About the Millennials Earlier this year, Yale College surveyed its freshman class about their private lives, including their sexual orientation, and the results are in. The media sound bites enthused that over twenty percent of the student body identified as lgbtq. The actual number was 23 percent, which is indeed a startling figure in 
historical terms, but to say that they identified as lgbtq isn’t quite accurate. A better way to express our astonishment would be to report that only 76 percent identified as “Straight,” which certainly allows more wiggle room for alternative sexualities than studies of the past. And it turns out this 23 percent is a heterogeneous lot, as it were, separating into several blocs of similar size corresponding to the four options that were provided, which seem to cover a wide latitute (though without a “gender” slot). So here’s the breakdown: good old “Gay/Lesbian” held fast at five percent, while the largest group was “Bi/Pansexual” at nine percent. Fully six percent were “Questioning,” with three percent “Asexual/Ace” (it’s the lingo). The fact that we’re talking about nineteen-year-olds undoubtedly accounts for some of the equivocation—fully fifteen percent were questioning or bi/pansexual—and things may sort themselves out over time. (Can one still be “pansexual” in late middle age?) But it also points to a zeitgeist of today’s youth culture beyond a willingness to experiment: a refusal to be labeled or pigeonholed; a sense of solidarity with outsiders of all kinds; perhaps even a dissatisfaction with the status quo, who knows?
Free at Last In September, some 1.2 billion people were liberated from a notorious anti-gay law, but amid the circus in Washington the media scarcely blipped when India’s Supreme Court overturned Section 377 once and for all. The ruling ended over 150 years of oppression under an anti-gay law inherited from the British Raj that criminalized same-sex relations with stiff fines and prison. There’s no clever twist to this story, save the ultimate irony that 377 was a remnant of Victorian England that survived into the 21st century, even though the UK overturned this law decades ago. Adding salt to the irony is the fact that the India conquered by Britain in the 19th century was an eclectically tolerant subcontinent in matters of sex and gender, with deities who could switch gender and switch-hit sexually. It’s all part of a colonial pattern that historian Frédéric Martel has noted in his travels around the world. Countries colonized by Europe often claim that homosexuality is a “Western import.” In fact, what the West exported to its colonies was not homosexuality but homophobia.
Bert ♥Ernie Was there ever any doubt about the nature of Bert and Ernie’s relationship on Sesame Street? If so, it was pretty well dispelled when a former writer for the show, Mark Saltzman, disclosed that the two are “a loving couple” based upon Saltzman’s own relationship with his partner Arnold Glassman. The Blogosphere went wild 
with the news, with bitter disappointment outweighed by a giant “Well, duh.” Remarkably, PBS issued its standard denial, insisting that B&E are “best friends” and that “puppets don’t have a sexual orientation.” Okay, so tell that to Miss Piggy and Kermit the Frog, that inter-species (indeed inter-class) item! More jokes would follow. Quipped Adam Burke on Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me: “So they don’t have a sexual orientation? Yeah, but they’ve got an apartment and jobs and a sponsorship deal with the alphabet.” On the other hand, remarked Faith Salie, if they were lovers, “Ernie would totally have helped Bert out with his eyebrows.” The simple fact is that Bert and Ernie never fit into any existing model of friendship, American style. Since when do “best friends” share a bedroom (albeit with twin beds) and hang out together at bath time? It’s not that PBS needs to get any more explicit about B&E’s gayness on the show, but the denials are starting to wear thin.
Don’t Ask! An entire terminal (D) at Berlin International Airport was shut down for hours one day in August after some devices were spotted and deemed to be “suspicious content in a luggage piece.” Passengers were evacuated, flights grounded, and a bomb squad was called in. The owner of the luggage was summoned over the PA system and duly reported to the authorities. Even then, matters were not cleared up immediately, as the embarrassed passenger would say only that his luggage contained “technical stuff.” In the end he fessed up: the items in question were in fact sex toys. The authorities were reassured, passengers were allowed back inside, and flights resumed. So, that explains the embarrassment. What’s harder to explain is why it took so long for the inspectors to be convinced that these were not grenades or the like. Presumably these guys have seen it all when it comes to recreational toys, so the question becomes: what was this dude into, anyway?
Birth of a Meme One e-zine headline wisecracked: “‘Ex-gay’ camps tell kids they ‘have a god-shaped hole.’” Others would follow suit, and the “God-shaped hole” was born. It all started when Stephen Colbert interviewed actor Troye Sivan about a new movie he’s starring in about “ex-gay” conversion therapy called Boy Erased. In preparing for the part, Troye explained, he read the “ex-gay” literature and talked to some survivors of the program, who reported that at the camps you’re told: “No, this is not you, you weren’t born like this. This is a God-shaped hole you are trying to fill with these homosexual tendencies.” Taking this image at its most literal meaning, it suggests a deity that would have to assume a very particular shape to do its job. It’s one of those images that you just can’t get out of your head; hence the meme.
