Drag King Show: Explicit Sexual Scene Causes Controversy

To the Editors:

Fervently ready and avidly excited for my first ever drag experience, my friend and I made our way to The Cat Wednesday, November 20, for “Packing Heat”, a drag king show. The audience’s enthusiasm was promising and I was anticipating a fun, entertaining show. I was impressed by the talent in the music video, which was outstanding, and definitely the rise and climax of the show. Other acts were disappointing.
What I found most unappealing was the act with the priest and the altar boy. Two drag kings lip-sunk to George Michael’s “Father Figure”, while acting out an attraction and eventually a sexual experience between a priest and an altar boy. I found this disgusting, inappropriate, and offensive.
The act was questionable from the beginning. The priest sings sensually, yearningly, while the altar boy finds porn in the priest’s book. The boy realizes the priest is attracted to him and the boy ignores lust and holds up a sign stating, “It is an abomination.” He drops his sign and proceeds to go under the priest’s robe and give him a blow job. They rip off their robes and expose their tight, leather clothing and sexual passion. After imitating desire, lust, passion, oral sex, and anal sex, the act was over. My problem was the portrayal of the Catholic religion. I do not appreciate the implication that the Catholics trap priests and nuns into a life of sex deprivation. Celibacy is a personal choice, not a forced way of life. Priests are not supposed to act on sexual desires towards men or women.
It’s not about it being an abomination to be homosexual, it’s about it being against their vow to have any type of sex.
Granted,homosexuality, according to Leviticus, is an abomination. Because the list in Leviticus contains other outrageous ideas of sin (i.e. wearing clothes of mixed cloth), many Christians (including Catholics) are moving away from the abomination suggestion. The generalization that all Christians are anti-gay is unfair. There are many faiths that welcome LGBTQ people and do not believe we are sinning in any way. By suggesting that this priest and altar boy rip off their clothes, have sex on the spot, and run from their religion, we further widen the gap between Queer Culture and the rest of the world. In order to be equal and accepted, we need to be closing that gap. Rather than suggesting that we overcome religion, we should search for common ground. I do not want to imply that everyone should become a Christian, but if we want to be equal to them, we have to think of them as equal to us.
As a Christian lesbian, I am ashamed that a group of people claiming to be so open-minded quickly shut out concepts of good in religion. I always hear about how liberal of a college Oberlin is. I think “liberal” is too flattering. We at Oberlin like to be leftwing. Only a left-wing school would support an environment where certain religions and political affiliations are criticized, and shunned, forcing terms such as “closet-Christian, and closet-Catholic”. “Queer Culture” events, like this drag show, only pull backwards at the LGBTQ rights movement. The priest act was a portrayal of random gay pornography, and not beautiful gay love. I realize that perhaps it wasn’t their intention to offend a religion, but it’s not what’s intended, it’s how it comes across. I hope the LGBTQ community can come together and come to terms with our own prejudices and stereotypes. Then, maybe, we can join together to fight for a cause and not with each other.

–Megan Highfill
College first-year