Boris Johnson admitted this week to having experimented with drugs in his younger days, snorting cocaine and smoking marijuana, which he says "was jolly nice."
Oxfordshire MP's have been quick to criticize Johnson. Lib Dem Evan Harris called Johnson a hypocrite given his party's tough stance on drug related crime.
"Tory policy, trying to appear tough on drug-taking, does not permit a defence of youthful indiscretion so Boris Johnson really has to explain why he is not seeking to prosecute himself to the full extent of the law that he wishes to impose on everyone else," he said.
Harris said he himself had never taken drugs. Others were less forthcoming–David Cameron and Andrew Smith (Oxford East's Labour MP) both declined to comment.
Johnson's party, meanwhile, seemed unconcerned.  Ann Ducker, president of South Oxfordshire Conservative Association said: "It was all a long time ago and he is very much against drugs now. We will certainly not be asking for his resignation or anything like that."

This time last year I was smack bang in the middle of finals. Amid the hyperventilating over quotation learning and the shopping for carnations, I had another occupation to fill my hours in between exams: job hunting. When I came to the end of my exams, I would also be reaching the limits of my life-plan. No divine inspiration had steered me towards one employment sector or the other, and consequently I was still perusing the Oxford University Careers Service website daily, hoping to find the answer.

But lo, on one weekend in May, I spotted one occupation that looked more interesting and frankly less work-like than the rest. “Au Pair in Paris for One Year”. My mind whirled with images of picnics on the Seine, romantic walks by the Eiffel Tower and a job full of fun and laughter: I would be as competent as Mary Poppins, as creative as a Blue Peter presenter. Finally a job that didn’t involve a desk or a management strategy! It would be like an extension of university, just without all the essays. I’d always liked children, so I was sure that my lack of concrete experience would not be a problem, so I applied, and after a couple of weeks of communication by email and a quick daytrip to Paris to meet the family, I got the position.

            Of course, the reality was more than just a little different to the daydream. My hopes of delaying my encounter with the ‘real world’ of work were swiftly disappointed. Granted, I did get to go to French school for 8 hours a week, and thus play at still being a student, but the rest of the time when I was working, I was suddenly skyrocketed into the elevated position of a ‘grown up’: a far more demanding place to be than behind a desk. For the first time ever I truly understood the illusion that is adulthood, the superficiality of the omniscience brought by Age and Experience. With four little pairs of eyes looking up to me, expecting me to be able to help them with just about everything, I realised how little I really knew. I had been placed, unexpectedly, into a position of extreme responsibility.

            There were the simple everyday challenges: getting three children and a pushchair to cross the road without anyone getting flattened, getting a three year old dressed fed and delivered to school on time. I only just learnt how to do that for myself recently. The other thing I had to accept was that grown ups often have to do things that they really don’t want to, because if they don’t, no one else will. I’ve had to put my hand down blocked drains, wipe up spilt wee and even managed to change the vomit-smeared sheets and pyjamas of a child without waking them up. Other responsibilities are more complicated: explaining to a child why someone is begging on the metro, why there is a bird ‘lying-down’ in the road. The kids I work with really do believe and take in everything you say, and it can be difficult explaining the world to them sometimes.

            The lifestyle and skills needed to be an au pair could hardly be more different from those needed for university, although being woken by the patter of tiny feet skidding round the house at 7am on a Saturday morning isn’t all that different to being woken at 3 am by kebab-laden Park-Enders, singing their way home. My abilities of close reading and essay writing have not been used. Instead I have been called upon to develop a new range of skills: how to iron without ruining clothes, how to distract a child from a tantrum and how to change a nappy without gagging. The closest to literary criticism I got was doing the voices while I read the kids bedtime stories.

            For the equivalent of my first term, I loved it. Apart from having to pretend to be an adult for a large portion of the day, I adored the freedom. I had no deadlines, no pressures. Everything was new. Even going shopping for food was fun, because the shelves were full with unfamiliar boxes and products. When I was off duty I relived the recklessness of Freshers’ week, trying to survive on five and a half hours of sleep a night, drinking wine with friends into the early hours of the morning, attempting to sleep off a hangover on the Champs des Mars in the September sunshine.

