College Sex - Philosophy for Everyone: Philosophers With Benefits (7 page)

Across college towns and university communities, initial departures from the norm merit some scrutiny, though any additional departures from a seemingly unconventional “norm” generate no additional con- cern. It has been customary to describe a sexual norm and simply focus on behavioral modifications that deviate from that norm. Homosexuality, once considered a mental disorder, is now clinically described as a “nor- mal variant.” However, behaviors that depart from the variant, or psycho- logically speaking, “variant of a variant,” do not warrant an equal or serious degree of social or medical attention. That is, opposite-sex exper- iments (i.e., “variant of a variant”) undertaken by self-identified gay and lesbian students are not significant enough to merit sustained analysis; after all, they’re usually dismissed as mere adolescent confusion or evi- dence of latent bisexuality.The idea here is that once you have crossed the normative line (of heterosexuality) it matters little what other lines might be crossed along the way, since you have already been tainted by the

greater stigma of homosexuality. Moreover, it is assumed that mainstream cookie-cutter gay and lesbian personas commonly venture into uncon- ventional fetishistic territory anyway, be it cross-dressing, pederasty, incest, sadomasochism, bestiality, or “polymorphic perversions” widely believed to cross the moral line. According to this line of reasoning, once one is perceived as having willfully renounced mainstream sexual prac- tices, attempting to understand one’s motivations or intentions for exper- imenting with mainstream sexuality is a bit uninteresting, for it adds little value to the study of human sexuality.

For opposite-sex experiments of gay and lesbian college students to go unnoticed as they commonly do, might initially signal the dawn of an uninhibited sexual utopia. This is not the case at all. Today’s gay and les- bian students have not arrived at some great political achievement by over- coming a climate of social opposition to their opposite-sex experimentation. Rather, its absence is cause for concern, likelihood for further neglect, and evidence of severe bigotry. Opposite-sex experiments merit no vilification or public outcry because gays and lesbians are doing what social and cul- tural norms have prescribed for them. They are habitually encouraged to experiment with the opposite sex in hopes that they “just might like it” or “turn straight.” Better still, they may only stand to benefit from the proc- ess; after all, they might save their souls from sin and pathological perver- sion, or free themselves from an otherwise self-destructive lifestyle. Consider the rise in American “ex-gay” movements and their gay gulags scattered around the country, which further attest to a sustained social, cultural, and political effort to turn homosexuals into straights. Unfortunately, these largely unregulated sexual orientation conversion camps harm and screw up the helpless youngsters sent off to them.

It helps to recall that the American university setting has only recently been welcoming to gay and lesbian students, staff, and faculty. Despite strides toward greater social acceptance, many private and religious insti- tutions continue to discriminate overtly against homosexual students, staff, and faculty in admission, promotion, or hiring practices, and many now require signed statements of “faith” or “ethics” which demand com- pliance with the institution’s prohibition on homosexual conduct, and adherence to broader religious or ideological foundations. Many who apply for admission or employment may not even be aware of their uni- versity policies on these issues.This is especially the case for undergradu- ates and younger college-aged populations. College students enter university life in the face of innumerable challenges, many of which are unknown and unfamiliar to them. They are required to take on a great

deal of financial, academic, and personal responsibilities all at once. Anyone who is accustomed to working in an academic setting must real- ize that college life, and by extension college students, drastically changed with the times. Factoring in additional complications brought on by being gay or lesbian magnifies challenges a student might face, such as the awkwardness of dorm life, forcible “outing,” homophobic settings in intercollegiate athletics, or unwelcoming fraternities and sororities. Fortunately, there are now GLBT student unions on most campuses and even nationwide gay fraternities such as Delta Lambda Phi and lesbian sororities like Alpha Chi Upsilon.

