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Don't exclude LGBT voice from conversations on sex

November 5, 2014

Let’s talk about sex.

It’s the underlying theme of today’s paper — trends in the sexual behavior of college students. Unfortunately, some of those students are consistently left out of the dialogue.

I’m a white, straight female who is only attracted to straight men. Despite a long persisting girl crush on Blake Lively — I used to be a pretty diehard Gossip Girl fan, okay? — I’m not really attracted to other women. Being heterosexual, my perspective is almost always included.

Some of my loved ones, however, can’t say the same.

Media outlets — college, local and national — report very consistently about heterosexual sex, dating and relationships. There are thousands of stories out there about safe sex, sex etiquette, sex advice and those trend stories I mentioned, like the emergence of Tinder and how that effects people’s modern sex lives.

But most of those articles are specifically talking about men and women. They hardly touch on the sexual experiences of gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender individuals.

Even the National College Health Assessment, a very useful tool for looking at the sexual of behavior of college students on a given campus, is skewed. The majority of MSU students may identify themselves as heterosexual, but to only survey 2 percent of gay or lesbian students and only 3 percent bisexual students? That doesn’t seem like it could possibly give an accurate analysis of the LGBT sexual experience.

I have several friends who identify as gay, all of whom don’t hesitate to tell me they notice their own trends and have their own stories worth telling. And they’re right.

Furthermore, if we don’t acknowledge the LGBT experience in our day-to-day conversation about sex, how are we ever going to talk about the bigger sexual issues at hand — like crises of gender identity, or sexual assault?

Men are far less likely to report being sexually assaulted by other men, for example, because they’re afraid people might think they’re homosexual. Considering we had a sexual assault involving two males near the Beaumont Tower in October, it’s safe to say this happens. It shouldn’t be taboo to talk about it, because if it is, how can we fix it?

Even for those who don’t identify as LGBT, this is still our problem. Not including this group of people in this very important conversation means essentially shaming an act we all partake in — sex — but only for those who aren’t heteronormative. And you’re ignoring people who could be your friends, your neighbors, your co-workers, or even someday: your kids, who might actually want to talk to their parents about the sexual experiences or relationships that are right for them.

To say straight people shouldn’t fight for LGBT inclusion is like saying white people shouldn’t advocate for people of color. And while I’m on the subject, frankly, interracial sex and relationships don’t get a whole lot of attention either.

We all need to stop thinking of sex only in the confines of white men sleeping with white women. And no, binge watching “Orange is the New Black” doesn’t count.

Let’s keep talking about sex. But let’s include everyone in the conversation.

Celeste Bott is the editor-in-chief of The State News.

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