Contextualizing 'Clit Notes'

To the editors:

While I admire the candor of Noah D. Oppenheim '00 (Column, Apr. 3) regarding his moral issues with "Gaypril" (and his bold decision to print slang variants of "clitoris" in an article decrying the "downright obscene"), I must disagree with his loaded assessment that "[queers] may need to accept that the biological footing of heterosexuality...cannot be overcome."

Excluding a few bright lights of free thought in Western history, the racial and gender exclusivity of European societies has been guarded for centuries behind a bastion of "moral" reasoning. One need only look at our notion of miscegenation, for example, to see how such concepts as racial intermarriage were considered radically immoral aberrations of depraved individuals, or, for a more proximate example, the hate-laced editorials in the very pages of the Harvard Crimson against the granting of lending privileges to Radcliffe students wishing to use Lamont Library just a few decades ago.

When Oppenheim writes that "the acceptance of racial and gender difference may have been possible...only because such inclusions did not involve revision of our basic moral principles," it is the nadir of an article whose unspoken agenda is to insist that homosexuality is fundamentally immoral.

Oppenheim-who cannot be unaware of the great strides Harvard and out society has made in changing its "culture" over the years--adopts a defeatist attitude that seems highly suspect.

The assertion that homosexuality is on biologically shaky grounds is just that--an assertion. As highlighted as an argument against the activities of the BGLTSA [Bisexual, Gay, Lesbian and Transgendered Supporters Alliance] in Oppenheim's article, it harkens back to the pseudoscience of 19th-and 20th-century race theorists. Perhaps some might agree with Oppenheim that "basic models of ethics and of sexuality are two of those foundations...that preserve a society's stability." But these are same people who object to the presence of women anywhere outside the kitchen. If a society cannot with-stand the integration of queer culture, then it does not deserve to survive as it stands.

The strict division in Oppenheim's article between "political" questions such as same-sex marriage and "cultural" questions is highly suspect. Despite Harvard's legal implementation of sexual equality, sexual discrimination still presents itself in purely "cultural" interactions. A professor's chance comment that the female mind is unsuited to the study of a certain subject, for example, leads to dysfunctional advising relationships.

In the same manner, I can feel comfortable complaining to my friends about my love life while many of my homosexual friends choose to keep quiet because the objects of their desire are illegitimate in the eyes of many people who hold explicit or implicit power at this school. When a socially conservative professor invites me to bring a "significant other" to a gathering, I can feel comfortable bringing a woman, while a gay man or woman might think twice before bringing their own significant others because they fear the effect such "outspokeness" might have on their academic life.

If Oppenheim remains unconvinced of the oppressive weight of "cultural" questions, he might ask himself why many queers who are comfortable with the "moral" aspects of their sexuality choose to remain closeted. While it is true that Harvard is often admirably queer-friendly, especially on level of Faculty and House masters, it has failed the queer community many times. The reassignment of first-year roommates at the request of a student who could not live with a homosexual is one example that has surfaced in the past years.

Finally, it is interesting to note Oppenheim's selective blindness in the observance of BGLTSA posters. While the phrase "oppressive paradigm" may remain for him an amusing snippet of lit-crit jargon, the pervasiveness of outspoken heterosexuality on this campus cannot be denied. Has Oppenheim never seen a heterosexually risqué poster for a Harvard dance, a cappella concert or theatrical production? While innocuous enough, the prevelance (and thus the privileging) of heterosexual behavior and the attendant invisibility of homosexuality legitimizes a climate of homophobia. If, on the other hand, Oppenheim is offended solely by the word "vulva" on a BGLTSA poster, I suggest he take a trip to the Fogg, where he will find an ample number of vulvas exposed to the (heterosexual) painter's gaze.

There is often an odd split-mind at Harvard, where we can study Plato's Symposium and the fragments of Sappho, Allen Ginsberg and Adrienne Rich '51, yet emerge from the seminar room to find only disgust and fear in expressions of homosexual desire on campus. If Harvard and our larger communities are to accept queers, we must accept them culturally as well as politically. We must accept them as individuals with the capacity for love and lust. The outspoken nature of "Clit Notes" is in part a protest against people such as Oppenheim who consider lesbians de facto excluded from moral behavior because of the "threat" they pose to America's social cohesion. SIMON J. DEDEO '00   April 4, 1998.