By Adam Cayton-Holland

Like the boy in your third grade class who ate glue, made farting noises with his armpits and cried like a baby during recess for any number of reasons in a desperate, pathetic plea for
attention, the Wesleyan Queer Alliance struck again earlier last month. Riding high on a string of nobody-really-cares-but-yourselves antics (what up Queer Chalkings), the Queer Alliance staged a homosexual kiss-in at the Admissions office in front of dozens of prospective Wesleyan students, voicing their demand for Queer Studies at Wesleyan and alerting the prospective frosh to the boisterous gay community. "I kissed fifteen women in twenty four hours," gushed one particularly self-satisfied QA’er. 

Instead of offending and shocking with their dangerously "off the wall" and "in your face" antics, the Queer Alliance failed to impress anyone with their efforts. To their credit, though, the QA did alert the prospective students to the pattern usually taken in a Wesleyan effort to raise gay and lesbian awareness, illustrating lucidly just how immature and annoying they can be.

I mean really, you guys need to pull your heads out of your asses. If your aim is improved Queer Studies, than why don’t you act like mature college students instead of children
misbehaving to provoke a reaction? "People involved in Queer Studies don’t feel that the Administration pays us heed when we work within their bureaucratic channels so we decided it
was time to make us a ruckus," one participant said. Some logic. Reminds me of a four year old in the supermarket who, after a bureaucratic "Mommy, please," throws an all out hissy fit in
order to get a candy bar. Any good parent in that situation knows not to give in to their child, and that is just over a candy bar. Do you really think that the trustees at Wesleyan
University are going to give in to your demands because you are "raising a ruckus?" Students who desire a greater opportunity in a field of study at the collegiate level, are not going to
alert wrinkled, old-school trustees to the enormity of their academic appetite by behaving like children.

And why does it always have to be targeted towards the prefrosh? The Queer Chalkings that appear whenever the prospective students arrive on campus, and now this! Is it because
they don’t know about the Queer Alliance? Do you really think that a student who is visiting Wesleyan has no idea that there is a huge, vocal gay community here? Of course they do.
Kids are getting smarter and smarter these days and they for damn sure know what they are getting into. How many of these prospective students do you really think came to Wesleyan,
PCU if you will, not knowing that Wesleyan welcomes and appreciates gay students? Not that many, I promise you, and these very students do not need your dogma thrust in their face
like some sort of overzealous, door-to-door Jesus freak.

If you wish to drive away prospective students who would not be comfortable or supportive of your presence at school your aim is way off. The only kids who will not attend Wesleyan
as a result of your actions, meathead bigots aside, are the kids who need to come here the most. It seems like every year after your moronic gay chalkings appear some uptight, fur-coat
wearing mother is quoted as saying that she would never in a million years allow her child to attend such a vulgar and profane school. These are the kids who need to come here. These
are the kids whose opinions have been censored for years by overbearing, ignorant parents and who would thrive in an environment where they were allowed to develop into
open-minded individuals. These are the kids who would have appreciated the freedom of thought and expression (that you so frequently abuse) if you could have just kept your damn
mouths shut.

I understand the importance of reclaiming words that traditionally have been used against you, like "queer," but your childish use of your newly re-acquired bounty only hurts your
cause. I am not gay, nor have I ever been gay so I cannot speak for the gay community, but it seems to me that playing up the sexually craven stereotype that many unenlightened
heterosexuals have for homosexuals is a step in the wrong direction. Haphazardly scrawling the most sexually in-your-face message that you can come up with across the asphalt and
staging graphic kiss-offs in front of the admissions building is feeding into that heterosexual stereotype. "So what," you say. "Let the squares leave Wesleyan thinking that we are sexed
crazed freaks, fuck them, they’ll never understand our cause anyway." True, they will never understand your cause, but you could at least send them back to their bigoted ways thinking
that the Wesleyan Queer Alliance is capable of handling themselves like adults. And besides, you’re really not shocking anyone.

The fact of the matter is the only people who are impressed or intrigued by your actions are yourselves. Face it, years ago when the whole gay chalkings thing started people applauded
your efforts to raise awareness in a new manner. But you have to be kidding yourselves; you must be deaf or dumb to not realize how tired everyone is of those chalkings now. The
novelty has worn off, and making your graffiti more and more "shocking" and drawing huge dicks on the grounds does little for your credibility. I, for one, am for damn sure not shocked.
Embarrassed at such a bad effort to shock, yes, but not shocked. And for god’s sake, a kiss-in! That is just juvenile. I can see you guys now five years down the road at some chic, Upper West Side cocktail party telling anyone who will listen of your zany college antics. "Then we wrote, ‘I want to lick your mother’s clit’ on the ground!" "Oh, get out!" "No, no, I mean it, and once we even had a same-sex kissing extravaganza in front of the admissions office!" "Oh, what a scream!"

All of it makes me sick. If you really want to shock some people why don’t you get two particularly randy members of your group out there in front of admissions, lay down a mattress, preferably not soiled, and let them just have at it. Seriously, gay sex is a much more direct method of offending people and attracting trustee attention than a gay kiss. Shoot, that’s just child play. So I say until you are ready to go the whole nine yards and really shock someone, or grow up and handle yourselves in a more  mature and professional manner, fight your battles on a more relevant battleground. Let the poor prefrosh make up their minds about Wesleyan for themselves.

 
Cayton-Holland is a member of the class of 2003.