Collegiate Times

“Keep your sexuality in the bedroom” is one of the most common lines uttered in defense of discrimination against lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender people — or anyone, for that matter, who practices differently from the monogamous, one man, one woman style of love and relationships. It’s good advice and unfortunately heterosexuals don’t take it.

There are few things more disturbing to me than seeing a man and woman sucking face on the D2 promenade for everyone to see. These couples are shameless, libidinous and vulgar. Their ribald actions even go so far as to grope, slap their partner’s bottom and nibble on one another’s ears — and in such places as Deet’s and Owens no less.

These are the same people who, if they were to come upon a lesbian or gay couple doing similarly, or, God forbid, a cross-dresser, would have a seizure and begin claiming that LGBT agendas were being forced into their faces.

As a group, the heterosexual community often demands that sexuality be low-key, a kind of backdoor deal that if displayed is only appropriate as long as it is the “right” kind. Some people have even gone so far as to ponder why sexuality creates groups, similar to race, class and gender. It is of little question when one examines the pervasive ways in which heterosexism enforces gender norms and sexual behavior, forcing all others into a closet.

Assumed gay relationships are hardly tolerated in both public and media spheres, and yet few really examine how much heterosexual sexual matter is pushed on both these fronts. From movies to commercials to reality TV, it is nearly exclusively heterosexual content.

One could count on his hands the number of shows in these categories that focus wholly, or even partially, on alternative relationships. I could write an encyclopedia-sized volume of the shows and media outlets geared toward this singular, and arguably by comparison, narrow set of heterosexual relationships.

Even CBS, in an attempt to keep viewers comfortable, refused a Super Bowl commercial that showed two men making out after their hands touched in the chips bowl. It was a comic and entertaining clip that would have had people rolling — but it wasn’t the “right” kind of comedy for the insecure heterosexual and Christian majority. My guess is because it promoted such relationships.

Any media outlets that do exist for the LGBT community are highly stylized and stereotyped, working with the limited knowledge that the heterosexual community has about this marginalized group. Because flaming gay individuals are so easy to spot, many heterosexual people assume they are the majority in manner, behavior and attitude. This is such a confounding mistake on the majority’s part and is evidence of its complete ignorance on the subject matter.

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A version of this article appeared in the Mar 25 issue of the Collegiate Times.