Steve Lavoie ’07

Before I begin, I wish to preface this article by stating that I support the dismantling of all institutionalized discrimination, and that every person should enjoy the fundamental liberties of egalitarian society.

The fight for equal rights for gay and lesbian persons has recently become centered on the topic of gay marriage. Doubtless, there are other topics that are also central to the gay rights agenda, but it seems that gay marriage is now the focal point, the core of a discursive center that is becoming less critical of itself and consequently, parochial and facile. The gay rights discourse is shifting in such a way that normative structures are in a position to become strengthened, not weakened.

This is not to say, however, that the marriage norm will not be transmuted to include members of the gay and lesbian communities. Given the recent progress of the gay rights movements with respect to gay marriage, it is certain that the institution of marriage will undergo some change; but the changes that are evolving, particularly those that have yet to evolve, may only further marginalize those who are left outside of the societal norm.

Sexuality has been defined so that it is already thought of in terms of marriage (within it or outside of it) and marriage is thought of as a—if not the—legitimizing praxis of sexuality. By embracing marriage as an instrument of sexual legitimacy, do we not categorize that which falls outside of it as sexually illegitimate? Within the framework of the current debate over gay marriage, those normal couples seeking to be married can be looking toward a time of future legitimacy, but the framework that is being used to fight for the right to marry, to be legitimized, is also working to eliminate the possibility that legitimacy could be conferred on other types sexual relationships (i.e., those which fall outside the normative two-person relationship). This elimination comes as a result of the narrow lens of the gay marriage movement, which is inherently constricting sexual options and deciding what will be included in the norm.

The gay rights movement has made a considerable effort in recent years to distance itself from that which falls in the realm of the sexually perverse, and to make it known that many of the same sex couples wishing to be married are no different than any other American family—they have children, help their neighbors, go to PTA meetings, are involved with their local religious center, and most certainly, they are people who do not flaunt their sexuality, nor is their exterior sexual image one that would be perceived as perverse (‘They are really just like you’). Moreover, they will argue that their sexuality does not define them—that they embody a more elevated gay identity, one purportedly not defined by sex.

Certainly, one will point out that flaunting sexuality and displaying perverse sexual traits brings shame to heterosexual couples as well—our society does not want hyper-sexualized displays. Of course, this is what marriage censures. In the normative sense, marriage bespeaks stability and is a social beacon, signaling that one has grown-up. Marriage is the structure that signifies that you are legitimate—you have put your hyper-sexualized self in the past and you are ready to be part of a mature society. The very nature of marriage then is to constrict sexual possibility and define what is sexually intelligible. Given the sexual stereotypes of promiscuity, perversion and deviance attached to gay and lesbian communities, it is doubtless that members of those communities are seeking marriage as the method by which to legitimize their relationships, not in the sense of simply wanting recognition of a loving partnership, but rather to signal to society that many in the gay and lesbian community are not sexually perverse.

The intention of the gay marriage movement is dubious. This movement is something that has, at its center, a conservative element that seeks to constrict the discourse of sexual intelligibility in order to indicate that “I am not like the rest of them,” and that “I want to lead a normal life.” Does this then signal a fracturing within the gay and lesbian communities? Is it an affront to the efforts of those who, using their sexualized selves, fought to achieve the level of open-mindedness these communities enjoy today? It is distressing to think that groups of people who have fought to secure a basic recognition of sexual possibility may now be foreclosed upon because some within wish to distance themselves from sexuality.

One may argue that I am absurd, that the gay marriage agenda certainly could not be malevolent, and that I have completely missed the point. However, I do recognize the conspicuous disenfranchisement that gay marriage urgently seeks to mitigate. Indeed, equality within the law is central to the objective of gay marriage, and I am not discounting the importance of those gains. However, these objectives (broadcasting an apparently innocuous and principled goal) are precisely that which obscure the issue of sexual foreclosure and that which has reduced the gay marriage movement to a most facile state. What is needed is a politics of marriage that includes a critical perspective, one that is mindful the consequences of its goals, which should incorporate more complex and inclusive ideas of sexuality—ideas that are less about being normal and more about being queer.

