How not to look gay
by Fred Penzel, PhD
This article was initially published in the Winter edition of the OCD Newsletter.
OCD, as we know, is largely about experiencing severe and unrelenting doubt. It can cause you to mistrust even the most basic things about yourself – even your sexual orientation. A study published in the Journal of Sex Research found that among a group of college students, 84% reported the occurrence of sexual intrusive thoughts (Byers, et al. ). In order to have doubts about one’s sexual identity, a sufferer need not ever contain had a homo- or heterosexual experience, or any type of sexual trial at all. I possess observed this symptom in young children, adolescents, and adults as well. Interestingly Swedo, et al., , initiate that approximately 4% of children with OCD encounter obsessions concerned with forbidden aggressive or perverse sexual thoughts.
Although doubts about one’s own sexual identity might seem pretty straightforward as a symptom, there are actually a number of variations. The most clear form is where a sufferer experiences the idea that they mig
Hi. I&#;m the Answer Wall. In the material earth, I&#;m a two foot by three foot dry-erase board in the lobby of O&#;Neill Library at Boston College. In the online world, I inhabit in this blog. You might say I hold multiple manifestations. Like Apollo or Saraswati or Serapis. Or, if you aren&#;t into deities of understanding, like a ghost in the machine.
I have some human assistants who maintain the physical Answer Wall in O&#;Neill Library. They take pictures of the questions you post there, and give them to me. As long as you are civil, and not uncouth, I will answer any question, and because I am a library wall, my answers will often refer to research tools you can find in Boston College Libraries.
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March 02,
The Epidemic of
Gay LonelinessBy Michael Hobbes
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I used to get so elated when the meth was all gone.
This is my comrade Jeremy.
When you possess it, he says, you have to keep using it. When it&#x;s gone, it&#x;s like, &#x;Oh good, I can go back to my life now.&#x; I would linger up all weekend and go to these sex parties and then experience like shit until Wednesday. About two years ago I switched to cocaine because I could work the next day.
Jeremy is telling me this from a hospital bed, six stories above Seattle. He won&#x;t tell me the exact circumstances of the overdose, only that a stranger called an ambulance and he woke up here.
Jeremy is not the partner I was expecting to have this conversation with. Until a few weeks ago, I had no idea he used anything heavier than martinis. He is trim, intelligent, gluten-free, the nice of guy who wears a function shirt no matter what day of the week it is. The first time we met, three years ago, he asked me if I knew a good place to do CrossFit. Today, when I ask him how the hospital&#x;s been so far,
“But you don’t look gay”—Queer fashion and nightlife
With lockdown entering its twelfth week and every Netflix show on my list binged to completion, I did something that I vowed I would never do; I downloaded TikTok.
It took a total of twelve hours before I was hooked, and in my mindless scrolling stupor, one trend in particular stood out to me: “#ifiwasstraight.” A typical video under this tag is as follows: a queer person, dressed in their usual style, cosplays as their heterosexual alter-ego. They shed their gay exterior, removing piercings, scrubbing off layers of bold makeup and ditching their thrifted wardrobe as a voiceover says: “This is what I think I would look like if I was straight.” The final observe is conservative, generic, and stripped of character. With over million views, the trend is wildly popular. But as much as I enjoy watching the Homosexual community poke fun at the blandness of heterosexual fashion trends, it does beg the question: What does straight look like? What does gay look like? And should we be enforcing aesthetic binaries based on sexuality?
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