti-homosexual hostility of the postwar years, and is captured with a brilliant eye for cinematography that alone makes this movie worth watching. — D.P. 32

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Chasing Amy (1997) A blend of comedy, romance and drama, Chasing Amy explores the relationship between Alyssa (Joey Lauren Adams), a lesbian, and comic book writer Holden (Ben Affleck). When Holden first meets Alyssa he is instantly attracted to her, but because of her sexual preference he has to settle for friendship. As his desire builds, Holden expresses his romantic love for Alyssa and she, too, realizes similar feelings. Holden’s roommate and best friend Banky (Jason Lee) is secretly in love with him and is dramatically affected by this, as he lashes out in jealousy and disbelief. Throughout the movie Banksy finds himself having to hide his homosexuality through constant homophobic jokes. Writer and director Kevin Smith concretely addresses the roles of gender and sexuality and how each character defines it differently. [INSTANT PLAY] — C.B. Y Tu Mamá También (2001) Y Tu Mamá También, directed by Mexican-born and New York-based Alfonso Cuarón, tells the story of two best friends, Tenoch (Diego Luna) and Julio (Gael García Bernal), young men looking to spend the summer away from their girlfriends and enjoying the simple pleasures of drinking, drugs, and sex. They go to a wedding and meet Luisa (Maribel Verdú), the young wife of Tenoch’s cousin, and convince her to go on a road trip with them. Along the way, sexual tension between the three builds, with Luisa engaging in explicit acts with first Tenoch and later Julio. Towards the end of the film, a sexual encounter involving all three effectively ends the friendship between the two teenagers, who begin to question the relationship between them. Y Tu Mamá También leads you to reconsider the difference (and if there’s even a difference at all) between physical intimacy and emotional intimacy between lovers and friends. [INSTANT PLAY] — K.A. I Love You Phillip Morris (2009) Madcap comedian Jim Carrey plays Steven Russell, a policeman in Virginia who dutifully supports his wife and daughter - but who has a lot of gay sex on the side. When an accident outs Russell to his wife, he gives up the act and moves to Miami. Before long, though, he’s short of cash and turns to lying again, this time as a conman. His frauds land him in jail, where he falls madly in love with a timid and sensitive inmate, Phillip Morris (Ewan McGregor). Russell busts them out of prison and cons his way into the finance world, trying desperately to form a perfect life for him and his partner – creating a tender story of love and loss. Though sometimes over the top, it is a true and sweet story with a great touch of comedy. [INSTANT PLAY] — A.L. And the Band Played On (1993) And the Band Played On is an important and revealing depiction of the AIDS epidemic, which is inextricably tied to the recent life of gay American men. The film spends little time on the early victims of the epidemic, instead focusing on the perspectives of the government and scientific community and their roles in the handling of the AIDS crisis. The film is an engaging and often frustrating view into how and why the epidemic was disregarded for such a prolonged time, dismissed as a “gay disease.” Based on the book of the same name and nominated for two Golden Globes among other awards, this is certainly not a dry scientific documentary. If you are looking for a well-researched portrayal of how the prejudices of society infiltrate every aspect of human lives, including ones thought to be as objective as scientific discovery, then this is a film to see. [INSTANT PLAY] — D.P.

REVIEWS BY KATIE ARAGÓN, CLARISSA BLAU, AARON LEWIS, AND DERRIK PETRIN

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— Sex with my girlfriend is pretty good, but I’ve never told her about my strap-on fantasy. I don’t want her to think that I’m not happy with her or that I wish I were with a guy—I just think it’d be really hot if she fucked me. How do I bring it up without hurting her feelings?

