“Oh My God, Gross!”

This piece came out today in the August 20 issue of Gay Chicago Magazine. Here's a link to the PDF. I should clarify that the text I provide on this blog is my version and not the sometimes altered version printed in GCM. This week I got a color picture, which I'm pretty happy about. Enjoy!

Feminist Thoughts
By Erica Chu

“Oh My God, Gross!”

Over dinner, I recently heard a gay man in his late twenties seriously freak out when someone made a passing reference to a vagina. “Oh my God, gross,” “That’s disgusting,” “Ewww, nasty”: I think we’ve all heard similar reactions whether in reference to vaginas, clitorises, labia, or even feminine hygiene products. But seriously, is “Oh my God” necessary?

Vaginas are part of life for a lot of folks—many who own and love their vaginas and others who just love vaginas. Because gay men may not be in intimate community with women, it’s easy for them to fall into the trap of fearing female anatomy. Lesbians can be similarly negative about male anatomy, but our wider American culture seems much more accepting and even entertained by jokes about penises, testicles, and condoms. Just think of how many erections are represented in film or how many characters talk jokingly about their testicles.

On one level, it’s just unfair that the mention of some people’s nether regions cause disgust and terror while dicks, cocks, balls, and nut sacks are referenced constantly to no one’s shock or horror. If we freaked out every time we heard mention of any of these, there’d be a lot more people suffering from hypertension—especially in our community.

On another level, it’s sad to see queer folks of any kind falling into the same social traps that contribute to their oppression. For a long time (and it continues), being queer was thought of as shocking and gross, and queers felt ashamed, forced to hide from the world. Thankfully, we see things differently. Queer people are an oppressed minority, so we work hard to rid our culture of the attitude that gender determines who we love.

Because those with female anatomy are not a minority, it’s much easier to continue the cultural attitudes that seem to have been around forever, but we who have overcome shame in order to come out as queer should know better. In addition, there are sexual minorities among us.

Most gays, bisexuals, and lesbians seem completely oblivious to the fact that intersex people can be seen as part of the queer community and that having ambiguous sexual attributes need not cause shame. Aren’t we about rejecting society’s classifications for our bodies and our lives? We who have fought cultural expectations for what our anatomy is supposedly for should be fighting the hardest to get rid of these oppressive cultural attitudes.

No one should feel ashamed of their anatomy regardless of how foreign, shocking, or strange it may seem to others. That means we all need to recognize that if we can lightheartedly laugh about penises, we can be as accepting of vaginas and any other sexual anatomy. If we are turned on by a certain kind of anatomy, we can recognize that something smaller, bigger, or completely different is no cause for shock or judgment. You’re “Oh my God,” may very well be someone else’s “Oh, thank God.”


Erica Chu is a student at Loyola University Chicago and is seeking a PhD in English with a concentration in Women Studies and Gender Studies. She is also a member of the Gay Liberation Network and manages the blog keepingitqueer.blogspot.com. She can be reached at ericachu@msn.com.

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