Judy Jarvis ’07

Women’s hair has long been a loaded concept. For the Victorians in particular, “it became an obsession. In painting and literature, as well as in their popular culture, they discovered in the image of women’s hair a variety of rich and complex meanings, ascribing to it powers both magical and symbolic,” explains historian Elizabeth Gitter. ¹ Contemporary shampoo and conditioner ads feature women swinging their voluminous locks in the camera frame, the ads’ narratives congratulating the brand on its thickening and smoothing qualities. The hair featured is luxurious and never short. We are meant to gather that hair is a coveted good, to still accept the Victorian standard—but only if it exists on the head.

Hair on women’s armpits and legs, which has the same density as scalp hair, is not admired for its thickness or smoothness, nor its luxurious softness, despite growing from the same genes. Hair is lovely and “magical,” but with the strict stipulation that it is only so on female’s heads. But who’s stipulation is this? Historians respond, “the norm itself was initially fostered by depilatory marketers, who saw that money was to be made from convincing women that body hair was a flaw.”² Through pervasive advertising and framing body hair removal as a necessity rather than a choice, razor companies have successfully make a physiologically arbitrary action a socially necessary habit: Approximately 85 percent to 90 percent of women have unwanted body hair.”³

One could easily argue that all beauty standards are, at their root, arbitrary. “’Beauty’ is a currency system like the gold standard,” writes Naomi Wolf in the The Beauty Myth. As evidenced from consumer culture, ‘beauty’ need not have an explicit reason to be classified as so. The reason shaving is significantly different from other American beauty standards, however, is that rather than requiring an additive action like applying make-up to one’s face, this beauty standard requires removing something natural from one’s body. It is thus one of the most problematic beauty aesthetics, in part because its derivatives are so overlooked. Christine Hope argues that hair removal is a subtle push to return women to a child-like body, “to consider women as less than adults.” This desire is “reflected in and reinforced by the custom of female hair removal and the advertising which accompanied its introduction.”⁴

American female body hair shaving was triggered by a “sustained marketing assault” that began first against armpit hair in 1915, when sleeveless dresses came into fashion ⁵. An ad in the May 1915 issue of the upper-class women’s magazine Harper’s Bazaar features a woman with her sleeveless arms flung into the air, exhibiting her hairless armpits. The ad reads: “Summer Dress and Modern Dancing combine to make necessary the removal of objectionable hair.”⁶ Seventy-two percent of the hair remover ads in Harper’s Bazaar from 1915 to 1919 specifically mention underarm hair ⁷, most mentioning only underarm hair. In 1918, ads began mentioning “limbs,” though legs were not mentioned by name until 1923.

Sears Roebuck stores began selling sheer-sleeved dresses in 1922 and not-so coincidentally, the first women’s razors showed up for sale in their fall 1922 catalogue⁸. Ads from the mid-20s typically put equal emphasis on underarm and leg hair removal. The World War II-era shortening of skirts further helped advertisers’ thrust for leg hair removal, and “[b]y the middle of the century, attention had been drawn to lower parts of the anatomy and a tanned, shapely, hairless leg was a thing of beauty,” Hope observes in her inventory of Harper’s and McCall’s magazines’ hair-removal ads . Body hair removal had become a norm, as well as a public discourse, as evidenced by the headline of one of the McCall’s ads in the early 1940s: “Let’s Look at Your Legs—Everyone Else Does.”¹⁰ Due to these marketing coups, female body hair removal has become a contemporary, largely unquestioned staple of fashion.

This hairless version of reality is so pervasive that it goes against evolutionary meaning, but we pay little attention to it because social norms of beauty are dependent on it, social norms derived directly from fiscal gain. Corporate gain is a direct result of classifying body hair as shameful. No matter how brightly colored the ads or how cheerily the model smile while holding a razor to their tanned leg, ads for razors at their most basic telling women there is something wrong with one of their natural functions: hair growth. “Advertising aimed at women works by lowering our self-esteem,” writes Wolf.¹¹ The bottom line of razor marketing is selling women a product by which they may change themselves.

Like deodorant, razor marketing “arouses the psychological fear of unpopularity and exorcises it by showing how you may avoid embarrassment,” wrote early advertising experts Doris E. Fleischman and Howard Walden Cutler. And just as deodorant is marketed as a hygienic necessity, female leg and armpit hair is symbolically unhygienic. Were the argument of shaving for cleanliness and personal hygiene truly valid, it would follow that both genders would engage in obligatory hair removal, as did the ancient Egyptians. In the last few years, there has been a rise of a hairless male aesthetic, like Versace models with clean-shaven faces and chests; but, with such high percentages of women shaving, it is clear that the hairless beauty standard applies to women of all classes, whereas male body hairlessness seems to be predominantly at a haute couture level.

