These past two weekends, I worked at the College of Communication Open Houses for the prospective freshmen. During these events, we hosted a lunch at Warren Towers for all the students. We leaders were supposed to scatter about and mingle with the kids. I was at a table with three boys and the conversation was going well. Up until the point when the boy next to me, with utmost concern, turned to me and asked, “What happens if you get a gay roommate and you’re straight?” Here, let me give you my roommate’s number. Ask him.
I wasn’t so much mad at the kid for asking me but mad at the fact that a question like that would even be asked. In job training for summer staff just a week prior, we were practicing answering uncomfortable questions that we probably would never have to answer. This was one of them. The others and I laughed it off as a joke. Who would ever ask such a dumb and naïve question? Who would actually be concerned about a gay roommate? Do you think they’ll attack you, or stare at you, or like you, or, god forbid, rub their gayness off on you? A joke, right? Well, apparently not. We do indeed live in a society where there is still that stigma and fear about the gay population.
I answered the question with poise and collectivity but it didn’t erase the fact that it got me upset. I was fuming afterward when I actually had the chance to react the way in which I felt during the situation. I didn’t want to scare the kid or yell at him. Really, it wasn’t his fault. He just doesn’t get it. Gay isn’t something to be viewed as this dirty thing or this foreign thing or a joke. Questions like that and jokes and light comments do hurt, whether the culprit thinks so or not.
In that same light, Facebook statuses and comments hit hard as well. Too many guys out there joke on their pages about how “gay” someone is or how “gay” you look in a picture or how “gay” someone’s status is. As well, when people get “wall-raped” (when someone leaves their page up, and someone else changes their status as a joke), it’s often derogatory towards LGBT people. “I love penis. It’s so yummy,” “I love taking it up the ass,” “I’m a lesbian now, get at me ladies,” just to name a few I have seen over the past few weeks. The comments on those statuses, too, particularly “fag,” are concerning.
Why, as a society, do we perceive this sort of behavior as okay, innocent fun and non-hurtful? Some may call me overly sensitive, but I think not. For so long, being gay has been taboo. As the LGBT community is becoming more accepted, we need to look at our behavior and realize what is stepping over the line.
Educate yourself on the gay community. Realize that we are the same, we have the same feelings. Stop joking about us. And we don’t fantasize about every man in the same way straight men don’t about every girl. Don’t worry, your roommate is not checking you out.
Jake Haungs is a sophomore in the College of Communication and a weekly columnist for The Daily Free Press. He can be reached at jmhaungs@bu.edu.
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