Letter to the Editor

Author: [no author name found]

To the Editor

This is in response to a letter printed on Feb. 28, which was in response to The Campus' sex column: "Sex Sage". Two freshmen males co-wrote the letter accusing Ms. Bierster of being a "femi-nazi" simply because she wrote an article promoting a relationship between women and their vagina: one free from shame and repulsion. What these gentlemen do not understand is the social construct that women live through, that the vagina is something dirty and unspoken. Males have had a historical privilege that the phallus should be praised, that it is the pillar of strength that cornerstones our patriarchal society. Ms. Bierster's article has been unfairly interpreted as man-bashing and anti-penis when it is, in fact, meant to be humorous. At the same time, she is refreshingly pro-woman and accounts for the fact that women are as much a sexual being as men. I applaud Ms. Bierster on her unwavering quest to write about sexuality.

Most alarming to me, as a gay man, was this quote, "One would hardly have to undertake a modicum of journalistic investigation to come to the conclusion that the heterosexual male shares an indomitable and unsurpassed connection with his 'soldier of intercourse." The writers took the time to write the "heterosexual" male shares an unsurpassed connection with his penis, as if to infer that homosexual men do not have the same relation. It would be wishful thinking on my part that men who regard feminism as arrogance would not be heteronormative in their thinking as well. These wishes are no doubt in vain. The ironic thing is this: homosexual men most likely would have the better of the two relationships. After all, we are certainly more interested and involved with penises in general. I'd challenge these freshmen's knowledge on sexuality against any queer male on campus. I also hope that four years at Middlebury will instill better thinking on the young men of this campus as it has done for me. I hope that the men who leave here holding Gamaliel Painter's cane will also harbor thinking that does not defile women or non-heterosexuals.

Sincerely,
Ryan Tauriainen '08
Grants Pass, Ore.