#FITN query: 'Do you dislike bootysex because the peeny goes in where the poopy comes out?'
Sunday night, a group of Dartmouth College students were really rude to Texas Gov. Rick Perry.
“In 2002, you supported Texas’s anti-sodomy laws. Do you dislike bootysex because the peeny goes in where the poopy comes out?” asked sophomore Ben Packer.
It was just one of the questions Packer wrote and distributed before Perry’s visit. “Governor Perry likely has practice dodging high-brow political questions…” explained Packer. “The strategy to undermine him should therefore incorporate a little trolling or subversion.”
Emily Sellers, a reporter with The Dartmouth, asked Perry, “In your campaigns you have received hard-money campaign contributions of $102 million, half of which came from 204 donors. Would you have anal sex for $102 million?”
In a Dartmouth op-ed, Sellers explained her reasoning behind the provocative confrontation. “In my view,” she wrote, “it would have been a disgrace to an institution of higher learning to engage only in superficial discussion that helps mask offensive and oppressive views behind decorum:”
The confines of ‘civil discourse’ are defined by those in power to keep them in power. The reason this action was uncomfortable is also why it was necessary: it occurred outside the limits of what Perry and others who benefit from the dominant discourse deem appropriate. But it is important to challenge the boundaries of propriety. When confronting those in power who actively disrespect the rights and humanity of others, any demand to civility is ironic. The questions were offensive because they confronted his actual policies. Why is our tone — as politically powerless undergrads — more offensive and shocking than his enacted homophobia as a man with incredible amounts of money and power? Respect in this context is not a paramount or meaningful concept. I’m not advocating disrespect per se — rather, that incivility can be an effective and appropriate tool for such circumstances. My questions were disrespectful, but I reject the notion that I should respect a man who holds power simply because he holds it. It should matter what he does with that power, and what he does is oppress people he finds icky.