            But then I came home for Christmas. Suddenly I was surrounded by close friends and family and marmite, and I realised how superficial my Parisian paradise was. I missed the British banter, not being an outsider, being able to use all my favourite English words and phrases (the senses of which were inevitable lost on my international friends). I revelled in being the looked-after, rather than the look-afterer, and the debt of gratitude I owed to my parents for twenty-two years of care became acutely apparent.

            My return to Paris was difficult. With the magic of the city fogged by homesickness, the weight of looking after someone else’s children seemed much heavier. The novelty of the school run had long since disappeared. Now however, several months later and only weeks from my ultimate departure from Paris, I am glad to say that the decision I made this time last year was not a foolish one; the time here has not been wasted. Apart from dramatically improving my French (and my ironing) I’ve learnt more about children and adulthood than I thought possible. And even though my ability to navigate JSTOR and to whip off an essay have been lying dormant for twelve months, the knack of blagging your way through a tutorial when you haven’t read the books isn’t so different to convincing a five year old that you know how to work a washing machine.

As the City Council convenes its climate change conference this week, it will also launch a campaign to rid Oxford stores of environmentally unfriendly plastic bags.
Technically, the Council cannot get rid of plastic bags by decree. Environmentalist leader Craig Simmons said: "You can't legally force retailers not to stock plastic bags, it would probably require national legislation."
Council leader John Goddard, who has organised both the conference and the bag campaign said success will instead depend on individual consumers insisting that supermarkets change their practices.
"I refuse plastic bags if I am offered one and I want as many shoppers in the city as possible to follow suit," Goddard said.
 "Oxford is well tuned in to the Green agenda," he added.

Cherwell 24 Editor: online[at]cherwell.org
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OSPL Chairman: chairman[at]ospl.org
OSPL Managing Director: md[at]ospl.org
OSPL Company Secretary: secretary[at]ospl.org
Jobs and applications: jobs[at]ospl.org
 

Saturday night was an important landmark in Cherwell 24's history as, a decade after its original launch, a shiny, new, redesigned version of the site went live. Those of you who were at the relaunch at the Jam Factory would have witnessed ex-editors Elle Perry and Ali Gibson pressing the button to launch the site and giving Oxford its first glimpse of the current Cherwell 24.
The site has come a long way in the last 10 years with the introduction of online-only content, podcasts and comment faciilites, and now Cherwell 24 has even more to offer. As well as a fantastic new look, there are broadcasts, vox pops, blogs, more accesible comment functions, weather and lots lots more. I can only encourage you to take some time to explore the site and see for yourself not only how much it has evolved from what it once was, but also what an excellent procrastination tool it has now become!
I must take this opportunity to say a massive thank you to everybody who has helped with the relaunch, particularly Larry Hardcastle, Larry Smith, Fiona Wilson, Cat Rutter, Chris Stainton, the directors of OSPL and everyone else who has made this possible.
Enjoy the site and remember to have your say by commenting and rating the articles,
Emma x

6000 women turned out this weekend to raise money for Cancer Research UK in the annual Race for Life.2000 runners on Saturday afternoon, 3000 on Sunday morning and an additional 1000 on Sunday afternoon ran in the 5k races through University Parks. Many were running in support or in honor of family members and friends who have faced or continue to struggle with cancer.The Oxford races were accompanied by 15 similar races across the country, but a representative of Cancer Research says Oxford is one of the most successful venues. This year the Oxford races raised £641,000, most of which will fund work locally at the Churchill and John Radcliffe hospitals.The winning runner, 21-year old Londoner Rachel Trevillon, completed the race in 19 minutes.

An Oxford University study has shown that taking a 300 mg dose of aspirin daily overa  period of five years can lower the incidence of bowel cancer by more than a third. The cancer generally affects the large intestine in the lower end of the gastro-intestinal tract, in the form of malignant tumours. Researchers in the Lancet have also warned, however, that continuous use could lead to side effects such as stomach bleeding and should not be recommended to the public as a preventative medication. 

