A Grain of Salt

In my hometown of Columbus, Ohio, at the intersection of East Gay Street and Cleveland Avenue, there is a peculiar statue. The whole piece consists only of three enormous red letters oriented in an odd fashion. The “A” is the largest (stretching to a height of 100 feet) with its two long edges resting on either side of a road; the crossbar through the middle completes the top of the “T” beside it, and the “R” rests on top of the same horizontal beam. Those three letters in combination could spell a variety of things, but the organization of the characters makes clear to the viewer that the word isn’t “RAT” or “TAR”. It spells “ART”.

The statue is located only a few blocks northwest of the Columbus Museum of Art. I’ve been to the museum a few times in my life, and every time I visit, the statue prepares me for what I am about to see. 

I have never been disappointed. Each trip to the gallery has topped the last. While Columbus is no New York or Chicago, it is certainly not an art desert. The cheap cost of living and liberal politics have attracted innovative minds and talented artists. The halls of the Columbus Museum of Art are lined with incredible photographs and beautiful paintings. Each piece inspires different emotions, passions, and questions in me. In my most recent trip, I was particularly moved by a large barrel (the size of a small elephant) on the second floor balanced delicately on a taut rope. A million queries were raised in me as I stared at the incredible artistic craftsmanship.

Art isn’t just in museums, though. When a good friend recently took a trip to France, he returned with a powerful photograph. The shot of the seaside included both sand and grass, with pink flowers sprouting up through the green. Intruding through the beautiful floral arrangement was spiked, silvery barbed wire. I didn’t have to ask him where he took it. I have never been to Normandy; all it took was a view of an alluring beach marred by tools of war and I knew the entire story. The framed photo, taken by a junior in high school, sits on my bedside table. No caption, no comments, no explanation; I feel the same bittersweet pain every time I look at it. 

I’ve also been fortunate to create my own art. I got involved in theater production over a decade ago, when my parents first took me to the Ohio Theater in downtown Columbus. That was my first exposure. In the years that followed, after joining my school’s theater program during my sophomore year, I fell in love with sound design. As much as I enjoyed live sound mixing, the value I found in theater was rooted in the connections I made with other people. Members of the crew were close-knit with one another, the sound department was like a family, and the lighting designer became one of my closest friends.

My consumption of theater, even in film adaptations, like the recorded edition of Hamilton or movie rendition of Rent, is the only thing that can rival the enjoyment I get from producing. The 2012 Hollywood production of “Les Miserables” is a particularly powerful example for me. I have never sat through an entire viewing of that movie with a dry face. That being said, I wouldn’t say the movie makes me sad. Instead, I am left with an emotion not easily expressed by words. Images stay in my mind: men singing together in a barroom planning their rebellion in the name of social reform, insurrectionists taking to the streets to make a stand for their beliefs, and ultimately the dead Frenchmen left on the bloody avenues with no regret for their actions. After watching the film, I find myself full of questions. What can I do? I always ask myself. What do I need to stand for? What injustice in this society demands sacrifice of me? What do I need to take to the streets and fight for? Experiencing art prompts change within me, and acts as my catalyst for bringing social justice. Similar to the physical community around art, whether at the museum, theater, or on the streets, I find that in-person action in terms of societal change is fundamental to the mission of righting structural injustices. 

In general, though, I’ve found the streets becoming more and more empty with the increasing use of social media. The world has been uploaded. Anything can be found online: a person’s entire identity, complete social circle, and political stance. The real world was, admittedly, very limiting. You can only make yourself look so different, and you can only spread a message to so many people.

My generation, it seems to me, has taken the web to be an escape from the constraining factors unique to reality. Instead, we take to Instagram, donning usernames and doffing the parts of ourselves we think would be unproductive in our quest for self-expression. If it makes us look like anything other than how we want to look, don’t post it. If it gives the impression we might be home on a Friday night instead of out, don’t post it. If it might be interpreted to mean that we are in any way opposed to the political ideologies of our peers, don’t post it. 

It’s become legitimately confusing, knowing who is who on Instagram. In fact, I am starting to ask if anyone is anyone at all. In the constant effort to distance ourselves from the parts of ourselves we don’t like, entire personalities seem to be lost. Instead of unique, individual, well-rounded people, I find myself and friends becoming two-dimensional profilmic projections. Looking through my own feed, I don’t recognize the people I see. I know my friends well enough to know that their lives consist of more than scenic sunsets downtown and crazy nights that began on one side of a pong table. 

The window provided by Instagram can be made as narrow as desired. Its view into life is twisted and bent out of shape. The frame shows only pixels on pixels, with little indication of the lives we actually live. I don’t get to see the candid moments. But now that I find myself hundreds of miles away from my hometown, I’d like to see. In truth, Instagram has disappointed me. 

Beyond the ability to carefully curate an entirely fake online identity, Instagram has allowed for the uploading of political ideologies. Too many users, many of my own peers among them, fail to act on the sentiments they post. To a number of my friends, Instagram has become a convenient outlet. I am constantly confronted with news-articles-turned-Instagram-posts and captions emphasizing the need for social outrage. For some, that simple action of reposting is enough. Why protest on the street when it is so much easier to protest from the safety of your room? Why not post about foreign, domestic, or even local injustice from the safety of your own bedroom without ever taking a stake in the real world?

Most simply: it’s not the same. I have been on Instagram for almost a decade; I don’t think the political messages shared on the platform are going to change the world. Although Instagram can be a tool for gathering mutual aid, rallying community engagement, and disseminating information, political instagram posts don't tend to cross party lines. Most of my conservative friends don’t follow my liberal friends, and those few that do don’t give their political posts much mind. As I scroll through passionately written political agendas, or photo compilations of friends out on the town, I don’t see a lot of ways either type of post has a positive impact.

There are countless admirable users who do follow through on their posts. There are dissidents who voice their opposition online, and then take further action. For this reason, it is impossible for me to deny that Instagram has provided an increase in some amount of positive social activism. The medium can be a way to document real-life protests and efficiently spread important information about upcoming demonstrations. If it exclusively provided that, I would have no qualms. Unfortunately, it is also a platform for intensely curated personalities and performative political activism. 

Instagram doesn’t have a Big Red Art. Unlike The Columbus Museum of Art (CMA), there is no enormous scarlet warning about what lies inside. What’s within the platform isn’t exclusively genuine examples of self-expression or impactful instances of political statements. Roaming the halls of CMA and scrolling through Instagram are two very different things for me. Each exhibit at The Columbus Museum of Art arouses in me a deep passion, and while my feed can occasionally draw a similar level of emotion, I have never been as disappointed by anything in a museum as I am by what I have seen on Instagram. 

A grain of salt, that is all I am asking for. There should be some moderation when posting and viewing posts, and an acceptance of the limitations of an online platform. I don’t think it will maintain friendships over a distance of a thousand miles, and I don’t think it will save the world. Even so, Instagram has undoubtedly provided some positives to our society. What I also can’t deny, though, is that I don’t spend enough time in art museums. If I am asking for the world of Instagram to change, though, I guess I can too.

Pick Me!

here is a leaf whose color I can’t match

My mom tells me, “There’s a lid for every pot,” but I’m starting to think maybe I’ll prove her wrong and go potless—or lidless? I don’t know which one I’m supposed to be. All I know is I’ve tried every lid and pot at this school, and none of them fit. I’ve tried boys who wear small beanies and paint their nails black, tall soccer players who have conditioning in the morning, and anthro majors with buzz-cuts who look like they hate me. I’ve tried stoners, ketamine dealers, self-proclaimed empaths, and e-girls. I am telling you with certainty that no one fits. I don’t think you understand—if tonight goes badly, I’m giving up on love.

But just for shits and giggles, we’ll give it one last go, this time with a girl from Lit Theory. She’s pretty. She’s got black hair, an athletic frame, and not a lot to say in class. Other than that, I’m not sure. We talked one time on our way out of class; I learned that she’s a middle child—the reason for the silence, probably—and she learned that it’s just me and my parents. I told her that people think only-children are self-centered because we always get what we want, but my experience in meeting other only-children is that we’re chameleons. You need quiet, boisterous, attentive, spacey? I can do it. 

