Well, it finally happened. It took until my sophomore year of college, I’m a little embarrassed to say, but last night I finally had a chance to read about sex. Her name was “American Identities, Lone Stars, and the Politics of Radicalized Sexuality.” I have to admit I stumbled through the ordeal quite clumsily; at times I felt totally lost. She was just so… knowledgeable… moving me from “Chicano Marxist” thought, to “imperialist nostalgia”, to “the periphery of the American capitalist culture.” When we finished, I felt utterly dazed, but also exhilarated.
Sure, I suppose I sort of read about sex in high school. I read about characters with complex sexual lives and I read about meiosis and all that, but I’m not sure you can really call that reading about sex. This was the real deal: this time there was actual penetration into “the processes of subjection made possible… through stereotypical discourse”.
I’m so glad it finally happened. For months, I had been tormented by the feeling that my peers were reading about sex constantly, and the only one on this campus not reading about sex was me! I guess I just caught up in STEM classes— biology, computer science, statistics and all that. It’s pretty unlikely that you’re gonna have a chance to read about sex if you don’t ever go out and take humanities courses. I just couldn’t find time… or was I scared?
But all that has changed now. “American Identities, Lone Stars, and the Politics of Radicalized Sexuality” showed me that reading about sex can be beautiful, and that it’s not as intimidating as it might initially seem. It is with newfound confidence and enkindled eagerness that I look upon my remaining years of college— optimistic I will read about sex many more times before I’m through here. (Though I think I’d better google a few things right away, so that next time I don’t get caught quite so off-guard.)