After an exhilirating Summer Eights week, Magdalen’s men and Teddy Hall’s girls retain their respective positions at the head of the river. However, both boats were made to sweat in order to keep pole position, pushed
to the limit by faster crews bearing down behind them. In the men’s first division Pembroke came desperately close to breaking Magdalen’s four year grip on the headship, testing them on all four days of the
competition. The battle between the two crews was at its most intense on Friday: Pembroke came to within just a quarter of a length of their rivals as the boats emerged from the Gut.

But despite Madgalen’s men’s captain Louis Rooney admitting that Pembroke were, “undoubtedly quicker than us”, the men in pink seemed unable to find that extra burst of energy they needed to overhaul their rivals. The same drama was played out in the women’s top flight, where Teddy Hall barely fought off the advances of the rampant Christ Church boat just behind them.
Her team bolstered by the presence of Dutch international rower Jenny van Dobben de Bruijn, Christ Church captain Sarah Tiller was justified in claiming that her crew were “faster right through the week” than their rivals. But despite this advantage, those extra seconds of acceleration which might have made up the ground on Hall proved elusive.

There was no change in the order of the top three boats in either competition, and the ability of the crews to hold on to their positions testified to the quality of the rowing on show last week. But elsewhere, the action was frenetic, spectacular gains and losses precipitated by fierce competition lower down the first divisions. Oriel’s male crew partially made up for the humiliation of spoons last year. Starting strongly in the early stages of each race, they made immediate inroads into the division, overhauling St Catz on the first day of eights before
securing a bump on Christ Church on Friday. Running Balliol close on the last day of racing, they did not have quite enough speed to win another bump, but will surely be delighted to have restored college pride with a respectable fourth place finish.

Lower down, the make up of the women’s first division changed dramatically. Somerville, Wadham and Osler Green all exchanged places over the course of the week, underlining the intense competition which characterised their dog-fight in the middle of the table.

Worcester were the big winners in the men’s competition, powering their way up into the top division with bumps on the first three days of competition. With impressive technique throughout, the crew compensated for a lack of big name rowers in the boat. Indeed, Worcester were simply too quick for their rivals Trinity and Wadham in Division II as they made the move up into the top flight at the second attempt on Friday.

Balliol proved to be the surprise package of the women’s division with bumps on Catz, Magdalen and New College allowing them to leap up the top flight. Not satisfied with simply winning their blades, they moved up an astounding seven places in four days, courtesy of a spectacular overbump on St Hilda’s on Thursday. Again it was good performance in the starts which brought Balliol’s success.

Power through the water in the early stages allowed them to overhaul most of the crews ahead of them long before reaching the final stages. The week proved to be a disastrous one for New College Boat Club as both their men’s and women’s first eights felt the force of bumps from other crews. Successively caught by Keble, Teddy Hall, Hertford and Worcester they suffered the ignominy of relegation to the second division, only narrowly avoiding spoons by escaping Wadham’s challenge on the last day. The women, however, were not so lucky: bumps on every day of racing sent them crashing down the first division into 9th place. Their captain, Kelly Smith, acknowledged that they “simply lacked the sheer size and strength” necessary to compete at the highest level.

It is with some trepidation that I dial the phone number of Brian Sewell, Britain’s most outspoken and controversial art critic. This is a man that has called the Tate Modern “the ugliest museum in Christendom”, Barbara Hepworth “a one-trick pony” and Rachael Whitbread’s work “a pile of rubbish”. He is not one
to mince his words.

We don’t get off to a brilliant start. I tell him that I’m studying Art History at Oxford. “Is that wise?” is the smooth, considered and oh so ironic response that comes from the other end of the phone line. He later elaborates. “I am sick and tired of students who send me their so-called theses to read, because they think I might enjoy them. I don’t”.