At the end of my conversation with Jenna, I forgot for a moment about my fated loneliness and asked for her number. Now I’m waiting outside a little brick Chinese restaurant on the corner of a city block, next to a dry cleaner with neon lights buzzing in the window––an electric blue outline of a dress shirt casting a glow onto the street. 

My hands are tucked under my sweater at the armpits. It got colder than I thought it would when the sun went down. There’s a plume of steam puffing up through a grate on the sidewalk, so I step onto it and that helps a bit. I bunch the cuff of my sweater up my arm to get a look at my quarter-sized Casio just as it hits eight. I’ve tried pulling up to these things both early and late, and I can’t settle on which works most in my favor. Tonight, I’m hoping it’s early. 

“Hey,” Jenna says. I look up. There she is, smiling. She’s traded in the yoga pants and quarter zip for a fuzzy turtleneck, dark blue jeans, and Converse—and she has earrings on. I’ve never noticed her wearing earrings before. She looks nice. She looks like someone who is … nice. Look, I am aware that this is probably not the lid to my pot, but we’re talking about Lacan in class and I’m just wondering what her underwear looks like, so we’re here now, and it is what it is. 

“Hey yourself,” I say. “Nice turtleneck.” 

“Thanks, it’s my dad’s.” She shivers. “Hey, you wanna go inside? It’s fucking cold.” 

We go inside. It’s small, only a few tables pushed against the walls, and there are people sitting and laughing and talking and generally seeming to enjoy themselves. 

We sit down at a table for two, Jenna facing the window, me the kitchen. From behind the wooden counter with red envelopes and gold miniatures of animals, the sweet smell of pork buns drifts through the room. Jenna puts her elbows on the table and her chin on the heels of her hands. Then, she leans forward and smiles again, but this time a different smile than before—like she’s happy to be here. And I’m caught off guard because here is a leaf whose color I can’t match. 

She says, “So, what do you like to do when you’re not bullshitting the reading for Lit Theory?” 

I laugh without thinking, and then cover my mouth. It’s a laugh that only comes out when my dad makes a pun. I think about it for a minute: what do I like to do? 

And all I can say is, “Good question.”

Do Straight People Really Not Hear It?

CWs: discussion of biphobia, homophobia, and transphobia

The number of times I have Googled “is this singer/songwriter gay,” usually after misinterpreting some vague lyrics about switching teams or being your authentic self, is disheartening. Not only does the process of typing such a direct and reductive sentence into the search bar feel like a betrayal of the beautiful subtlety and nuance that queerness allows, but the part that comes next often makes me want to rip my eyeballs out. Most interviews with artists cannot be powered through with a simple command-F. Instead, they require you to read more closely than the philosophy text you’re currently putting off. Sometimes the interviewers don’t want to ask directly, so they tiptoe around asking about queer identity with questions about allyship and lyrical inspiration, but often, the artists respond with frustrating ambiguity no matter how direct the question.

I once spent about 20 minutes on a weeknight combing through an interview with Harry Styles just to get to the line where he says, “I just think sexuality’s something that’s fun. Honestly? I can’t say I’ve given it any more thought than that.” That would be a great answer, because sexuality is something that’s fun, but it just feels disingenuous when his most recent album is literally the trans pride flag, and his lyrics often require his listeners to put quite a bit of thought into sexuality. So if he is not queer, I am frustrated that he might just be using this ambiguity to leave that interpretation open, and if he is queer and choosing to embrace it without labels, I am frustrated by the distrust created by other artists appropriating queer symbols that has caused me to question his identity in the first place. 

 In another interview with Lizzo, the question was deflected:

Interviewer: “Are you an ally or a member of the queer community?”

Lizzo: “Are you a member of the community?”

Interviewer: “Yes. I’m gay.”

Lizzo: “Oh shit!”

She goes on to say that she is an ally, and she “of course leans heterosexual,” but cannot land on a straight answer (yes, pun intended).

I’m not sure whether the initial confusion, the search process, or the close reading of the interviews wear me down quite as much as the betrayal I feel when I reach the end of my cyber scavenger hunt. Often, the disappointing reveal is that one of my favorite artists was likely not creating art based on an experience of queerness and was not intentionally reaching out to a queer audience. Maybe some artists are genuinely reflecting on their experience without the typical labels, but I have often found that they are either capitalizing on queerness to increase their fanbase and sell their albums or thinking about it so little that they don’t even hear how their lyrics sound. This becomes apparent when Demi Lovato insists that queer audiences were reading too far into her lyrics, or Billie Eilish says she clearly meant something else. When artists completely gloss over the seemingly obvious second meaning of their words or are astonished that their audience could have been listening with a queer lens, that hurts. It is painful to realize that my adaptive subtle signaling and hunger for representation are either completely irrelevant or just convenient marketing tools for someone I admired. No matter the intent, I am left feeling like I almost found something. I allowed myself to relish in the validation and connection but it was wrenched from my grasp at the last second.

An important caveat here is that labels can often be reductive and confusing. For all the good that they do in helping people connect with others and communicate their inner experience, labeling  can also put people into boxes. So expecting every famous person to be either openly queer or 100% cishetallo is unrealistic. Celebrities are also people, and they are also just trying to figure their shit out. Who knows, maybe someone who doesn’t publicly identify as queer is still exploring. There are some well-thought-out theories about Taylor Swift’s “betty” being her way of exploring her sexuality through fiction (she is named after James Taylor, so James in the song is her!). But in all seriousness, artists might be in various stages of understanding and expressing their identities, and who can fault them in such an oppressive society? Non-answers in interviews are frustrating, but I sure as heck don’t have it all figured out.

We wouldn’t be in this pickle in the first place if homophobia and transphobia didn’t exist, but they do, and they necessitate labels that are made vulnerable to exploitation. So, how do I protect myself from falling into the same queerbaiting trap while also respecting the privacy of artists, especially closeted and oppressed queer artists just trying to find their way, just like I am? The fact that some songwriters do cross these wires makes me feel a bit less safe. And unfortunately, these queer-coded marketing strategies are common enough to muddy the waters and break down trust between artists and their audiences.

Queer-coded lyrics and suspect relationships between artists and rainbow capitalism are not all in my head; they are actually part of a common phenomenon. Queerbaiting is when artists are purposefully vague and capitalize on queer-coded symbols in order to turn a profit rather than authentically express themselves. And it happens a lot—in TV, movies, books, fashion, but I’ve noticed it especially in pop music. Once I started looking deeper into how artists interact with queer people and looking up lyrics to check my interpretations, everything got a lot messier. I started to see common lyrical themes that kept tripping me up as well as conspicuous but superficial relationships between artists and the queer community. 

When I came out recently to a friend, the first thing she did was send me a playlist titled “Gay TSwift Anthems,” and I thought, Sweet! One of my favorite artists is gay?? Nope, sorry. Despite her not-so-subtle lyrics (“shade never made anybody less gay”), she has actually never come out as queer. And to add salt on the wound, the release of her album “Lover” was conveniently announced during Pride Month in 2019, right after a surprise performance at the Stonewall Inn. As if the corporatization of pride month wasn’t hard enough to swallow, it hurt to see one of my favorite artists so blatantly profiting off of it. This is not to say that celebrities and artists that aren’t queer cannot be allies. But to me, it is about how much money they are making off the queer community—which can be a lot given that our purchasing power is estimated to be around $3.7 trillion globally—compared to how much they are giving back. It is not a clear line, and Swift’s $113,000 donation to an LGBTQIA+ group in Tennessee isn’t nothing, but it is less than 1% of her annual income of $80 million, so she could definitely be doing more for how much she is gaining. This ratio is what makes it feel more like exploitation than allyship.