It is clear that contemporary gay and lesbian students have a greater social space in which to affirm or express their sexuality. Notwithstanding this newfound freedom, the potential does exist that many will and in fact do experiment with opposite-sex encounters for a variety of reasons, some of which markedly differ from reasons applicable to straight coun- terparts – no lesbian is expected to make out with a man in order to please her girlfriend. A gay man is not worried about straight sex experi- mentation defiling his image in the way a straight man might worry about the stigma of gay sex, tarnishing an otherwise pristine reputation; so long as he doesn’t “suck cock” and only plays the active role in anal sex, he continues to “preserve” his heterosexuality – or so the story goes. The reasons for gay and lesbian experimentation with straight sex might not be due to hazing rituals, pledging, or initiation requirements commonly found in heterosexual frat contexts. In fact, Delta Lambda Phi has a strict “no hazing” policy.
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In such contexts, there is no peer pressure and no need to submit to asinine, often illegal and life-threatening initiation rituals to impress one’s colleagues.

Unlike same-sex experiments, opposite-sex experiments, directly or subconsciously, seek to accommodate social expectations of being straight. The act fulfills a socially idealized role through simulation. While there is no social pressure to be homosexual or engage in same-sex encounters, there is tremendous social, cultural, and psychological pressure to con- form to the status quo of heterosexuality. As one strives, be it unsuccess- fully, to appease the hegemonic standard of heterosexuality, one’s effort is usually welcomed by onlookers. The act is not met with repugnance, resistance, or intrigue, and no invasive or deeply personal questions are asked. Indeed, there is a double standard at play; just as lesbian eroticism is more socially or culturally acceptable than gay eroticism, a controver- sial reaction is more readily available to same-sex experiments of straights than opposite-sex experiments of gay and lesbian students.

The often disingenuous effort to accommodate social and sexual norms functions so as to mock said expectations by imitating same-sex experimenters. Just as same-sex experiments challenge rigid designa- tions of heterosexual norms, opposite-sex experiments undermine sex- ual identities prescribed by homosexual norms. More to the point, opposite-sex interludes subvert notions of sexual identity by departing from dominant social expectations governing the status quo, as well as group-specific norms governing sexual conduct within gay and lesbian communities. Whether pursued in the spirit of shock value or sexual rebellion as same-sex experiments often are, opposite-sex experiments end up fulfilling some of the very same goals or curiosities, and ulti- mately, contribute to a healthy developmental gay or lesbian sexuality. While a social commotion may not be forthcoming, straight sex experi- ments of gay and lesbian college youth fulfill and reject mainstream het- erosexual norms and further destabilize social, cultural, and political constructs imposed upon them from within, by their own “homosexist” communities that routinely frown upon deviations from self-imposed, group-specific expectations governing sexual conduct. Having the least to lose and “most to gain,” self-proclaimed gay and lesbian college stu- dents take greater risks in their opposite-sex experiments by undermin- ing both exoteric and esoteric conventions, as well as institutionalized religious fundamentalism that repeatedly bombards them with messages to “turn or burn!” They violate homosexual expectations by destabiliz- ing their tightly knit gay and lesbian community’s sense of pride, and ultimately succeed in neutralizing our ubiquitous, antiquated, and exces- sive faith in sexual identity.

Challenges to College Sex Experimentation

One might conjecture that opposite-sex experiments lack the strength or theoretical force to impact the types of outcomes illustrated in this account. While it is much easier to gauge increased social acceptance of same-sex experimentation in mass culture by considering analogous transformations in public perception of homosexuality, the same cannot be similarly assessed with respect to increased acceptance of running tendencies governing opposite-sex practices. There is no parallel social interest or clinical evidence to demonstrate this to be the case. On the one hand, we find a climate of fear and institutionalized intolerance,

increasingly preoccupied with maintaining the status quo sexuality so as to discourage homosexual conduct. On the other, the proclivity to experiment with the opposite sex is frequently met with suspicion and hostility within gay and lesbian settings; in
either
camp, one must work hard at maintaining an identity convincing enough to those who value and avidly cling to it.

It helps to note that there is more focus on and interest in same-sex experimentation for two main reasons: first, it violates a greater taboo; and second, it is much more common. It stands to reason that since the heterosexual population is much larger than the gay and lesbian popu- lations combined, more instances of same-sex practice are likely to take place; accordingly, more public attention is paid to it. However, the more crucial point is that it violates a more serious social taboo, whereas gay and lesbian experimentation with straight sex is barely a taboo at all, especially outside of its esoteric setting within gay and lesbian com- munities.