But Sewell is not really a philistine. He is fascinated by art. He was encouraged to take an interest from an early age by his mother. She was a painter and took him on trips to the National Gallery. She used to challenge him to run round and find certain types of paintings, such as Spanish or Italian ones. Later, he decided to go to the Courtauld Institute to study Art History. After graduating, he became a specialist in Old Master paintings and drawings at Christie’s auction house. Touchingly, he found that he couldn’t bear to sell the paintings to undeserving clients and so he left the job and tried his hand at writing. Ever since getting his job in 1984 as art critic for the Evening Standard he has never looked back.

His art criticism has many attractions. Firstly, it is always full of evocative description. Rather like Diderot, he brings the works that he describes to life. Take his description of Potiphar’s wife in Orazio Gentileschi’s Joseph in Buckingham Palace: “Gentileschi’s narrative is revealed inch by inch, the sense of buttocks under the blue cloth, a naked back, another naked knee, all continuing the diagonal thrust that began with the toes in the corner, and then a naked shoulder and under an outstretched arm the sight of big high breasts and one proud nipple.”
The same sensuous language is applied in the food criticism that he does occasionally. An oyster dish becomes a platform for drama: “Ruined in a mess of passion fruit and lavender, quail jelly with a parfait of foie gras, and then a bed of moss under another rising Macbeth mist as the setting for a shred of truffle on half a skinny soldier of toast.”
Then there’s the force of personality behind the work. Sewell absolutely loves to be witty. Recently the Standard got him to go and review Heston Blumenthal’s fashionable Fat Duck restaurant in Berkshire. He delighted in labelling the vanilla mayonnaise and green tea mousse a Baroque attempt at the “five senses of the Renaissance”, and also in calling the restaurant’s wildly pretentious owner an insane ‘Mr Fiddle-Faddle’. He also comes up with excellent one-liners. He tells me how he doesn’t go round the art colleges anymore because the chance of discovering someone good is too remote: “There’s no point in inflicting punishment on oneself. And I’m not a masochist”.
Sewell also has a rather naughty sense of humour. Take the focus of his recent television program on channel Five. In it he examines ‘the dark underbelly’ of the supposedly educational tours taken by the English aristocracy in the 18th century. He sheds new light, for example, on James Boswell, a nobleman who made voluminous notes on the tour. He tells the story of how Boswell “suffered spontaneous ejaculation in his trousers, after playing kneesy with a young woman at the opera.” The paintings of the martyrdom of John that feature the saint
with an erection were also a subject on which he wanted to touch. Five didn’t allow it. Such a shame, he explained, “you have only to say the word “wank” on TV and an audience of 300 will roll with laughter”. The references to wanking and ejaculation sound particularly funny when coming from someone so posh. He typically wears an unbuttoned shirt and a smart navy suit jacket with a handkerchief visible in his breast pocket for his television appearances. His silvery grey hair is always carefully combed to one side andhis bi-focals sit half-way down the nose. He looks like a slightly tatty aristocrat. The voice also adds to the image. A normal “so there” is a drawn out “seeuw theeeur”. According to Paul Merton, Sewell is so posh that he makes even the Queen look rough.

His fruity, high-brow tones are so renowned that they have become popular to impersonate. He is imitated by Jon Culshaw on the Dead Ringers comedy show. A track on the 1991 comedy CD Tested on Humans for Irritancy has satirical journalist Victor Lewis-Smith telephoning Sewell and, in Sewell’s voice, asking the critic to appear on a spoof arts program. Naturally, he was not amused by this. And most people seem even to find his anti-populist sentiments quite entertaining. He once offended some people in Gateshead by claiming that an
exhibition was too important to be held only at the Baltic and should be shown to “more sophisticated” audiences in London.