At this point, I started to reconsider the other popstars I thought of as “gay icons:” Carly Rae Jepsen, Maggie Rogers, Madonna, Billie Eilish, Dua Lipa, Diana Ross, Lorde, Ariana Grande. After a lot of Googling, I found none of them to be openly gay. The history of straight people (or closeted queer people) being gay icons goes back to Madonna in the 80s. Her music being embraced by gay men particularly at that time was less about her personal identity and more about being able to use her art as a mode of feminine gender expression. Queer people still embrace and co-opt femininity through artists like Beyoncé, and while that is very important and valid for those in the queer community celebrating their femininity, I am looking for something different. In my music, as in the books and TV shows I consume, I am looking for representation.

As an AFAB trans person, part of my own queer rebellion is my masculinity, but also my rejection of the gender binary altogether. Unfortunately, this and my bisexuality come with a side of homophobic and transphobic microaggressions and attitudes from the world around me. What helps me through that is solidarity with other queer people, seeing them go through the things that I go through, feeling the way I feel, and coming out on the other side okay. Seeing people present themselves authentically and still thrive is powerful. It makes me feel less alone and validates my celebration of my own identity. For me, the music itself is not the celebration, but finding it in the first place is. I think we are at a point in history where gay icons are still not really expected to be gay themselves, but at the same time, the line between queer artists and gay icons is blurring. 

This creates the opportunity for straight artists to muddle this distinction in the context of their own public perception and identity while potentially profiting from their adjacency to the queer community. And it is possible to do it very subtly, because people like me who are on the lookout for artists to connect to will eat up any queer vibes sent their way. As much as I love belting out, “I’m coming out / I want the world to know” as I drive home from work, as a queer person, I also want to feel like I could be the person in the recording studio creating art that reflects my deepest feelings and experiences that is embraced by the public. I want to see the possibility of my success and acceptance reflected back at me. So my ears perk up when I hear something that sounds queer. It gives me a glimmer of hope that someone else feels my pain and has gotten through it. Because that connection is so rare, I am constantly searching, and I get that much more excited when I come across it. I am vulnerable because it doesn’t take much to get me to tune into possible gay vibes. I am already on alert.

These moments when I thought I felt a connection to an artist and followed false leads began to build up; they started to degrade the confidence and comfort I felt as a member of the queer community and as someone who thought they had an understanding of queerness. Music from those artists appears on queer Spotify playlists, is embraced by queer influencers, or just “felt gay” to me in some way or another. I had felt like, at least in this world, I was on solid footing, but now the ground was shifting beneath me. 

Along with this hunger for representation and constant alertness, I started to see other aspects of queerness repeatedly being exploited through queerbaiting. This exploitation capitalizes on the subtlety of queer signaling as well as public perception of queerness as abnormal. This societal attitude frames straight artists that play with same-gender romance as somehow edgier, invalidating bisexuality/romanticism and pansexuality/romanticism by reducing them to an aesthetic.

Let’s start with the idea of coming across as edgy. Think “I Kissed a Girl” by Katy Perry. Katy Perry has not come out as bi despite describing bicuriosity in her lyrics, but as long as queerness is seen as something abnormal or unacceptable in society, the imagery of bisexuality is vulnerable to be used as a rebellion for the sake of rebellion. In this sense, bicuriosity and experimentation become tools to upset homophobic audiences, controlling boyfriends, or conservative parents (see the line “I hope my boyfriend don’t mind it”). It becomes a way for artists to brand themselves as not caring about the rules, but that only works when the rules are written to constrict queerness. 

Now, I think there is an important distinction to be made here, because my queerness is a rebellion and should be celebrated as such. There is still plenty of legislation making its way through the House and Senate that would give me basic rights like access to healthcare, the chance to participate in sports, and freedom from discrimination in professional spaces. These questions still being debated by politicians are literally about my and so many other queer people’s right to exist in society. So expressing myself the way I do is a daily rebellion, and I appreciate artists who support and celebrate that. But there is a difference between celebrating the rebelliousness attached to queerness and using queerness to develop your own rebellious aesthetic. I honestly feel comforted when I listen to Macklemore’s “Same Love,” because he expresses his feelings about the rights of queer people without pretending to be queer himself. I feel supported when I listen to declarations of support, but I feel violated and distrustful when I hear artists only interacting with queerness by teasing at it.

Queer signaling is another central aspect of my queer experience that I have noticed is vulnerable to be used for queerbaiting. Its exploitation functions in two ways. First, the coded symbols are available for anyone to use, and second, queer audiences have a well-developed sense for picking up on these symbols. I think I listen more closely to lyrics and try to read between the lines because subtle signaling has been part of the survival of queer people throughout history. An adaptation to homophobia and transphobia is a loose aesthetic code used to connect with other queer people. It is not a diagnostic cipher, and it is definitely not a pass to start stereotyping gay people. If you play softball that doesn’t mean you are 100% a lesbian, but if you also wear a lot of flannels and drive a Subaru, that might explain why you keep getting hit on by women.

The development of this system leaves countless queer-coded symbols vulnerable to exploitation by songwriters and PR teams, especially as this aesthetic works its way into the mainstream. The co-opting of this system is such a manipulative marketing strategy because if artists are accused of queerbaiting, they can just claim that it wasn’t their intention, that audiences are reading too far into something, or that those signals don’t always equate to queerness. This deniability is something built into the system for safety, but it leads to easy gaslighting of queer people. Can you blame queer folk for pulling queer interpretations from lyrics? Especially some of these?

“Medicine” by Harry Styles (cover)

“The boys and the girls are here / I mess around with him* / And I'm okay with it”

*heard as either “him” or “them”

“Wish You Were Gay” by Billie Eilish

“I just wanna make you feel okay / But all you do is look the other way / I can't tell you how much I wish I didn't wanna stay / I just kinda wish you were gay”

“I’m Coming Out” by Diana Ross

“I'm coming out / I want the world to know / There's so much more to me / Somehow I'll have to make them / Just understand / I'm spreadin' love”

“Thank U, Next” by Ariana Grande

“Plus, I met someone else / 'Cause her name is Ari* / She taught me love (love)”

*easily misheard as “Aubrey”

This last one is actually a common trope in recent pop songs that I have now fallen for three times! I’m calling it the self-love pronoun trap. It happens when artists sing about rejecting relationships with others and loving themselves instead, but they describe themselves in the third person. Here the other two examples:

“Soulmate” by Lizzo

“And she never tell me to exercise / We always get extra fries / And you know the sex is fire / And I gotta testify / I get flowers every Sunday / I'ma marry me one day”

“Liability” by Lorde

“So I guess I'll go home / Into the arms of the girl that I love / The only love I haven't screwed up / She's so hard to please / But she's a forest fire / I do my best to meet her demands / Play at romance, we slow dance / In the living room, but all that a stranger would see / Is one girl swaying alone”

The Lorde song hurt too because I was just half-listening, and I also heard this section of the song:

“The truth is I am a toy / That people enjoy / 'Til all of the tricks don't work anymore / And then they are bored of me / I know that it's exciting”

After hearing the same-gender pronouns and thinking she might be queer, I interpreted the second section as her speaking to the frustration I’ve encountered among people in the bi community. Being used like a toy, as if their only value is sexual experimentation. I heard this and got really really excited! Wow, I thought, an artist with a huge platform is giving exposure to this really nuanced issue that affects bi/pan and other queer people! This is exciting! This will make more people aware of the dynamic and encourage them to empathize with a queer perspective! But alas, after looking up the full lyrics and finding no evidence of Lorde coming out as queer, I realized my mistake. This once again left me questioning my own intuition, feeling less sure of myself in what I thought was my own world. I felt like my small queer space had been invaded. I had almost let this artist in and felt a connection, only it had fallen flat. I had opened myself up for no reason.

I worry that these vague lyrics are eroding the perceived validity of bisexuality/biromanticism and pansexuality/panromanticism. These identities’ expansiveness and adjacency to heterosexuality/heteroromanticism is the fourth aspect of queerness that I feel is being exploited by queerbaiting, and in this case especially, its use influences the public perception of these orientations.

