I wrote this letter last semester after some friends and I hung signs which offended a number of people. They were a reproduction of a Hothead Paisan comic in which a man threatens Hothead with rape because she's a dyke, at which point she chops off his dick. The signs read, "To all stupid little boys (yes, this means you): DON'T FUCK WITH US!" They were in response to the incidents in Baldwin last semester and the pathetic lack of concern on the part of the student body. Unfortunately, the Review was not publishing at that time. Given the events in Utah of late, as well as some writings which recently appeared on campus, however, I decided to send it in now.
I put up this sign and you come to me, demanding to know how I can afford to lose so many "friends" by offending them in such a way. I'm sorry, honey, but you were never my friend. . . .
You organize your friends and you hang petitions. You say, "It's wrong to answer hate with hate!" Since you've taken on the role of my spiritual leader, let me ask you a question. . . If I came up to you tomorrow and slapped you on the face, and the day after I beat the living shit out of you, and then I called you a fuckingfairyqueencocksuckerdykefaggotbitch-disgustingimmoralpieceofshitqueer, and the next day I raped you, and then I just threatened to do one of those things, throughout your entire life, would you love me!? Would you say, "Dude, thanks for shitting on me. I love you anyway, you're the greatest!"?
Does it surprise you that I get angry when this happens? Are you shocked that a Queer woman who is threatened with rape every day could get so fed up that she starts drawing her castration fantasies, and that seeing this on a sign threatening the perpetrator for once can be empowering?
You tell me there are better ways to educate people. How lovely. So where were your energy and signs when that lesbian couple was murdered in Oregon last semester, when those two gay men were executed in Mississippi last year, when that lesbian couple was raped in Ohio last year, when countless Queer teens commit suicide every year, when your peers at Oberlin are chased, screamed at or almost run down here in town because they're Queer, or assumed to be? Where were you when all the "nice, educating signs" were being systematically removed from the bulletin boards last semester? When the faculty in Rice were scraping the "inoffensive, educating stickers" off the doors with their fingernails because they couldn't wait for the janitors to remove them?
Friend, you're missing the point - there were two parts to that cartoon, and you're reacting to the one that doesn't happen! Homophobic fuckheads just don't get castrated . But it would be safe to say that a hell of a lot of women and Queer people are threatened with rape and other horrendous violence every day - many of them are victims of this violence. So why were you more upset with the part of the cartoon that never happens?
Wow - you came here even though you knew there were queers here! Do you want me to kiss your feet and make you feel comfortable for that ? Let me tell you something, friend . . . if you can't take my anger with my love and swallow the ugly as well as the beautiful, then you're not my friend or ally - don't pretend you ever were. And don't tell me you're offended. Because I don't give a shit.
Copyright © 1996, The Oberlin Review.
Volume 124, Number 17; March 8, 1996
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