Reading `Clit Notes'

"Gaypril" is upon us. To kick off this month-long celebration of queer rights and queer pride, the Bisexual, Gay, Lesbian, Transgender and Supporters Alliance (BGLTSA) set up a table in front of Widener Library and plastered the campus with provocative posters. One poster, hanging behind Thayer Hall, reads "More sex, Join the BGLTSA." Another says simply "Vulva."

What can the queer community possibly hope to accomplish with public displays which are at best random and at worst downright obscene?

The posters are, thus far, the most salient feature of this month's gay pride celebration. If we assume that the posters are not a Lampoon prank, and are actually the consciously constructed public image that the queer community on campus wishes to project, let us analyze that image based on the content of the posters.

Hug a Lesbian. Lesbians want love. In fact, they'd like you to express your adoration by hugging them. This message is innocuous enough. Members of the queer community have long been battling for the equal social standing they deserve; a little physical reassurance for the soldiers on the front lines won't hurt anyone.

Clit Notes. The clitoris is a female sexual organ. The slang term "clit" sounds like "Cliff," the title of a popular series of study aids. The queer community would like you to see the word "clit" in a public setting. This should shock you. Seeing a poster like "Clit Notes" will help accustom you to the notion of overthrowing oppressive paradigms.

More sex, Join the BGLTSA. There is more sex in the BGLTSA. If you join, maybe you can have more sex too. Queer culture is not just about homosexuality; it redefines notions of gender and sexuality in general. And, when notions get re-defined, more bodies get properly aligned.

In all seriousness, I do have a great deal of sympathy for the queer community's mission. As far as I am concerned, any rational heterosexual should. Queer rights are a basic question of human rights. But for me and many others, friction with the queer community arises not over political questions like employment protection, or even same-sex marriage, but in the arena of culture.

Many queer activists argue that society contains a presumption of heterosexuality that must be overcome. They are not content to exist as a marginal culture but insist that the implication of accepting their queerness is that the larger culture must be transformed to wholly integrate alternative sexualities. The queer community is not content to exist as a protected but discrete minority group. But, can they reasonably expect the sort of cultural integration they demand?

On the one hand, it seems they do deserve such integration. After all, we do not expect any other group to be shunned to the margins and only politically tolerated. Our culture no longer presumes human beings to be white or professionals to be male. Our mores are now far more racially- and gender-inclusive. However, the acceptance of racial and gender difference may have been possible in our society only because such inclusions did not involve revision of our basic moral principles.

Actually, queer culture is not the only culture society tolerates but is reluctant to integrate. There may be a presumption of heterosexuality in this country, but there is also a presumption of Christianity. Religious minorities exist as isolated moral and ethical enclaves. They may have different mores within their communities, but they are kept separate and the wider culture is not expected to adopt them. And, perhaps, the wider culture should not.

Certain foundations may be immutable if a society is to preserve its stability. Perhaps basic models of ethics and of sexuality are two of those foundations. It may be necessary to accept homosexuals as equal citizens without abandoning heterosexuality as our cultural orientation. The queer community may need to accept that the biological footing of the heterosexual majority, and its resulting cultural dominance, cannot be overcome.

That is, our society may need to cling to its traditional notion of a sexuality restricted to male-female relationships in order to maintain its cohesion. The male-female relationship has been the cornerstone of families and, by extension, communities and societies, throughout all of history's revolutions in tolerance. We may never be able to tackle this final frontier of social reorganization.

Or maybe, the sexual liberation of society has already proceeded so quickly in other regards--given how fast attitudes have changed with respect to premarital sex and women's sexuality--that many people simply feel they are not yet ready to understand and accept a culture informed by queerness. Perhaps, in time, with the aid of rational and sensitive outreach efforts by the queer community, we will see a radically transformed cultural landscape. Just as the stigma attached to interracial couples is slowly dissipating, gay and lesbian couples will no longer provoke a second glance.

Either way, a sign that says "Vulva" does nothing to celebrate queer culture or facilitate its integration. It only serves to remind us that the last episode of "Seinfeld" is fast approaching.

Noah D. Oppenheim '00 is a social studies concentrator in Adams House. His column appears on alternate Fridays.