 Many of the artists I’ve mentioned so far, although straight as far as we know, have been speculated to be bi or pan, and many queer artists who have gained traction are bi or pan: Lady Gaga, Halsey, Miley Cyrus, Phoebe Bridgers, mxmtoon, and Kesha. So, why do these specific identities get dragged through the mud and who does it hurt?

Bisexuality and pansexuality are often fired at from all sides. Stereotypes that I’ve seen portrayed in media and used by bigoted people on the internet include bi/pan people being greedy, indecisive, confused, hypersexual, and/or unfaithful. From within the queer community though, there is a sentiment that we are not “queer enough.” This plays out through bi/pan folk in straight-passing relationships being invalidated, bi/pan authors being left off of LGBTQIA+ author lists, gay and lesbian people being portrayed much more frequently than bi/pan people in movies and TV shows, and many more scenarios.

As a bi person, this can make me feel like both too much and also not enough to be accepted anywhere. It can feel like I am straddling the line between two communities that both reject me. This invalidation is part of a cycle with queerbaiting. Because the identity is placed in this vulnerable, invalidating position on the edge of the queer community, it is an easy target. This public perception of being right on the edge of queerness can make media or artists palatable for homophobic audiences, but LGBTQIA+ audiences can still latch onto the queerness of it. This works to the advantage of producers and PR teams searching for the largest audience possible. The other part of the cycle is that through queerbaiting, bisexuality/pansexuality/bi-curiosity can be appropriated by anyone, and become fetishized and conflated with promiscuity (see “I Kissed a Girl” by Katy Perry, “Girls” by Rita Ora, “Te Amo” by Rihanna). This further invalidates people who actually inhabit these identities. Thus, the cycle repeats.

This cycle hurts artists who actually identify as bi/pan. Halsey, Lady Gaga, and many others have been accused of queerbaiting, accused of just saying they are bi or pan to sell albums and tickets. This has prompted many openly bi/pan artists, including Lady Gaga, to hesitate to call themselves a part of the queer community. Instead, during a speech in 2016 after the Pulse nightclub shooting, she positioned herself as an ally to the queer community. What kind of message does this send to bi/pan people? That their identities are not valid, but instead just a phase? An act of rebellion? A marketing tool? Bi and pan identities are hung out to dry at the expense of both bi/pan artists and listeners. 

For this reason, we need to be careful about how often we throw around the accusation of queerbaiting. Often, it is actually thinly veiled biphobia. If we didn’t have people exploiting bi/pan identities in the first place, actual bi/pan people wouldn’t be getting thrown under the bus like this. But celebrities are often not transparent about their identities, so we are faced with the choice between interrogating queer celebrities and protecting queer consumers from being baited. I am sitting here writing this because I’ve been harmed by the practice of queerbaiting, which has caused me to scour through interviews to pin down peoples’ identities. My own hurt is feeding right back into this accusatory and reductive cycle of mistrust and dishonesty.

I still love a lot of the artists I’ve criticized here, but what I hope to bring to this discussion is a healthy level of skepticism and a validation of my own and maybe others’ feelings of confusion and betrayal caused by queerbaiting music. There’s a chance some artists are not doing this on purpose. There are tropes that likely seep into the subconscious of some songwriters, but we still need to interrogate why those tropes and aesthetics become marketable in the first place. And the impact is still the same. So, if you have ever misheard lyrics or been made to feel abandoned and lonely, you are not alone. Our feelings and experiences and identities are real and not just up for grabs by songwriters and artists only trying to turn a profit, as difficult as they might be to pinpoint. We deserve better. It is not too much to ask to want to see yourself reflected authentically in the media you consume rather than feeling emotionally manipulated.

To help readers continue exploring this topic, I have created a few Spotify playlists. The first one, Queerbaiting Lyrics, includes the songs mentioned in this article as well as other examples of ambiguous lyrics to help you really get a sense for the issue I’ve described here. Especially if you are cishetallo, please listen to these songs and try your best to empathize with how confusing these lyrics can be for a queer person to hear. The second playlist, Queer Space is a collection of openly LGBTQIA+ artists. Listen to this playlist to let your queer soul soar. There is no need to be skeptical of the identities of these artists, so sit back, trust your interpretation of the lyrics, and just sink into the gay vibes <3

Lettitor

Dear reader,

At the risk of reiterating something you’ve heard ten times today: it has been a year since the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a pandemic and Colorado College declared its transition to online learning and working. There isn’t space here to adequately begin to talk about the cost of the pandemic and its mismanagement, but I will say I’m slowly starting to feel its end become tangible. 

Only now am I beginning to understand how profoundly many of us have adapted our behaviors over the course of the last year. I’ve almost gotten over that weird feeling that I’m talking to a wall or soliloquizing every time I’m on a Zoom call; I have dreams where I find myself maskless and panicked in the middle of a grocery store. The little mannerisms and performances that used to come with moving through the world (a student trying to catch someone’s eye in class, an essential worker interacting with the public without fear of illness) have been rescripted. Anabella Owens writes about such a rescripting in her article about the intersection of privilege and vulnerability—those without the privilege of avoiding in-person work are forced into a position of socially-imposed vulnerability, drawing class and racial divisions ever more stark. 

Courtney Knerr writes about a more literal form of performance in their article about the frustrating cycle of queerbaiting, a practice in which pop music performers profit off of queer audiences by maintaining ambiguity about their own sexuality, and the many ways it harms queer people. Zeke Lloyd asserts his distaste for performative activism and his peers’ other disingenuous Instagram performances. We’re republishing a 2010 article about purity balls, an odd bit of performance art layered with fibbery that originated here in Colorado Springs.

These writers have honestly expanded my awareness of the small and large performances woven deeply into the world around me—hopefully they’ll do the same for you.

From my soapbox to yours,

Kat and the Cipher Staff

Stories from Closed Dorms

For a couple of months, I’ve wanted to tell a story about quarantining at Colorado College, but I never really knew how I should tell it. I initially wanted to write this piece about myself, RA and author Ben Greenly, and how my time in quarantine for two weeks led to some intense self-reflection. But after interviewing a number of students from Loomis, South, and Mathias recently, I realized that my experience alone couldn’t possibly encompass everything students went through over the two-week periods that they were quarantined. Even now, the interviews I conducted for this piece only showcase a small fraction of the myriad experiences that occurred behind the dorm room walls.

At 12:00 p.m. on Aug. 29, 2020, a mass email announced to all residents that South and Mathias Hall would be quarantined for two weeks, due to 11 positive tests for COVID-19. This quarantine started the day before Loomis Hall would be released from their two-week quarantine, so there was one day in which everyone was in their rooms—no one from South, Mathias, or Loomis outside on an August afternoon. I spent that entire day looking out my window, as I’m sure many other residents did. Here, I present a compilation of all of the interviews I conducted with these residents from the Big Three halls, looking back on their various quarantine experiences at Colorado College.

Some ground rules before we begin: these people will and shall forever remain completely anonymous. Some of these excerpts might be split up into multiple interviews, some of them might be a combination of several interviews. Some of these interviews might be quasi-fictionalized based on rumors that I’ve overheard or notes I quickly jotted down after conversations with my residents. In short, you are not going to be able to identify the people based on the interview they gave, and that’s the point. There are excerpts from students who responded to the announcement in ways that may have put others at risk, and some who were able to use their privilege and resources to avoid, shorten, or modify their quarantine experience. As an RA, I feel like I have a sort of behind-the-scenes insight into the dorm quarantine experience, and I personally don’t blame these students for anything. I definitely understand how stressful a major change in the academic year can be. I know, personally, how shocking it was to be informed so suddenly of the school’s closing one year ago, and it must have been especially hard for all of those first-years who were just entering college this fall.