The strong emphasis on identity formation once played a dominant role in coming to think of oneself as straight, gay, or lesbian. At some point, same-sex sexual behavior became
not merely what one does but what one is
. However, globally and historically speaking, this is not how same-sex sex- ual relations have been thought of or understood. The predominantly Western (but now global) preoccupation with sexual identity among col- lege-aged (or any other age) groups is still rather new. Whether or not this is the best method to understand human sexuality or seek social equality for sexual minorities remains a hotly debated topic. The emphasis on per- sonal sexual identity, and by extension hyper-individualism, is much over- emphasized, especially in mainstream American society.

Same-sex and opposite-sex experimentation is possible in the absence of identity talk or boundary blurring queer sensibilities. There are ways to preserve sexual selfhood without clinging to exclusionary selves. Such questions have ramifications for personal identity theory in general and not just personal sexual identity. There are schools of thought that have traditionally rejected the notion of identity altogether. Most denomina- tions of Buddhism maintain that there is no fixed, unchanging, persistent self that exists through time (the view is sometimes referred to as
anat- man
); thus, any association with a persistent, fixed self that exists through time is entirely contrary to Buddhist teachings.The influence of this view has also surfaced in mainstream Western philosophy, particularly in the Scottish philosopher David Hume’s theory of personal identity (some- times called the “bundle theory”). If these ideas have any merit, they

ought to at least invite us to rethink our obsession with identity, sexual or otherwise. At least this much is vindicated by both same-sex and oppo- site-sex experiments.

Toward Alternative Notions of Sexual Experimentation

Despite countless social advances and increased openness toward sexual experimentation, there is much in our midst that continues to baffle us. Opposite-sex encounters invite us to consider a new social world and its accompanying generation, perpetually mesmerized by the allure of sex- ual experimentation. Kinsey’s oeuvre entertained the possibility that human sexuality was partly fixed and partly fluid, contingent upon and determined by a variety of circumstantial factors – ideas still influential in our own times. Kinsey himself did not impose restrictions against slid- ing from one numeric slot into another, because behavioral frequency largely determined sexual identity. A Kinsey “one” may jump to a “two,” provided that a few additional same-sex experiments were to take place. However, he and others before him did not envision alternative types of college sex experimentation that may tip the scale.We have moved beyond the sex scale age, and must further open ourselves to possibilities that college sex experiments take on, ones which may not even involve gen- der-based forms of experimentation at all.

Pervasive obsession with static identities and queer theory’s historic preoccupation with their annihilation are both equally problematic dis- positions; part of the solution to the quandary must lie somewhere within the two possibilities and perhaps outside of them. A new generation of experimentation portrays a disaffected population. Applying sweeping generalizations about human sexuality is risky business, because sexual- ity seems to be that type of thing, partly fluid and partly fixed, an incon- spicuous, ambiguous matter, as diverse as human nature itself.

NOTES

1. See Cyd Zeigler, Jr., “The Gay Side of Hazing,”
   Outsports
   , available online at www.outspor
   ts.com/campus/2006/0524hazing (accessed June 20, 2009).
   

2. I’m indebted to two drafts of Carol Quinn’s unpublished manuscript, entitled “On My Reluctance to Defend a Queer Point of View,” for some of these
   

   points. Quinn’s paper, along with my subsequent commentary on it, were both delivered at the group meeting of the Society for Lesbian and Gay Philosophy, in conjunction with the American Philosophical Association’s (APA) eastern division conference in Philadelphia, December 2008.
   

3. Details of Kinsey’s study are available at the Kinsey Institute website, at
   www. kinseyinstitute.org (accessed June 8, 2009).
   

4. Detailed information on Delta Lambda Phi may be obtained directly from their website, at www.sites.dlp
   .org/sites/national (accessed June 15, 2009).