DROP ME A

BY RYAN MENDÍAS

Q — I’m not having much luck meeting guys in person. I’m sort of curious about cruising on Adam4Adam or Grindr. Do Yalies use them? Will people think I’m a slut? What would our gay forefathers say if they knew that cruising now could be done with little risk of arrest or public humiliation? I’ve had enough conversations with older gay men who lament “the end of cruising” to know that times have definitely changed. We’ve definitely lost something with the “Facebookification” of cruising—we’re not as aware of clandestine foot tapping, wandering eyes at the urinal, or a glance held for a moment too long in the Stacks. But cruising 2.0 has opened up a whole new world for men who have sex with men. Including, of course, plenty of Yale students. Yalies have always cruised and probably always will, and the present moment is no exception. Log onto Grindr or Adam4Adam and you’ll be inundated with images of Yale students, from freshmen to Ph.D. candidates, and everyone in between. Now, you might not actually know that they’re Yale students. For many cruising Yalies, privacy is of the utmost importance; for every Yale man that posts a picture of his face, two more keep strictly to shots of their rippling torsos or throbbing erections. And that’s totally okay. That’s the beauty of cruising in the era of the Internet. You’re in total command over what other people get to know about you. If you’re worried about people knowing your online cruising persona, use a fake name and be judicious about who you share a face pic with. Obviously, be safe. Use protection and get tested regularly—and have those conversations with your partner before the clothes come off—but also pay attention to your instincts. If someone you meet online turns out not to be who you expected, feel free to say, “Thanks, but no thanks” and send him on his way. If you’re a bit nervous, try meeting in a public place and scoping him out before going home. Cruising has been an integral part of gay male sexuality for as long as gay men have existed. If you’re intrigued, give it a shot. Even at the Gay Ivy, the hookup pool can get awkwardly shallow; log onto A4A or Craiglist’s Men Seeking Men section and check out the scene. And for you homos with smart phones, Grindr can provide a sexy distraction while walking between classes, standing in line at the post office, or waiting for discussion section to be over…

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Strap-on sex has been a hot topic for queer women for a long time now. Butches and femmes in the ’50s organized a whole subculture around those who wore strap-ons and those who wore dresses. Radicalesbians later decried silicon cocks as patriarchal tools that dykes had been deluded into using. Today, ladies who like ladies have been left with this uncertain legacy. Queer politics aside, the most important thing here is to communicate. It’s great that you’re already thinking about her feelings and potential reactions. Make your girlfriend see that this isn’t about boredom in bed or being sexually unfulfilled. Let her know what exactly about her using a strap-on is hot for you. Spare no details—the clearer (and hotter) the picture, the more she’ll see that this isn’t about something that’s lacking in your relationship but rather something that could bring you both together and make your sex life that much better. Ask her what fantasies she has that she might not have shared with you. Maybe she’s just as interested in using a strap-on but has been worried about freaking you out. You’ll never know until you talk about it. Whatever you do, remember to respect her comfort level. If she’s hesitant about slipping into a harness and wielding a plastic dick, that’s perfectly fine. Suggest alternatives that are still erotically charged for you. There are lots of other sex toys and each one has its own unique charms—they’re like snowflakes, really. Also, keep in mind that lots of dildos don’t look anything like dicks, so, for example, if you suggest that she use a bright, pink, sparkly toy, the argument that you “wish you were with a guy” kind of flies out the window (no offense meant to men who have bright, pink, sparkly penises).

— I want to bottom, but I’m really worried about cleanliness. What’s the best way to stay clean down there? This is a common fear. From anal virgins to experienced power bottoms, avoiding messy accidents during anal sex is a big concern. Basically, everyone’s a little bit anal when it comes to their anus. To answer this question, I’ll backtrack a bit. During Sex Week 2010, at the now infamous “blowjob workshop,” the presenter offered two maxims to keep in mind: (A) Sex is messy, and (B) Sex is funny. A little bit of nervousness might make for a more exciting sexual encounter, but if you’re too fixated on anal cleanliness, your sexual experience will end up being pretty, uh, shitty. So just relax! Of course, staying clean is definitely important. For the most part, regular bowel movements and some fastidious cleaning of the nether regions while showering will do the trick. If you’re pretty sure anal sex is on the horizon, maybe spend a bit more time back there before going out for the night—don’t go overboard though, the anus is a sensitive organ. And if you’re still concerned, there are lots of ways to ensure a clean and pleasurable experience. Enemas and anal douches work well, if used carefully. You can pick up an enema from most drug stores. Just make sure you empty out the solution that comes with the enema and replace it with water—most enema solutions are laxatives. If you don’t want to have to make awkward eye contact with the old woman at the Walgreens checkout counter every time you’re going to have butt sex, you might consider buying an anal douche. They go for about $10 and function pretty much like enemas: Fill them up with lukewarm water, insert, squeeze, and repeat until clean.