Finally, I would like to give thanks to the Sodexo employees, who graciously helped keep our residence halls so clean, and the employees of Bon Appetit, who made and prepared meals for us so that we were able to stay quarantined in our halls. I am also eternally grateful to the employees of the mailroom, who delivered packages to us, allowing us to feel some connection with the outside world. You were all placed in a risky work environment and whatever you were being paid, it probably should have been more. We are truly grateful for everything you did to keep us safe and sane. Your knocks on my door became some of the only human interactions that I experienced during those two weeks. 

Now, let’s begin with the show.

INTERVIEW #1 (SEVEN DAYS IN QUARANTINE):

I only stayed for one of the two weeks, and I liked it, to be honest. I liked it because it was, what, three weeks into college? And being new, there are so many social pressures, so it was just like a week to focus on my class and get adjusted to the block system. I remember that we were supposed to go into our dorm rooms for an announcement, and this kid from my class told me that we were going into quarantine. I didn’t believe him at first. And then, another guy told me and again, I didn’t really believe him. And then, I got the email, and I was like, “what the fuck?” But then, it was actually nice, like a little break from being a freshman. My days were pretty simple: I would just do all my homework and go to class, I watched like, five Harry Potter movies. I’m not a picky eater, so the food was fine for me. My roommate did leave in the first couple of days, but it was okay—I was fine alone. I was in a triple, so I was just living luxuriously.

I don’t know, it was nice to go home though, my parents gave me the option to go home. I had my car and could get to Denver on a tank of gas, so I wouldn’t have to meet anybody. I was incredibly lucky that I had the option to do that. But I delayed it for seven days and stayed here. Cause it was kind of nice to be alone. I would do all my homework, FaceTime all of my friends from back home, and then I would like, watch a Harry Potter movie. It was easy because I didn’t have any close friends at CC back then. It’s super easy to be alone when you’re new to college.

INTERVIEW #2 (FOURTEEN DAYS IN QUARANTINE):

I stayed for the whole two weeks, which went pretty good. I didn’t really have a way to go back home to quarantine because I’m from out of state. But yeah, I don’t have any big complaints. They would give us some snacks before we went outside, which was nice. I got some Funyuns, Goldfish, bags of chips—we would stockpile those and eat them when we didn’t feel like eating the three-in-one meals they gave us. My only issue was probably the outside time which was, um, pretty disorganized. We were told that there was a sign-up sheet and that the slots were in one-hour increments. It was kind of unclear, though, if we could sign up for more than one hour, but people just kind of went out when they wanted to. They had an RA there watching everyone, but there was no sheet for them to check who had signed up to come out. Anyway, I don’t think anyone was really keeping track. We just had to sit in marked-off spots with our roommate, pretty far away from other people. Seeing all of the people from places like Loomis or West Campus walk around outside of our quarantined area was pretty depressing but luckily, they only came around like once or twice. One of the days, it was raining during our only outside time, so we were just sitting in the rain. It was alright for the most part, but sometimes it was hard to keep your mask on when you went outside. We did, of course––but there were times when I felt so tempted to pull down my mask so I could feel the fresh air on my face. I also needed some exercise outside of my room so I just started, like, secretly working out in the stairwell. Which I wasn’t really allowed to do, but I made sure to always be alone, and I would wear a mask the whole time, I promise. The workout was that I would just run up and down the stairs for like 40 minutes. The exercise was really hard, it tired me out, so I don’t recommend it.

INTERVIEW #3 (FOURTEEN DAYS IN QUARANTINE):

The food was probably the most exhausting aspect of the quarantine. I seem really critical, but for the most part, it could have been a lot worse, we got fed at least. Every day at around lunchtime, we would get three-in-one meals delivered, which were breakfast, lunch, and dinner all at once. We couldn’t really choose our meals, so our eating habits were at the discretion of whoever was making the meals. But it makes sense. There were so many of us that it would have been hard to give us a choice. But sometimes I might not prefer something, like personally, I don’t like seafood and it would be the only option. I just wish we had more liberty to choose at least some of the meals.

One thing that I was really grateful for was that the college worked out a way for us to get some time outside because initially, we weren’t going to get any outside time due to the county guidelines until CC convinced them to. I understand how being locked in your room for 24 hours a day for two weeks might really be tough on a student’s mental health, so I’m glad they worked out a situation where we could get outside. However, I wish that we could have done a little more with our outside time. As an athlete, I would have liked to do more exercise than just playing basketball against my roommate in our dorm room with a mini-hoop. I’m very lucky that I was with someone for the whole time. My roommate and I really became the best of friends during quarantine, we have a lot of the same interests, the same coping mechanisms. You know, if we really want to get into it, I’ve been told before that we’re so compatible because he’s an Aquarius and I’m a Libra––you don’t have to put that in the interview.

INTERVIEW #4 (FOURTEEN DAYS IN QUARANTINE): 

It was freaky seeing the people outside of your door who were delivering the food. They were wearing, like, hazmat suits. So every day, there would be a crew that would come and clean all of the bathrooms, a crew that would deliver packages, and a crew that would deliver food. By the way, I found this out when I was discarding some leftover bits from my breakfast: all the athletes had their own special meals. It was like some sort of nicer, larger meal. They were getting full strips of bacon in their breakfasts as opposed to my plain hash browns. I’m not mad at the athletes at all for that one, though. I mean, I’m sure they didn’t really have a choice on what they were given to eat. 

INTERVIEW #5 (FOUR DAYS IN QUARANTINE):

I wish we would have been able to exercise. I feel like, you know, we’re 18, 19, 20 years old. I understand that we can’t be totally trusted, but you know it’s hard, you're putting kids into quarantine and their only break from sitting in their rooms is to go and sit outside. I do understand what the school was thinking when they put us into strict quarantine—people could have been asymptomatic, so I can see why you wouldn’t want them running around the blocks breathing heavily, possibly spreading it to other people. But I feel like we could have exercised in place, outside, separated from each other. We’re like, ten feet apart. I don't think I’m going to give anyone COVID-19 by, like, doing sit-ups. I know that wasn’t their rule, that it was because of the county health guidelines, and I’m grateful that they at least let us go outside. So like, yeah. 

I’m sure people were congregating or sneaking into rooms—we didn’t, by the way. Everyone knew better, so I hope it didn’t happen, but I’m sure it did.

INTERVIEW #6 (ONE DAY IN QUARANTINE):

We were told that we would be quarantining for two weeks. They had this sub-clause that you were allowed to quarantine in your home if you lived in the state of Colorado and could theoretically drive straight from campus to your home and quarantine there. I didn’t have a car on campus but luckily, my sister, who also lives in Colorado Springs, was able to get our family car and drop it off for me. I am so grateful to her, I thank her all the time, I actually feel grateful that I even had the opportunity to leave campus. Before leaving, I had to talk to the RLC and Maggie Santos, who's the head of COVID-19 numbers on campus. So I emailed them and was like, “Hey I live in Colorado, can I leave?” At this point, we weren’t told that we would not be coming back to campus so I didn't completely pack up my stuff. I just packed up enough clothes and sort of extra things that I needed to go back to my house, and they were like, “yep, just make sure you abide by the quarantine rules and all,” and they gave me permission to leave whenever I was ready to go. So I was there for two weeks alone. My parents were working out of state at the time. It wasn’t all bad. We had a decent amount of groceries. I did once have groceries delivered to me so I didn’t have to go to the store, which was a huge help. I feel for those who weren’t able to get their groceries delivered, or were in quarantine and had only the three-in-ones to eat. I did class in my house, same time zone, and then I would just find ways to spend time, either through reading or trying to figure out what I could do in my house alone. It was a big surprise when they told us that we weren’t going back to campus. They let me get all of my stuff later after the quarantine was over, but still, it was very nerve-wracking when they first announced that update. I remember calling my parents about it, and they were super nervous, and they were asking the same questions that I was. Eventually, everything was sorted out by emailing Maggie about the situation.

INTERVIEW #7 (FOURTEEN DAYS IN QUARANTINE):

There was one day where we didn’t get any food, I talked to my RA about it and there was a survey that we were supposed to fill out, which I didn’t even get. I sent an email, and I got food the next day. I had a bunch of leftover snacks in my room, so I at least had something to eat.