It is not just the wit and prose style, then, that gives Sewell the edge, but also this rather delightful sense of snobbish superiority. This is a man that says: I know what I’m talking about and don’t you dare disagree.
This is no more obvious than when he airs his opinions on contemporary art. Sewell thinks that most of it is rubbish. “The so called ‘great artists’ of today”, he explains with conviction, “only have one great idea, with luck two, but certainly not more. Their ideas can be understood in a split second. In the blink of an eye you know everything about the bloody thing”. We move down a list of ‘bad artists’. First is Anthony Gormley, Turner prize winner, maker of the Angel of the North and currently exhibiting at the Hayward Gallery, with his “Blind Light” exhibition. The verdict: “He just rehashes the same old thing. Gormley does what Gormley does… ”. Then there’s Anya Gallaccio, a Turner nominee who makes works out of organic materials: “A lunatic, who’s just
interested in rotting vegetables”. And of course Damien Hirst, best known for The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living, the shark in formaldehyde: “A showman with admittedly some kind of wayward intelligence but no knowledge.”

Shocking as these accusations are, they don’t actually mean very much. So I ask him to elaborate. He reiterates that the problem is mainly one of intelligence. According to Sewell, most contemporary artists “don’t realise how dim-witted and shallow they actually are”. And apparently their teachers also suffer from the same problem. A case of the blind leading the blind: “One idiot concept, followed by another idiot concept. Monkey see, monkey do”.
I ask him whether he thinks that, despite this, contemporary art can engage with its public. I’m thinking of Langlands and Bell’s The House of Osama Bin Laden, which tries to tap into contemporary political opinion. No, he tells me, “It has no dialogue with the world around it”. But doesn’t the popularity of contemporary art bear testimony to a dialogue between art and audience? Millions tune in it see the results of the Turner every year and Tracy Emin’s My Bed has become a household name, I point out. But I’ve pushed him too far. “It might be
popular, but so are fish and chips. Would you recommend that everyone should go and look at that?”

The impression that I get with Sewell is that he is a man of the old school; an Ernst Gombrich if you like, who values the art historical trajectory. This is why he likes the Chapman brothers, whom he credits with “real vigour and intelligence”. They reference Goya all the time in their work and other artists, like Hieronymus Bosch, William Blake and Nicolas Poussin. Sewell also likes them because he thinks that they technically are very strong. “They try their hand at a lot of things. They try etching, and produce some very good etchings”.

Technical ability is something he values highly. He recalls, with particular disgust, a situation he encountered at one of the top art colleges a few years ago where he came across a student who wanted to achieve the same kind of effect as Leonardo. The student asked around the teachers and apparently no one could help. “They didn’t even have the slightest inkling. When you have got to this stage”, he says with desperation, “you have got no hope”.

Sewell’s argument against contemporary art extends right into the art world. He’s really thought the whole ‘problem’ through. Firstly, he blames the art colleges. Not only are their teachers unable to teach, (according to Sewell the Head of the Royal Academy could not paint a Christmas card), but they take on too many students, many of whom “they know in their bones are no good”.
Secondly, he blames the art market. He thinks that the creativity of successful contemporary artists is stifled by the amount of money floating around, and so is the critical ability of the dealers who are afraid to rock the market for fear of loosing out. Thirdly, he blames the fact that the contemporary art world is run by a very small clique of people. He cites the case of his predecessor, Richard Cork. He has served as Chair of the Visual Arts Panel at the Arts Council of England, sat on committees such as those in the Hayward Gallery and the British Council, and been on the panel of judges for the Turner Prize. Consequentially the taste of Cork and a few others rule: ‘Nowadays, if you want a piece of public sculpture anywhere in the provinces it has to be a
Gormley or Kapoor. No one else gets a look in”.

Sewell tells me proudly that he sits firmly outside the art establishment. Lots of critics, he points out, judge the prizes, teach the artists and have a say in the allocation of public funding. He, however, “is not a joiner”. But does this really add legitimacy to his criticism? It seems that regardless of the number of committees that men like Richard Cork might serve on, Sewell’s problem with them is that he simply doesn’t like their taste. He has no problem with Poussin and the seventeenth-century French classicists, even though their work came out
of small courtly patronage networks.

Sewell, of course, is never going to change is mind. In terms of his own popularity, there is really no reason why he should. There are a huge number of people who agree that contemporary art is rubbish, and many more who are at the very least rather puzzled by it. His arguments are always quoted in the Turner debate. This year he added a twist to his stance by choosing to ignore it completely; even this was noted.

