Teaching sexuality across time, space and political contexts

ABSTRACT

Reflecting on a previous article, I evaluate changes encountered around teaching sexuality over the past 22 years in different geo-political settings. This article examines the ways in which my teaching practices, as an academic committed to equality, have developed in relation to different academic and political contexts. This personal pathway through learning and teaching work linked to sexuality has been, and still is, embedded within social, and feminist geography modules based on a political focus on social justice and injustice. I worked in two UK universities during the time when the Civil Partnership Act 2004 was enacted but left the UK prior to the Equality Act of 2010 and the Marriage (same sex couples) Act of 2013. I now teach in Singapore where Penal Code 377A still exists. This British colonial code criminalizes sex between consenting adult men in private or in public. This paper discusses my commitment to integrate sexuality into the curriculum and analyses the ways in which styles of delivery, content and engagement between and with students has varied across what I define as two ‘eras of teaching geographies of sexuality/sexualities’.

KEYWORDS:

• Teaching
• sexualities
• justice
• equality
• pedagogic spatialities

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. Throughout this paper I use sexuality/sexualities as a combination to capture the non-fixity and changes in our academic writing about “sexuality”. While early work, including my own, tended towards the concept/identity/practice of “sexuality”, increasingly “sexualities” became more utilized to demonstrate the multiplicity of sexualities and hence contribute to the process of deconstructing hegemonic notions of a singular sexuality, usually interpreted as heteronormative heterosexuality. Where I use sexuality alone it should still be read as a collective but diverse term, similar to gender or ethnicity.

2. Johnson’s (1994, p. 110) article provides a brave and generous insight into her long personal struggle and agonizing about “coming out in print” and declaring her own sexuality and the potential risks in a homophobic academy.

3. In the 1990s the key sexual dissidents named were usually lesbians, gay men and bisexuals abbreviated to LGB; with the acronym LGBTQI, trans, queer and intersex have been added in subsequent decades to capture greater diversity.

4. I recognize that the term, “homosexual” is a highly problematic term to use with its origin as a clinical definition and now considered a derogatory and offensive term but it was in common usage in the 1990s and remains a widely used term (or its linguistic equivalent) in different parts of the world, including Singapore.

5. I note that my experiences of working and teaching in NTU and in an inter-disciplinary humanities faculty were generally very positive. I was in an extremely fortunate position during the 1990s and through to 2007 in the UK and did not have to endure the racist, sexist and homophobic treatment metered out by students, colleagues, managers etc. such as those Heidi Nast reported in 1999.

6. My very good friend and colleague, Gregory Woods, was the first Professor of Lesbian and Gay Studies appointed in the UK in 1998. This proved a controversial appointment for some including the then Conservative shadow home secretary, Ann Widdecombe denouncing his promotion as a “phenomenal waste of public money’. While we celebrated his elevation and apparent “infamy” it was a reminder of the homophobia and heterosexism of the Conservative party and wider society.

7. Note that the UK was relatively slow in passing these regulations as the European Union implemented the EU Equal Treatment Directive to cover discrimination as defined in the Amsterdam Treaty in 1999, that is four years earlier.

8. The Equality Act of 2010 is a substantive piece of legislation that brought together 116 separate pieces of legislation including nine significant pieces dating back to the 1970 Equal Pay Act. The creation of this hybrid but comprehensive Act meant the UK could boast of an Act “that provides a legal framework to protect the rights of individuals and advance equality of opportunity for all” through a simplification, strengthening and harmonizing of current legislation providing Britain with “a new discrimination law which protects individuals from unfair treatment and promotes a fair and more equal society.” (Equality and Human Rights Commission, undated 30 October 2017: np).

9. Films/movies with a happy ending for homosexual characters were generally banned by the Media Development Board or only allowed a few showings with a 21 age rating. A classic example of this decision-making in 2007 was when Brokeback Mountain (dir. Ang Lee, 2005), where a lead character is murdered, was shown in some mainstream cinemas but the Taiwanese gay romantic comedy, where no-one died, Formula 77, (dir. Chen Yin-jung, 2004), was banned.

10. In writing this paper I double checked the year of decriminalization of men having sex with men in the UK. However, what I had not realized previously, were the discrepancies across the UK. England and Wales decriminalized sex between two men over 21 years of age in private in 1967. However, Scotland only enacted the decriminalization in 1981 and Northern Ireland in 1982. The latter was “pushed” to do this when the European Council of Human Rights ruled that the continued criminalization of homosexuality was illegal in Northern Ireland in 1981.

11. It is important to note that my department has a light touch around curricula and academic freedom is fully supported by the department, our Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences and the University. This meant I could carve my own teaching path relatively independently (a key attraction for me to be in NUS) and I gathered support and advice from like-minded colleagues. My students seemed interested in learning and none of them have ever complained to me or my department about what I teach. However, without any trade union or any apparent grievance protocols then I did metaphorically hold my breath each year for the week of the “sexualities” lecture and tutorials until I secured tenure in 2013 as I had no idea of what might happen institutionally if there were complaints from students and/or their parents.