INTERVIEW #8 (FOURTEEN DAYS IN QUARANTINE):

I think a lot of people left halfway through because I’m pretty sure a lot of people thought that they didn’t have COVID so that wherever they went, they weren’t necessarily worried about people getting sick, which is kind of fucked up if you think about it. I mean, they could have just not had symptoms and could have easily given COVID to their family members, which sucks and is so wildly irresponsible. I like to think that if people really were concerned and showed any symptoms that they would have been here for two full weeks and been super careful. Because it just felt like, I mean there were a few cases that week, but at least our activity had been pretty limited to a very small group of people that had been with us. So I think a lot of people felt like, I don’t know, they weren’t going to be superspreaders? I hope so.

INTERVIEW #9 (ONE DAY IN QUARANTINE):

I was sitting outside of my house––my house-house in the Springs, not my dorm––when I got the alert that they were closing down. And I was like, “Aw poop.” Because, first off, I didn’t know if I was going to be allowed back on campus. That was my first worry because there wasn’t any mention of that in the email. They allowed me to come back for the day after the quarantine was over, so a couple days after quarantine ended, I came over and officially moved out for the semester. That was very easy, which I am incredibly thankful for.

So I then spent the whole fall at home, and I spent a lot of it by myself. It was an interesting experience, you know there are definitely negatives of it. But you know, you get into a really good schedule, because you can go to bed early, because you have nothing to stay up late for. You’re productive because you have nothing else to do while you’re waiting. I also learned to do a lot more cooking. Doing all this stuff by yourself, you get a taste for living on your own without people. Which is a good experience to have, it makes you appreciate college way more. Possibly. The worst I had was that I had a really hard second block, and because of that, I went three and a half weeks without having any face-to-face conversation with anybody. My family was gone, my sister was at her college, and my parents were working out of state. So really I didn’t have anyone to talk to. So it’s great to be back now.

INTERVIEW #10 (FOUR DAYS IN QUARANTINE)

The rest of my year went really well. I was very lucky that it worked out so well. I think the increased testing right now is really good, and I think the new ten-day quarantines are also really good. Pretty basic stuff, you would think. I got super lucky, had a great semester, and was fortunate that my family could allow me to do something else. But for people who didn’t, people who were sent home, people who invested in coming out here, or who were quarantined in Loomis by themselves, I feel really bad for them. And it just feels like it could’ve all been avoidable, for the school at least. So it’s not anger about what happened that I’m feeling necessarily, it’s like, whatever, so much worse happens. But I know it really affected and really messed with a lot of people. Like the people that delivered food to us were probably really nervous about their safety. I also feel for the people who were really screwed over, like the students who maybe didn’t have the same opportunities that I had. It’s like, how could someone have made this plan in August thinking it would work? I mean, it’s kind of embarrassing, for the school at least. I don’t know any other small school where the sophomores, juniors, and seniors weren’t allowed back at all. That’s so sad for you guys; all those other schools seemed to figure it out. That’s, yeah. Don’t get me wrong, it’s good to be here—I have some friends, who were not allowed to be on campus like at all this year. I just think ... I know a lot of people that really had a tough time being in singles during their quarantine, or that had a hard time quarantining with their roommate. I just think a lot of people really got screwed over in ways that were probably avoidable. Quarantine was okay for me, all in all.

INTERVIEW #11 (FOURTEEN DAYS IN QUARANTINE):

Right as it was starting, on that Saturday I believe, my roommate called me and was like, “I just got an email, South just got into quarantine. I’m leaving, do you want to come with me?” I was like, “Yeah let’s go” so we packed our bags, left the building, and started walking down the street. We talked to our RA and the administration about leaving, but we didn’t know where we were going. We were just like, “We’re not doing this.” We didn’t think our mental health would be okay, didn’t think that anything would be okay. And we were just sitting on the curb, because we were afraid that they would just lock us in, and then we realized that we were making a rash decision and that we were being dramatic and we would probably be okay if we went back to our rooms, chilled, thought about it, thought about what our next move was. And so we ended up staying. Really a memory that sticks out to me is just sitting on that curb with all of our bags packed. Just calling our parents trying to find a hotel, trying to figure out what we were going to do. Um yeah, it was pretty hectic, but we came to our senses and came back.

INTERVIEW #12 (SIXTY DAYS IN QUARANTINE):

I’m alright right now, I’m not in quarantine, at least. So, I’ve been in quarantine a lot of times. At the beginning of the year, we didn’t think it was going to happen. We thought we were in the clear because another dorm had been in quarantine, and then we heard the news. A lot of people had different reactions. Some people ran out of the building, and like, tried to figure out where they were going to go. Some people fell immediately into a deep depression, and some people started making plans.

It’s hard to talk about almost, because that quarantine was a lot easier than the ones in Bijou West, by yourself, cause when you’re by yourself it’s a lot worse than when you have a roommate. Bijou West, by the way, is a hotel where you go when you have to quarantine—I had to quarantine there six times because either someone around me would test positive for COVID or I would show symptoms. I never had COVID, luckily, I would just have strep throat or pneumonia and they would quarantine me just in case. It was kind of funny actually, because every time I got out, something would happen a couple days later and I would have to go right back in. But, really I don’t even know if I have that much to say about that first one, because when I look back, I’m like, gosh, that one was amazing, because we could leave the room, we could fill up our water bottles, we could go up the stairwell. I mean we weren’t really supposed to, but we did. And we had each other, which was really nice. But when you’re in the Bijou hotel, you’re by yourself. They didn't have it entirely organized. I went in there once because I was symptomatic. It turned out that I had strep throat and that was my first semester where I was completely delirious, and I didn’t know that I had a microwave or a fridge, and they didn’t tell me because it was hidden somewhere in the room. So like for the first four days, I was pretty hungry because I was like, “I don’t know what I’m supposed to do with this cold food that they were giving me.” It was hard. I don’t know, you don’t see anybody, you don’t talk to anybody, and then suddenly you're supposed to go to class? It was just ... When you have something to do, other than class, it’s easier. But when that’s all you have to do and you feel like crap, you know, it’s really hard. You’re just struggling to make it through the day, trying to be okay without breaking down.

I think it’s really hard, I think quarantine just does a number on you, even if you have an online class. I never understood how much we need other humans until then.

When I came out of this last quarantine, it was just weird to see people, I was kind of on edge. I guess I’m still on edge when I see people and am close to people. We let someone in our room a while ago and he stepped in our room, and I just felt so violated. It wasn't offensive or anything, it just felt so wrong. It’s just that this is such a personal space now and I’ve been in it by myself for so long.

INTERVIEW #13 (FOURTEEN DAYS IN QUARANTINE):

So, I’m going to be your last interview, right? Okay, good. I don’t really know how to feel about my quarantine experience, to tell you the truth. I don’t really remember a lot of it. It was a lot of days and they went by really quickly. I would actually text someone and put my phone down for a second, then after I picked the phone back up, three days had passed! Isn’t that crazy? That might not have happened but that’s what it felt like for sure. It’s strange though, having to see the college just completely change into something different for those few weeks in the beginning of the year. It’s like, weird to think of how there are so many people who just don’t realize how different the experience was from everything else that I’ve been through at CC. It was like a shift into something completely different. I don’t know. I don’t know how I feel, I mainly feel a little guilty. There was a lot of talk going on back then, and I guess now as well, about responsibility, and a lot of people were questioning the performance of some of these institutions when faced with this kind of crisis. And here I am, thinking about my performance throughout the entire thing. You know, I am an RA, and the first time that I fully heard and understood the experiences of these residents was through interviewing them for a magazine? I would like, check on them mostly every day, but I wouldn’t ask them what was happening to them. I think I was just too wrapped up in my life. I guess I was sort of the one who was performing, I guess. A performance for my residents, trying to make sure that everything felt as normal as possible when I had no clue what was going on. I keep wondering if these residents were also performing for me, making it seem like everything was alright in their quarantine. Are these interviews even genuine, do you think these people even told me what actually happened? I had my birthday during this quarantine, and I didn’t even mention it: what else do you think people chose not to tell me? This quarantine, I don’t think we’ll ever get the full story on what it was like, no matter how many interviews we conduct. Who knows, the food was pretty good, it gave me something to eat, and I liked when the people knocked on my door, it was the only thing keeping me going sometimes. I was glad to get out though, to take off my mask and smell the air, wow, what a rush.

