To the Editor:
Two articles in the Fall 1997 issue of Uncommon Threads have come under recent attack: "Exposing Erotic Intersections with Class: A Re-Reading of Sally Mann" by Rachel Moss '99 and "awakening" by Uju Anya '98. We would like to clarify the impetus behind Threads' decision to publish these articles.
Threads is devoted to giving space to voices and perspectives frequently under-represented or even silenced at Dartmouth. We agreed the two pieces specified above would begin to fill a discursive silence. Anya's piece would offer a reading of lesbian erotica that previously had no viable space in campus publications and for which we knew there was an important readership. Moss's piece would present an element of Sally Mann's photographic images frequently overlooked in favor of emphasis on "child pornography" debates -- Moss's article encourages readers to look at where the sexual imagery actually becomes determined by our understandings of social class.
Critics find it hypocritical that Threads would simultaneously publish an interview condemning The Jack-O-Lantern's November 1997 issue and Anya's, "awakening." How can Threads deny The Jack-O its right to free speech while publishing sexually offensive writing and imagery?
We would like to make a distinction between hate speech and free speech. Campus regulations are not determined solely by free speech laws. Dartmouth has a hate speech code with which campus organizations must comply. The Jack-O used discriminatory language that singled out specific ethnic groups. Anya's sexually explicit language does not target any specific group.
It may offend some heterosexual readers, but heterosexual readers, rather than experiencing a history of discrimination like that of Latino communities targeted in The Jack-O, read from positions of power and privilege relative to lesbian sexuality.
That sexually explicit writing is offensive -- straight or gay -- and should not be funded by Dartmouth student dollars suggests expressions of sexuality should be limited to private spheres. Yet we are constantly confronted by the explicit language and images of heterosexuality.
As long as popular media finds a place for graphic expressions of heterosexuality, Anya's piece and others need to have a public space. A culture that publicly privileges straight male sexuality denies women their own sexuality and desires, on their own terms.
Furthermore, the rhetoric of gay rights is often misused. Anya's piece goes beyond the typical and popular lip-service paid to gay/lesbian politics and actually represents one perspective of mutually empowering lesbian experience.
The social and political import of sexuality is too great to be limited to the bedroom. Threads acknowledges that the sexual is the political and that a frank discussion of it can add to our understanding of one another.