Submit your questions to editor@qmagazineatyale.com

FROM THE ARCHIVES

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Wilde & Out Oscar Wilde’s visit to New Haven BY CHAMONIX ADAMS PORTER

n 1882, Yale hosted a presence unlike any that it had ever encountered—Irish writer and poet Oscar Wilde. Thousands of Americans flocked to campus to catch a glimpse of the ostentatious aesthete from across the Atlantic. Almost a third of the Yale student body paraded across campus in strange costumes and waved giant fans to greet the author whose reputation for foppery and homoeroticism had long since reached the United States. Wilde’s visit to campus on February 1, 1882, reveals the multifaceted and complicated attitude of contemporary Yale students toward queer culture and sexuality. Wilde’s American tour hinged on the public voracity for spectacle. Although Wilde had ostensibly traveled to the United States to teach about the ultimate value of art, the tour profited mainly from Americans’ excitement to see the bizarre Irishman in person. Wilde’s eccentric reputation preceded him, and the New Haven Evening Register noted with surprise that he was “a somewhat curious figure, but evidently one not so outré and unconventional as had been anticipated.” The paper went on to thoroughly describe his outfit, stating that “but for his long black hair, which was parted in the middle and fell straight to his shoulders, there was nothing in his appearance very much out of the ordinary.” Part of the attention to Wilde’s dress certainly stemmed from his aesthetic ideals, which emphasized extravagance and was often manifested in lavish clothing. His modest dress at the lecture also defied the high fashion of the English dandy class of which he was the darling. This bourgeois, highly-stylized bachelor class of British men had strong queer connotations, partially because instead of using their incomes to marry, they bought clothes and art. These queer undertones of Wilde’s exaggerated reputation may well have provided some of the impetus for the general

negative attitude towards Wilde on campus. At the time of his visit, Wilde was not a popular figure at Yale. This antipathy, though, did not manifest itself in hatred or violence. Students did not interrupt the lecture or attempt to harm him; instead, they laughed at him. Wilde was a figure of frivolity to them, as demonstrated by organized student responses to his visit. Inside of the lecture, a group of students sitting in the front row opened a giant fan painted with sunflowers. These male students, who were wearing paper lily boutonnieres, waved the fan, much to the amusement of the audience, until an attaché told them to close it. The fan was very popular with the audience, and the New Haven Register reported it causing “successive ripples of merriment through the house.” After the fan was closed, though, the event passed relatively quietly, and although spectators applauded ironically at inopportune moments, Wilde seemed unperturbed by this, rarely even looking up at the audience. In resistance to rumors that students would “guy,” or tease, Wilde, one student identified only as JUS commented in the Yale Daily News the day of the lecture, arguing that it would “redound to the disgrace of Yale” for students to behave in such a “foolish, boyish, and disreputable” manner. However, the letter in no way defended Oscar Wilde. In fact, for all its talk of gentlemanly conduct, it provided the most openly critical discussion of the visitor of any of New Haven’s papers. He continued, “If we students despise aestheticism and the opinions of the man, the very best way of showing such contempt is by keeping away from his lectures.” He even suggested that Wilde ought to leave the United States and hoped that if no students attended the lecture, “he will soon give up his excursions and his season among us and betake himself where he is appreciated.” Although many students at Yale were unhappy with Wilde’s presence, their sentiments never erupted into anger. Instead, Yale men mocked Oscar Wilde, laughing at the rhetoric of aestheticism—and perhaps at his queerness. Largely in response to a similar happenQMAGAZINEATYALE.COM