Balls to the Wall

Editor’s note: This article was originally published in April 2010 for Cipher’s Love/Lust issue. Reporting on the phenomenon of Purity Balls, it delves into the idea of performance on several levels. Children assigned female at birth perform an exaggeration of femininity while their male counterparts quietly watch; young teens and adults perform chastity, though they may not be as chaste as their performance makes it seem; fathers publicly vow to complete the near-impossible task of guarding their daughters’ virginities. And as Wool points out, the balls themselves are detailed pieces of performance art layered thickly with metaphor. We hope that this article continues to spur reflection on these forms of performance almost 11 years after it was originally published.

We’ve made minor style and grammar changes to the original piece.

It’s easy to ridicule the name—it can conjure visions of the white marble testicles on Michelangelo’s David, or two scoops of vanilla ice cream—but for the fathers and daughters who attend them, “Purity Balls” are serious. They began as Evangelical Christian fare, but in a little over a decade, they have taken place in 48 states and garnered interest in at least 17 countries. Their objective is to promote a close, protective relationship between father and daughter. They center on a solemn commitment ceremony in which a father reads and signs a pledge to actively guard his daughter’s virginity, and his daughter makes a silent promise to herself and to God to stay chaste until marriage. And they began in Colorado Springs.

In the early nineties, Purity Balls were mere embryos in the imaginations of Randy and Lisa Wilson, a husband and wife living in Colorado Springs. In 1998, the couple penned a formal pledge for fathers to recite with their daughters as witnesses—a covenant in which a father verbally “choose[s] before God” to be a watchdog over his daughter’s virginity, to act as “her authority and protection in the area of purity,” and to “lead, guide and pray over [her] ... as the high priest in [his] home.” All the Wilsons needed was an event where the pledge could be stated and celebrated.

Enter the Purity Ball, where for $85 per person plus the cost of formalwear, an attendee and her father get a night of dinner and dancing followed by a pledge and a procession of immaculate young daughters. During the procession, two fathers stand on either side of a large cross, each holding up a shining sword. The daughters, sometimes as young as four, demonstrate their commitment to abstinence by kneeling in front of the cross and underneath the blades, a symbolic vertex of purity and promise.

The Wilsons’ first Purity Ball was a modest production at a Marriott Hotel with about a hundred guests, including the Wilsons’ parents and their seven children. Over the years, their Balls have attracted more and more families, not to mention camera crews and reporters. The most recent Purity Ball was held on March 6 at the lavish Broadmoor Hotel’s Lake Terrace Ballroom.

The popularity of Purity Balls ballooned in 2006 when the National Abstinence Clearinghouse, a stronghold of the movement against premarital sex, began selling hundreds of informational packets about hosting Purity Balls. The events quickly spread outward across the United States. As the Wilsons’ website explains, Purity Balls are easy to organize with just a little elbow grease and a modicum of financial support for sponsorship. A father and daughter can attend as many Balls as they wish, and some father-daughter pairs frequent the Purity scene, flitting from Ball to Ball in a glittering show of their devotion to all things chaste. Likewise, some take the pledge more seriously than others. For the hard-liners, a Purity Pledge postpones a girl’s first kiss until her wedding day. She and her husband meet through adult-chaperoned group dates and get married only if her parents approve the match. 

At face value, Purity Balls might look similar to Bar Mitzvahs or Confirmation ceremonies, but more careful examination suggests that they belong in a different league entirely. For one, they are off-limits to an entire half of the unmarried population: boys. The Wilsons address this arrant boy-exclusion in a section of their website titled “What About Boys?” The page begins with a quotation from Preston Gillham, a “life and leadership consultant” who proclaims, “Manhood is a ritual passed from generation to generation with precious few spoken instructions.” Unlike the daughters of the Purity Ball crowd, who get a pledge devoted to protecting their purity, sons ostensibly do not need verbal instructions or babying. The Purity Ball presents girls as passive objects needy of male protection but encourages boys to actively discover power and masculinity through man-to-man interactions. They are invited to attend Purity Balls but not to take a pledge of virginity. According to the Wilsons’ website, if they attend a Ball, it is to “watch the way their fathers treat young women.” 

For Ball-goers, the discussion of boys is swathed in patriarchal vernacular. The Wilsons “believe that manhood is passed from the masculine to the masculine,” from men to men. They do not adhere to the idea that gender is a social construct—that “masculinity” is not innate, but learned in these man-to-man interactions. And the Wilsons’ concepts of “masculine” and “feminine” put girls under great social and familial pressure to be abstinent. Contrarily, boys are left alone to be men, with whatever exploration that entails. Wilson celebrated his own son’s transition into manhood by presenting him with a ring to represent integrity and a sword to represent power. There was no obligation to make a vow of purity, even a silent one. 

The Wilsons have set an age—twelve—when a boy can formally transition into adulthood during a “Manhood Ceremony.” For girls, however, there is no age specified as appropriate for attending Purity Balls. The majority of the girls who attend are somewhere between eleven and eighteen, but the lack of age specification means that many girls end up making abstinence pledges before they leave elementary school. Nobody is forcing them to adhere to these pledges or locking them into chastity belts until their wedding days, but critics point out that failure to uphold a promise of abstinence may lead girls to feel guilty about their sexual actions. 

Even Randy Wilson knows that the pledge can only go so far. For this reason, Wilson views the Purity Ball as being more about the father-daughter relationship than the Purity Pledge. “This is all about fatherhood,” he said in an interview with Matt Lauer. “Any opportunity we can have to build time and invest in relationships with our daughters helps them succeed in life.” Some observers, however, think the brand of fatherhood touted at Purity Balls can come off as a perverse obsession with young girls’ sexuality. In response, Wilson insisted that there is no obsession or control involved: “It’s not that I’m controlling my daughter or wanting to; I want to help walk her through life and all the aspects of it and talk her through situations that she’s wrestling with.” It sounds like a good plan, but it often leaves girls afraid to talk to their parents about anything having to do with sex. Shelby Knox, who made a purity pledge at fifteen, has said that she knew “nothing” about sex when she vowed to be abstinent. “A lot of times,” she explained, “these young women are too young to even understand what sex is, what purity is. They don’t really have all the information yet. I feel like a lot of these young women take these pledges because it’s what their adoring father wants.” And when that happens, Purity Balls put girls at risk to make irresponsible choices. 

In the last decade, a blitzkrieg of data has demonstrated the apparent ineffectiveness of abstinence. A Columbia University study of 12,000 adolescents showed that 88% of kids who study made abstinence pledges ended up having sex before marriage. Longitudinal studies of adolescents have also found that those who make abstinence pledges are just as likely to engage in premarital sex as those who make no such pledge. The problem is bigger than broken promises, though, because the teenagers who make pledges are actually less likely to use condoms or other contraception for premarital sex than those who do not make pledges. Why plan ahead for an act they vowed not to commit? To prepare for sex would be to acknowledge failure. Hence, they are at high risk to become pregnant or contract STDs. 

So why make a pledge in the first place? Often, kids make the pledge not because of an overwhelming inclination to be pure, but because they feel pressure from parents, priests, teachers, or peers. Group mentality is a powerful player. After all, nobody wants to be left out of the Purity Ball! And to an 11-year-old who doesn’t need a bra yet, abstinence can seem like an easy and admirable choice. Easy, that is, until puberty strikes, and that same kid begins to consider that people have sex for reasons other than procreation.

