The Chronicle

Issue date: 2/25/08 Section: Columns
Last update: 2/25/08 at 7:17 AM EST

Ade A Sawyer

OK, I'm a Chronicle columnist, right? Right. So I figure I have to at least skim The Chronicle every day whether I like it or not. I've noticed people beating the hell out of this issue with the Sex Workers' Art Show early this month. In the process of considering the different arguments I noticed something-they seem to be based on the idea that alternative identities have less merit than traditional ones. So I started thinking-maybe we shouldn't have alternative identities at all, but it's been said that our society is so preoccupied with people's identities that it forces us to explore ourselves and follow our thoughts and emotions. It's identity gone wrong-the Tyranny of Identity. So last Monday I saw the light. Truly healthy sexuality requires shame in one's identity. In fact, that shame is what facilitates love. Here's the thing, though-I think we can expand the argument to encompass a few more identities.

I'll explore three major categories: sexual "identity," racial "identity" and gender "identity." Remember Jeffery Dahmer, anyone? Sexual deviance at its worst. Clearly, he was compelled by the Tyranny of Identity to rape, kill and eat young men. Then there's the preponderance of cultural organizations on Duke's campus and many others. Clearly, black, Latino, Asian and Native American students across the country are suffering due to our tyrannical culture of identity-forced to establish and run groups that promote their "cultural identity." Finally, there are women like Hillary Clinton. How could one argue that our identity-crazed society has not forced her to participate in government (which we all know is a man's arena) rather than stay at home and knit?

I call shame the healthiest sexual emotion. That's right. Not desire, not attraction, not even love (mind you, shame facilitates love, so no need to worry about that). Think about it. With a healthy dose of shame, there's no way Dahmer would have eaten all those guys. Perhaps before the Republican congressmen Mark Foley and Larry Craig had their very public sex scandals they should have remembered the shame that they had clearly maintained throughout much of their lives. Moreover, surely the congressmen weren't showing enough shame in their marital relationships; otherwise there would have been too much love between them and their wives to permit such conduct on their parts. These men simply represent the extreme manifestation of a clear problem: that our society is so obsessed with forcing people to embrace their inner selves that it forces them to submit to their basest desires. If we intend to free ourselves from the tyranny of self-exploration, we have to remember three things about sex: only after marriage, only in missionary and no foreplay.

Continued...

Page 1 of 2 next >

Article Tools