Thighs Are Not Attractive, Ladies!

Off Our Backs, Nov/Dec 2003 by Savino, Kathleen

Homophobia and Same-Sex Education

Liturgy services were held monthly in the auditorium. The altar was constructed on the stage where spotlights shone, highlighting the priest's bald spot. After one liturgy, the principal, Sister Helen, addressed us-the students of the Academy of the Sacred Heart, a private all-girl's school-about a problem that was of concern to her. We were rolling up our skirts. Yearbooks for any private school with a uniform skirt will attest: hairstyles come and go, but the skirt-roll is forever.

"Thighs are not attractive, ladies," she boomed over the microphone, "who are you trying to impress?" After all these years, these lines stay with me, especially as a lesbian. The idea of lesbianism was ludicrous to her; it was as ridiculous as it was despicable. She chose her words to intimidate. Wear your skirt this way and you're a lesbian, you're a slut. But at the same time it was a cruel joke: of course you're not lesbians. And to top it off, our bodies were not attractive. We should cover them.

Sister Helen's speech is a perfect example of how lesbianism is dealt with within same-sex education. Same-sex education rests on the premise that boys and girls will work better separately because they'll ogle each other too much if they're together. Therefore, acknowledging any other desires outside of the heterosexual would undermine one of the principle reasons behind samesex education. Other reasons also include the empowerment of women, but this kind of empowerment (as I will discuss later) rests on problematic premises. There is always a lurking concern that some students who are in a same-sex environment long enough will resort (because, why else would you do it?) to homosexual experimentation. This fear itself-which I would argue is present in most same-sex environments void of progressive thinkingspeaks to the silencing of same-sex desire. Don't ask; Don't tell. We'll assume you're straight. If you experiment with someone of the same sex then it's just because you don't have someone of the opposite sex around-this is what you really want. In this model, the same-sex education system can admit lesbian behavior exists while simultaneously dismissing it as sublimated heterosexual desire!

These views are not always spoken about directly; they exist in the collective unconscious of the same-sex world. Once, at Sacred Heart, it was said that two girls were seen kissing in the hallway at another local all girl's school. Within hours, Sacred Heart's students were talking about this incident in a kind of hysteria. "They were right in front of their lockers," one girl said. "That's disgusting," said another. Rumors about a possible romantic relationship between two female teachers were whispered in the lunchroom over plates of luke-warm fries and over-salted cheeseburgers. Every school may have rumors about those teachers but at Sacred Heart, there were frequent discussions and updates.

"They drive home in the same car every day, and Amy swears she saw them at the supermarket together. They're lesbians," a girl at my lunch table said. Any incriminating behavior was often brought to the attention of our lunch table with great zeal. We discussed all our teachers but Miss Hughes and Miss Barry were two of the most intriguing because of their alleged lesbian relationship. "Miss Hughes was wearing a pin today that I'm pretty sure Miss Barry was wearing last week, and they bicker like a married couple," I said.

What I didn't say was that I found it endearing that they bickered like a married couple. I watched them not out of suspicion, but out of desperate hope; I wanted a sign to prove they were in fact a real lesbian couple, but never found one. I'm sure they were careful. I was careful. Sacred Heart didn't preach fire and brimstone-no, their method was far more insidious and calculated. They taught us about love. This was the whole segment of our senior year religion class: love. Our book was filled with smiling young boys and girls who held hands chastely while walking on the beach into the setting sun. Below their wind-blown hair and high-necked t-shirts were lists of things that young Catholics could enjoy together without having to tongue kiss or have sexual intercourse. A more appropriate title would have been: Heterosexual love: don't have sex until you're married, and if you do, you'd better have the baby.

Homosexuality was covered in a paragraph. God loves us all, therefore, being homosexual isn't a sin, the book told us, but the act of homosexuality-sex that is-is wrong and sinful. So you can be gay but you're condemned to a life of celibacy. However, homosexuality was in the same chapter as rape, sexual abuse and masturbation. Oh yes, I was in good company with the rest of the degenerates. I felt very loved.

A middle-aged single woman taught us about Christian love and she was sure to tell us she was straight. She wore terrible blue eye shadow and was always cranky. All of us figured-considering her ideology-she'd probably never had sex and now in her forties she was bitter and horny. One of my friends who sat behind me used to whisper to me during class that she was going to leave a big dildo in her desk one day as a gift. "That would make her feel better, because, damnit, that woman needs a good fuck."