This Gaudy Gilded Stage

I should be cleaning up the house in anticipation of PJ’s arrival back home tomorrow, but I just came from a department meeting that’s left me really depressed. While writing about it on my blog is probably not the best idea, I need an outlet for what I’m feeling and thinking; otherwise, I’m just going to sit here and stew until I make myself a martini.

Here’s the thing: I actually don’t think my colleagues are homophobic in any sort of intentional or active way, but I think they might very well be intellectually homophobic, by which I mean prejudiced against queer work and teaching.

English departments are supposed to be so progressive and liberal. At least that’s what we’re told all the time. Right? We’re a bunch of lefties. In my experience here this is only true in the sense that my department and university doesn’t actively discriminate against GLBT people. But they don’t acknowledge our importance or value our presence either. Too often “liberal” just means ignoring difference, whether it be sexual, gender, racial, religious, etc. And ignoring difference causes problems.

First off, this meeting convinces me that my colleagues are simply blind to the relatively large number of GLBT students we have in our undergraduate major and graduate programs. It really makes me wonder how our students experience our classes. No wonder they’re so hungry for my Lesbian & Gay Lit course — it might very well be the only time they have a class that acknowledges sexual difference in any meaningful way. I often hear that it’s definitely one of the very few classes that actually values sexual difference (which is why I feel so guilty about taking a break from teaching it next year).

Second, while my department at least pays real lip service to racial difference, we’re terrible when it comes to GLBT issues. For example, as we discussed hiring priorities today, it seemed perfectly acceptable to everyone that we could combine a position in 20th-Century British Literature with Post-Colonial Theory, since, and I’m almost quoting here, almost anyone working the 20thC could be assumed to also work in Post-Colonial Theory and Literatures. My colleagues can’t image a good candidate in 20thC British Lit who didn’t also work, to some degree, in P-C Theory.

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Note: Parts of this post have been substantially altered since it’s original publication — my continued thinking on this topic ultimately led to a different conclusion and an epiphany.

As the faculty advisor for Open Doors, OU’s undergraduate GLBTAQQT (gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgendered, ally, queer, questioning, and two-spirited) student union, I attend a couple of the group’s weekly meetings each quarter. Let me say up front that it’s always kind of weird being there: Here I am a 36-year-old professor sitting in a room of mostly 19- and 20-year-old undergraduates — we don’t have a lot in common. Add to that my general shyness and social awkwardness, and we have a generally weird situation. Just to put things in the proper perspective: at least technically, I’m old enough to be most of these undergrads’ father.

So, as I was saying, it’s always a little weird for me to be sitting there mostly listening to their conversations. My weirdest experience was last quarter. Each meeting is divided into announcements and then a discussion; one particular discussion involved a somewhat humorous conversation among the undergraduates about “relationships,” which quickly devolved into a series of sexual revelations: one student talked all about only being a top, another talked about only being a bottom, etc. The more explicit their conversation became, the less comfortable I felt being there, especially since I think the ones saying these things seem so naive and inexperienced. Like most people in their early twenties, they talk as if they’re adults, but I’m increasingly convinced that true adulthood doesn’t start until you’re in your forties (or maybe even later — I’ll let you know when I get there).

Partly, my sense of the weirdness comes from my fear that they’re all wondering who I am sitting there listening to them. While I certainly enjoy the gossipy qualities of the meetings — and I do cyberstalk my favorite former students on facebook (generally with their knowledge and permission) — I worry that in the Open Doors meetings I will come across as some sort of voyeur, which is not at all how I feel while I’m there. Mostly, I’m thankful for my age, experience, and (just to sound completely old) wisdom. I really don’t see how older men can find twinks sustainably attractive. (Not that there’s anything wrong with twinks — we were all twinks before we got old and married!)

The meetings begin with an ice breaker question. Tonight’s question was, what would your superhero name be and what superhero power would you have if you could have one? As usual, I had no idea what to say. If I say anything that could even remotely be turned into a sexual thing, I’ll end up embarrassed and full of all the fears mentioned above. If I say something totally boring, I look like an old professor and therefore evoke all of the fears mentioned above. It’s a can’t win situation in my mind. So, imagine my horror when the most precocious of the undergrads (who’s never had a class with me, btw) turns to me and says that he knows what my superpower would be: the ability to be invisible and walk through walls so that I could spy on my students; my name, he declares, would be “The Voyeur!”

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