Gender studies forum explores sexuality

Through the years, social acceptance of homosexuality and homosexual culture has shifted. Although it has existed throughout history, homosexuality is largely a newly emerging debate across the world.

On Nov. 7, a gender studies forum titled "Making Sex Invisible," was held in LA 223 at 4 p.m. The event focused on the current and prior normality of hetero and homosexuality within America.

Led by Professor John Goshert, approximately 20 attendees discussed issues such as the "invisibility," respectability, acceptance and desexualization of homosexuality through related current issues, such as the controversy surrounding Senator Larry Craig.

"The desexualization of gay culture," stated Goshert, "has incredibly profound and catastrophic stakes for gay culture at large."

The forum focused its discussion around the article "Sex in Public" written by Lauren Berlant and Michael Warner. The article, published in Critical Inquiry in 1998, described itself as exploring "sex as it is mediated by publics." The article focuses on the structure of hetero and homosexuality in relation to one another.
"Queer sex plays an imp
ortant disruptive role within normative notions of the public sphere," explained Goshert, "because of the way it challenges implicitly intertwined notions of property and propriety."

Goshert has worked as a professor of English at UVSC since 2001. He received a BA and MA in English from Sonoma State University. Later, he earned his Ph.D. in English from Purdue with a focus in lesbian and gay literature and American cultural studies. He has published several articles.