Advertising campaigns like the recent Schick Quattro assault, subtly but deftly assert the razor’s right over the woman’s body. The most expansive and inventive section of the company’s website is titled, “Quattro® Lingo.” The Lingo contains 24 made-up definitions of shaving-related terms, some of the more benign ones including, “Bathtub Tinsel, noun. The ring of itty-bitty hairs and soap film left in the tub after a serious shave.” Others are more loaded, like “Chastity Pelt, noun. What you have on your legs when you intentionally go without shaving before a date as a way of making yourself behave” and “Girlilla Warfare, noun. Temporarily suspending shaving as a way of punishing your mate for something. Could backfire if you end up uncovering a newfound fetish.” The humor in both is dependent on the reader’s assumption that body hair on a woman is disgusting and would thus be a ‘punishment’ for your mate if you didn’t shave, or an incentive not to engage in sexual activity. Not shaving your body hair is self-punishing in regards to your sex life, these two in plainly imply. (Unless, of course your man has a hair “fetish,” the second term concedes; for liking body hair on a woman could only be a deviant “fetish.”)

The marketing campaign underscores femininity as the most basic reason to shave, asserting that a woman is anachronistic and bestial if she does not shave. The cave-woman illustration and caption evidences this bluntly: “Tame the Cave Lady, verb. To shave out-of-the-way places such as the toes—where women aren’t shown by movies or magazines to have hair, yet almost all do.”

Others more subtly hit home that shaving is a hygienic necessity. “Jaybird, noun. A carefully executed, super-thorough shave to set your mind at ease before a checkup, massage or other appointment that calls for shedding your clothes in front of a total stranger.” Since hair removal is in no way hygienic (in fact, if blades are shared or not cleaned and changed appropriately, shaving itself could actually be unhygienic) the ads can only imply that uncleanliness results from not shaving.

The “voice of the herd”¹² may indeed compel women to shave, but the hairless herd originated and is perpetuated by marketing interests, interests that American women have internalized as “beauty” and justify as a personal choice. “I shave because I like it” is a frequent assertion, but a historically inaccurate statement. Women shave because Harper’s Bazaar arbitrarily told them to in 1915. But razor companies are doing everything possible to make sure you forget it, because the simple origins of female body hair removal are enough to make us question this destructive, expensive, and unnecessary cultural habit.

1. Elisabeth G. Gitter, “The Power of Women’s Hair in the Victorian Imagination,” PMLA 99.5 (1984): 936.
2. Merran Toerien, Sue Wilkinson, and Precilla Y.L Choi, “Body Hair Removal: The ‘Mundane’ Production of Normative Femininity,” Sex Roles 52. 5/6 (2005): 404.
3.Marika Tiggerman and Sarah J. Kenyon, “The hairlessness norm: The removal of body hair in women” Sex Roles: A Journal of Research 39.11-12 (1998): 873.
4. Christine Hope, “Caucasian Female Body Hair and American Culture” Journal of American Culture, 5.1 (1982): 98.
5. Ibid 93.
6. Ibid 94.
7. Ibid.
8. Ibid 95.
9. Hope 96.
10. Ibid 97.
11. Wolf 276.
12. Ewen 137.

Mikey Velarde ‘09

Let me begin by stating that this article does not even come close to scratching the surface of the myriad issues surrounding queer immigration, especially regarding how it factors in to the so-called immigration “debate.” (In fact, the term “queer immigration” is perhaps misleading.) What I’d like to do here is briefly sketch over some rudimentary ideas and concerns that I hope will generate a larger discussion within activist circles and intellectual conversations.

Taking a queer perspective allows us to actively and radically critique the normative, hegemonic ideas underpinning anti-immigration legislation and attitudes. In trying to “undermine the idea of sexual identities and orientation,”—going beyond traditional notions of gay, lesbian and heterosexual identities—queer perspectives focusing on immigration and border issues have the potential to denaturalize restrictive and deadly state projects and actions like border militarization.

However, a queer stance goes further than critiquing policy. Queer scholarship can illuminate the dialectic between sexuality and “citizenship” or “nation” by detailing how it forms and defines and is itself formed and defined constitutively by dominant, normative conceptions of these terms. Queer scholarship can thereby expand these notions in radical ways, noting the power relations behind it all.

