Whenever controversial issues are addressed, angry voices are often the loudest amongst the crowd. Last week, we at The Buchtelite printed our first sex issue, the results of which are still resonating now. The responses were all over the place. Some people insisted that we had been too bold and essentially should not have gone where we did. Others were enthused by the topic and actually wanted to take it further. Whether positive or negative, the important fact of the matter is that people are talking about it.
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Whenever controversial issues are addressed, angry voices are often the loudest amongst the crowd. Last week, we at The Buchtelite printed our first sex issue, the results of which are still resonating now. The responses were all over the place. Some people insisted that we had been too bold and essentially should not have gone where we did. Others were enthused by the topic and actually wanted to take it further. Whether positive or negative, the important fact of the matter is that people are talking about it.
When producing a story, you want people to talk about it; that is one of the most important aspects of journalism. Of course, you don’t want people to bash your hard work, but both positive and negative criticism is welcome. That being said, I want to address several of the issues that have risen from our sex issue.
One issue was that we did not address the normal individuals on campus. These were presented as those people looking for marriage and who are not sexually adventurous. This group may be called conservatives, or religious; however, that is no fault to them. Everyone is allowed to choose his or her own path within this life and how to travel down that path. Some tread carefully, while others run at full-force. I have heard that some believe our paper only had articles that were of interest to those more liberal individuals. Of course, we must realize that not everything is going to appeal to everyone, and this instance is no different.
Another interesting point was how the word normal is thrown around without much interest in what it means. What does the word mean? I really have no idea. To the best of my knowledge, normal is purely a social construct and has no solid foundation. To say that only normal relationships are the ones that should be displayed is silly since normal doesn’t really exist. People can casually use words without fully understanding the implications of their usage.
One final thought is to assert that sex and gender do in fact coincide. These two concepts are linked together and ingrained in us from birth, or perhaps before. Accepting the fact that sex and gender impacts all is imperative. Those who deny that are simply representative of how deeply ingrained it is. It is everywhere, so we don’t see it. Furthermore, we are adults, and as such, we can no longer hide behind the naive idea that storks make babies and HIV/AIDS only goes after bad druggies.
Reality has many faces, many of which have unfortunately remained unexplored, either due to a lack of willing writers or available space. Our goal was simply to encourage you to think and respond, so please, keep your opinions coming.
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