Nonetheless, when it’s put into practice, abstinence offers a security that mere “safe sex” can’t touch. Condoms can break and birth control can fail, but abstinence is the only sure method of avoiding pregnancy and STDs. Remaining abstinent is certainly possible, and it has recently gained attention from the popular press. In May 2009, teenage mother Bristol Palin made a public decision not to have sex (again) until marriage when she began a run as Abstinence Ambassador for the Candie’s Foundation. Then, a February 2010 study published in Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine found that abstinence-based programs for sixth- and seventh-graders may help to delay their sexual activity as compared to their peers, who are given comprehensive sexual education. Of course, “delay” is an important word here, since subjects of the study were only tracked for two years. According to self-reporting from the subjects (a method that already calls the accuracy of the results into question), one-third of the abstinence-trained subjects became sexually active compared to one-half of the comprehensively educated subjects—a significant portion in both groups. Abstinence might keep kids from sex for a little while, but it can only pin their thrashing hormones down for so long. And without a secure understanding of contraception, consent, or the emotional risks raised by a physical relationship, the subjects who received abstinence-only education may struggle to handle the responsibilities of sex.

Purity Balls are a delicately layered red velvet cake—pure white cheesy innocence spread thin to cover lustful, crimson decadence. They are exaltations of virginity, performance art with the most obvious symbolism. Yet no pedestal can protect them from the sullying touches of criticism, and social scientists and journalists continue to pick them apart. It is up to abstinence proponents and their daughters to faithfully gather the shreds and piece them back together. The Balls will go on.

Willing Vulnerability

“But as we become more in touch with our own ancient, non-european consciousness of living as a situation to be experienced and interacted with, we learn more and more to cherish our feelings, and to respect those hidden sources of our power from where true knowledge and, therefore, lasting action comes” - Audre Lorde, “Poetry Is Not a Luxury”  p.2

At the height of the COVID-19 lockdown, I experienced the reality of being an essential worker. From April to June 2020, I worked nearly full time as a cleaner and cashier at a grocery store in Colorado Springs. And from June until August, I picked up a second job as a server at a local family-owned Italian restaurant. After a summer filled with nearly 50-hour work weeks, I was able to quit my restaurant job to begin my two remote, on-campus positions when the semester started up again at my predominately white institution (PWI).

Both the detriments of vulnerability when it’s socially imposed and the value of vulnerability when it’s intentionally chosen have been made clear to me. My experience as a frontline worker during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic sharply contrasts my current position as a remote student-worker and simultaneously represents a widely shared experience among communities of color––that of socially imposed vulnerability. As defined by the Center for Disease Control in 2018, social vulnerability is: “The resilience of communities when confronted by external stresses on human health, stresses such as natural or human‐caused disasters, or disease outbreaks.” 

My access to student life on a private, residential liberal arts campus, where over 75% of the student body comes from the national economic top 20%, showed me first-hand the ways that wealth acts as a sort of body armor against imposed social vulnerability. In addition to mandatory random weekly testing, Colorado College students have been required to conduct a majority of their academic and employment-related work remotely since last March. Beyond their designated social pods and Zoom-mates, many of the students who opted to return to campus at the start of fall semester were not subjected to in-person jobs with significant COVID-19 exposure in order to be able to fiscally provide for themselves. 

For the entire summer, this was not my reality. In both “essential” work atmospheres, I was frequently subjected to patrons’ disregard of pandemic protocols and made vulnerable to the disparate impacts of COVID-19 exposure. “I have a documented heart condition; I don’t have to wear one,” is just one of the many extravagant excuses I heard from dine-in seeking, maskless customers feening for their weekly $12 panino. On more than one occasion I served maskless tables that would ask me to pull down my own so that they could see “the pretty smile beneath the mask.” Cleaning bathrooms, scanning people’s groceries, and picking up people’s dirty plates were the pastimes of my summer 2020. Unable to move back home, I would walk back to my on-campus apartment frustrated and exhausted between my lunch and dinner shift and check social media for the stack of Snapchat stories showing my peers lounging “bored” in their childhood bedrooms. 

The implications of my own experience with lack of privilege and how it affects vulnerability cannot be understated. It is estimated that 393,000 Americans have died from coronavirus. According to the COVID Racial Data tracker, Black people in the U.S. have died at 1.4 times the rate of white people, with upwards of 50,000 fatal COVID-19 cases found in Black populations. Systemic disparities have exacerbated since the start of the pandemic. According to The Lancet: 

“Part of the disproportionate impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on communities of colour has been structural factors that prevent those communities from practicing social distancing. Minority populations in the U.S. disproportionally make up ‘essential workers’ such as retail grocery workers, public transit employees, and health-care workers and custodial staff.”

Resilience is a trait too often ascribed to communities of color. It is a word frequently used to describe the Black collective specifically. Posited as a compliment, resilience as a cultural expectation serves to maintain popularized archetypes of Black feminine strength and impenetrable Black masculinity. Both of these tropes have negative impacts on the treatment of Black people in medicine. According to a 2016 study, 40% of first and second-year medical students believed that Black people literally had thicker skin than their white counterparts. Black people undoubtedly have a unique collective strength, but if the distinct discrimination we face continues to be underwritten by federal and medical institutions as some type of inescapable ramification of the Black condition, then the disproportionate impacts of social vulnerability will never be productively acknowledged or rectified. Most simply stated, Black people should not always be expected to remain self-reliantly strong, especially not in times of pandemic-level danger. 

More often than not, Black people suffer the consequences regardless of the ways we respond to imposed social vulnerability. A Black man who tunes out the world with headphones can make himself physically vulnerable to a gunshot in his back by a law-enforcement officer. A Black woman who displays too much emotional vulnerability is often deemed unprofessional or characterized as “the angry Black woman.” As a whole, communities who spoke out on their imposed vulnerability to COVID-19, police brutality, and other systemic issues in the #BlackLivesMatter movements of summer 2020 were met with the very type of violence that they were protesting. 

There is a distinction to be made here between the harm caused by imposed social vulnerability maintained as a systemic power tool and that of willing vulnerability as a mechanism of agency. When vulnerability is actively chosen, Black individuals are able to utilize their vulnerability in service of immense social change. Change germinates at the moment of decision. America was forever changed when Harriet Tubman decided to make 300+ trips on the Freedom Trail to free those who were enslaved, when Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. chose non-violence as a civil rights strategy, and again most recently, when activists all over the world chose to look their oppressors in the face and insist upon the value of their Black lives. A willingness to be vulnerable is a catalyst of courage, strength, and future-oriented thinking that aims to turn unjust reality into illustrated truth. 

Two hundred forty-five years ago, Thomas Jefferson constitutionally declared a self-evident truth: All men are created equal. Equality is declared a natural right in the founding document of the United States of America. But both recent political events and the COVID-19 pandemic have shown how far American reality has strayed from this principle. So how do we make this self-evident truth into our reality? By continuing to do what we have for so long: willingly put ourselves into vulnerable positions for the sake of creating real progressive change and in search of achieving what we know to be self-evidently true. 

As yet another decade and presidential administration come to an end, it is critical that people understand how the already disparate areas of healthcare, economics, and social injustice have manifested as a triple-layered pandemic. 2020 undoubtedly reflected glaring systemic contrasts between security as attained by economic privilege versus the risk factors inflicted by socially imposed vulnerability. The pandemic has also illuminated how willing vulnerability can be used as a methodology toward achieving true democracy––one where all people are empowered to seek equality. So to the privileged who consider comfort a right and vulnerability as an equally afforded standard, I ask that you recognize how imposed social vulnerability has been systematically used to hold marginalized people back from accessing the democratic ideal. To the underprivileged, I ask that you embrace the triumphs of our collective history and continue to challenge dominant narratives that suggest that choosing vulnerability is weakness. Recognize that your willing vulnerability is a source of immense agency that has potential to continuously benefit you and your communities in the ongoing fight for social equality more than you might have ever imagined.