One principle concern is that the state, by attempting to regulate the demography and quantity of who enters legally and subsequently “illegally,” effectively regulates identities. Although constrained (or perhaps liberated?) in some ways by the needs of global capitalism , and other powerful social forces, at least with regards to the U.S., the state has—from its infancy to the present—implemented policy that excludes all those it perceives of as “undesirable.” This entails not only the poor, women, people of color, and its political adversaries to name a few, but gays, lesbians, and all those who do not adhere sexually or in any other way to its standards. In regards to GLBTQ persons, United States policy thereby tries to “incorporate immigrants into hegemonic nationalist identities and projects” that reject sexually deviant or, again, “‘undesirable’ acts or outcomes.”

Beyond all the jargon and theory, we may be inspired to engage in immigration-related activism by noting three facts: According to a Lambda Legal pamphlet: “U.S. immigration law does not recognize same-sex relationships, and, as a result, same-sex spouses or partners are not eligible for immigration benefits.” This may not be surprising, but it certainly rarely factors in to the immigration “debate.” Furthermore, as a recent court case demonstrates, asylum is rarely granted or even considered on the basis of oppression due to one’s sexual orientation. In order to be granted asylum, in general, an individual must “demonstrate past persecution or well-founded fear of future persecution on account of race, religion, nationality, political opinion or membership in a particular group, which now includes homosexuals.” Lastly, I would like to point out the somewhat obscure fact that the U.S. removed its ban on lesbian and gay immigrants in 1990.

Amidst a hailstorm of anti-immigrant sentiment, we too are feeling the sting. And as May Day (now operating as an immigrant rights day of action in the U.S.) arrives, not only should we push for more “comprehensive immigration” legislation, we should strive to thoroughly interrogate all its normative assumptions. We need to link up with grassroots organizations representing peoples deemed “undesirable.” We need to be out there on the streets, together in the multitude, demanding justice—not simply in the form of “policy,” but in the form of something entirely more profound.

Will Nyasha Zichawo ’10

Vassar’s Eating Disorder Reachout Service (EDRS) recently screened the documentary Do I Look Fat: A Documentary on Gay Men, Body Image, and Eating Disorders. Profiling the lives of eight gay men, whose backgrounds and age ranges varied widely, the documentary dealt with issues of eating disorders and distorted body image, internalized homophobia, substance abuse, and the HIV/AIDS pandemic.

Having never have seriously considered how, as a gay male, image is an automatically integral part of my existence, this documentary made me realize how profound the focus on body image and appearance are in the gay community. The idealized form of male attractiveness is found frequently in depictions of gay men in popular culture, including pornography, fashion and gay-centric magazines. This prototypical gay may is either the über-thin, toned guy or the hyper-muscled, gym frequenting guy; there is no middle ground. Holding onto these physical forms as paramount forces gay men to cheat ourselves by not appreciating our natural body forms which may, for all intents and purposes, suit us best and actually make us genuinely sexy, as opposed to what the latest heavily edited cover of Out Magazine portrays as being desirable.

This is not meant to disparage men who care for their health and fitness by eating properly and working out; I simply take issue with the obsession with looking ‘good’ (i.e thin) that then leads to eating disorders and low self-esteem, even leading to promiscuity and sexually transmitted diseases. I would like to think there is more to life than starving oneself, abusing substances, or obsessing over how our bodies are acceptable to the gay community or to society in general. In Do I Look Fat, a psychologist marveled at how he had never encountered a gay male who was entirely satisfied with his body; there was always more weight to be lost or more muscle to be gained, all in pursuit of an elusive goal that is both unrealistic in its depiction and unfulfilling in its attainment.

So what’s the alternative, inquiring minds may ask. How about not measuring our worth as gay men and women by how many pounds we lose or gain or who we take to our room at night, but by applying our intellects and emotions to truly go beyond the superficial and explore what really makes us happy—to consider what matters versus what does not. Having the faculties of mind and the privilege, especially here at Vassar, to be fully out and unafraid of what some homophobe might do to you with a baseball bat on the street corner, it is imperative for us to use this opportunity to go beyond just merely existing.

Sure, these issues of body image are found in the heterosexual world as well, though in different manifestations. However, we find ourselves at a crossroad, with a world increasingly open to acceptance of homosexuality pitted against an older generation of policymakers who seek to restrict our rights in any way they can. What will our response be? To fight for equal rights and recognition or a continued myopic preoccupation with body “improvement” that, in the end, is trivial and unfulfilling?