I thought I could just turn up for tomorrow's criminal appeals seminar at Marquette University Law School and lollygag around, but no. They want you to undertake 39 pages worth of advance reading.
I am looking forward to hearing from Sara Benesh again, whom I haven't seen in years. Prof. Benesh gave me an A+ on my capstone paper in political science, on the strength of its appendix alone.
Had I known that, I wouldn't have bothered with the rest of it.
Also, it was in one of Prof. Benesh's classes that some discussion inspired one apparently conservative Republican student to insist that homosexuality is simply a lifestyle choice.
I remarked that if that were true, I would have chosen to be gay when I was about 16, as I would have gotten laid more often.*
This provoked a huge laugh, naturally, but also a mild reprimand from Prof. Benesh, who chided me for perpetuating the stereotype that gays are more sexually promiscuous than anyone else.
Of course that was part of the joke but it was cool she pointed it out.
* More often than zero times, that is.
Gays may not be more promiscuous, but men, on average, are. Even Dan Savage agrees -- just last month, he wrote: "Men are pigs, and people on the receiving end of male sexual desire/attention are in more danger than people on the receiving end of female sexual desire/attention."
ReplyDeletehttp://www.avclub.com/articles/may-6-2009,27624/
I have a good-looking male friend who used to strike out with women at clubs but also received offers from men. He used to lament that, if only he could switch-hit, he would get a lot more sex. This was based, not on stereotypes, but on personal experience.
So your professor was striking a blow not for greater understanding, but for political correctness. Sixteen-year-old boys are, on average, much hornier and more willing to engage in sex than 16-year-old girls. The math is simple. You were right.
As for the "lifestyle choice" argument, even my conservative father has figured out that no one would choose to live with the stigma that comes with being gay in our society.
"You were right."
ReplyDelete(Psst ... I know.)
They want you to undertake 39 pages worth of advance reading.
ReplyDeleteFascists!