ing at Harvard, two hundred Yale men paraded around campus wearing red ties and sunflowers for the visit. They marched behind a very tall black servant dressed in the same costume. At Harvard, students had somewhat more successfully drawn attention to the visit by holding sunflowers and wearing knee-breeches and bright colors. The Harvard Crimson described them walking in a “limp and languid manner.” Because the Yale march was so clearly a reaction to Harvard, it did not elicit media attention or a response from Wilde. Despite this, though, the Yale march was clearly significant in sheer scale. In 1882, Yale College had 611 students, almost a third of whom marched in mockery of Wilde, laughing not at Wilde’s great love of art as JUS would have had them do, but rather at his red necktie. In Gay New York, historian and Yale professor George Chauncey states that red neckties were one of the most ubiquitous symbols of homosexuality. In some cases, the necktie served as a code to help gay men find sexual partners. Over time, the symbol became so popular that many heterosexual Americans also understood its significance, as demonstrated by the fact that Yale men wore it to mock Wilde. In 1882, though Wilde had not yet battled his infamous sodomy and indecency cases in Britain, the Yale men’s image of him was clearly defined by homosexuality. Although unmarried and without children, Wilde had never publically discussed his sexuality, yet public consciousness unabashedly painted Wilde as queer. By 1882, Wilde had published, among other short works, The Happy Prince and Other Stories and his only novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray. Both of these works are filled with sexually charged descriptions of male beauty and, to a certain extent, physical affection between men. While the language does not make any explicit reference to homosexuality, there is an underlying homoerotic charge that most queer men reading the works would have noticed. Wilde used such subtle hints not just to create his literary identity but also to color his lecture at Yale. In urging the university to become a leader of the aesthetic movement, for exam36

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ple, Wilde lauded the athletic success of the university, stating, “a Greek statue placed in your gymnasium should remind you of the artistic sense which moved the Greeks in their culture of physical development.” To the outside observer, this would simply be an aesthete building on the Victorian venera-

tion of ancient cultures. However, to a homosexual who had read Plato’s Symposium, the image of the virile Greek athlete would be familiar—and distinctly homoerotic. The queer men of Yale were therefore aware that they were hosting one of their own. Ridiculed and disrespected by a sizeable portion of the student body, Wilde was indeed treated homophobically on campus. Wilde’s visit demonstrated that while queer men (or men who appeared to be queer) were not accepted, they were seen as only a trivial threat to the culture of traditional manhood on which Yale was built. Later, Wilde’s re-

lationship with Lord Alfred Douglas was punished to the fullest extent of British law, with both men ostracized and sentenced to hard labor. How did public response to Wilde change from college students waving a fan to persecution and exile almost twenty years later? The shift lies in the difference between perceptions of queer culture and perceptions of homosexual carnality. Red neckties and limp gaits were signs not so much of sexual identity as of membership in a subculture defined by mannerisms and styles, not desires. To Yale students, Wilde was queer—a man who was worth laughing at as he lived outside of the traditional norms. His effeminacy, not his desire for other men, was the target of the joke. However, when he was tried several years later, it was not for effeminacy but rather for “gross indecency”—that is, having sex with Lord Alfred Douglas. Wilde had been humored in crossing certain lines of manhood, but his transgression into sodomy went too far. It is difficult to conjecture what queer Yale men thought of Wilde’s visit. It seems equally likely that they were encouraged by his open effeminacy and disheartened by their colleagues’ teasing. The treatment of Oscar Wilde indicated that queer people could exist publically, but only if they remained subservient and silent. Wilde’s final sin was to demand a sexual life. Oscar Wilde’s visit to Yale is significant in that it shows broad student consciousness of queer identity almost seventy years before any major American homophile or queer activism. Despite its mocking tone, the student antics indicate that queer visibility was a reality in the United Sates. Wilde’s visit, therefore, reveals that queer life at Yale, even in 1882, was anything but a secret. Sources "The Aesthetic Apostle." New Haven Evening Register, February 2, 1882. "Communication." Yale Daily News, February 1, 1882. "Erotic and Pornographic Art: Gay Male." www.glbtq.com, 2002. "Freshmen at Oscar Wilde's Lecture." Harvard Crimson, February 1, 1882. "Oscar Wilde." Yale Daily News, February 2, 1882. Chauncey, George. Gay New York: Gender, Urban Culture, and the Makings of the Gay Male World 1890-1940, (Basic Books, 1994). Lewis, Lloyd, and Henry Justin Smith. Oscar Wilde Discovers America, 1882, (Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1967). Pierson, George W. "A Yale Book of Numbers Historical Statistics of the College and University 1701 - 1976." Yale University Office of Institutional Research, (Yale University, 2011).

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