What is rather admirable though about the latter decision is that it shows how much Sewell cares. He is simply so annoyed by the Turner that he does not want to profit from the annual hype by making angry comments. He is a man of much conviction.

He’s also praying that one day they’ll have an effect. Strikingly, he touches on this when he’s describing the prospects for Damien Hirst’s career. “Someone will say in 20 or 30 years time that Hirst is a load of rubbish. The prices will begin to drop and no one will want one”. Will he be the one to bring everything crashing down? Unfortunately not, the clock is ticking. “I shall be dead”, he says matter-of-factly “but somebody like me will begin to convince the art market that these supposedly great figures are no good”.

Picture this. You’re out with the lads on a typical night out at Park End. A beautiful girl (give or take a few pints) is looking your way and you’re reciprocating. She struts over and makes it very clear that she’s very interested. That same stunning girl who walked into the club, getting stared at by every guy there is now grinding against you and states explicitly that she wants you tonight. You should be ecstatic! You’ve pulled the hottest girl
there, gaining you instant kudos among your mates. However, as she’s grinding harder you realise that she has noticed you aren’t quite as turned on as she  apparently is. She tries to ‘help you out’ but still the blood isn’t flowing. So you make your excuses and leave; heart pounding, head dropped in shame and the same
daunting questions going round and round your head.
I used to think I was the only confused guy, but I’ve come to realise that I’m actually one of many. People in Oxford think too much and expect too much. There is constant pressure from tutors, friends, team mates and even family who are never satisfied with how far you’ve come. If you haven’t come out as gay or bisexual before university, it seems you have missed the boat. Anywhere other than Oxford, people can go out, get drunk, wake up the next morning with their best mate naked in their bed and just laugh it off. After all, university is meant to be the time to experiment and enjoy yourself, to discover who exactly you are. Two guys could have a short fling, secret or not, and if they like it, could continue batting for the other team. And if they don’t, they could just be happy that they did experiment, knowing their friends won’t have changed their opinions of them.

In Oxford, shagging your best mate at the end of a drunken evening just cannot happen. The atmosphere here isn’t conducive to experimentation. The Oxford bubble feeds off the newest and dirtiest pieces of gossip. So for me – someone who enjoys sport and being one of the lads – being exposed as bisexual or gay would undermine the social life I’ve built up. Not only would the ridicule in scrums be unbearable, but the elitism that pervades Oxford would become even more pronounced.

It’s not just the team mates, it’s everyone. I was friends with a guy in first year who came out towards the start of this year. My friends in college were merciless, directing their ‘banter’ directly at him. This is clearly completely
wrong. But the underlying fear of losing my friends or being excluded as he has been means that I haven’t felt comfortable coming out. He has been ostracised  by the straight/cool college circle. But why? He hasn’t changed as a person. He doesn’t act any differently now. The stereotypes still hold true and that’s why I will leave Oxford undoubtedly feeling regret and uncertainty, probably more confused than I was when I arrived.

The image of success and achievement that you manage to pull off is central to how popular you are in Oxford. Maintaining this image is hard enough, let alone if you happen to gay or bisexual and therefore permanently paranoid and insecure. I may be straight, bi or a “straight-acting” gay, but I do not want to be labelled until I have worked it out in my head first. But I know that if I just kissed a guy, my peer group’s perceptions of me would be fundamentally altered. So I keep quiet, feel like I’m keeping some deep dark secret from my friends and remain horribly confused.

I understand why my friends would react this way. They’ve been brought up to believe that gay men are unnatural. To deviate from the norm is something incomprehensible to them. I am happy that I’ve formed the friendships I have. Perhaps they’re stronger as I’ve not been distracted by relationships. My peers
aren’t bad people, just ignorant. Unfortunately, whilst I realise the sporty lad stereotype doesn’t fit them entirely, I have no doubt that they would struggle to separate the gay stereotype from me.

Whilst I understand the difficulties the gay guys face in Oxford, I myself am afraid of being identified as part of that culture. I have come to accept the stereotype that gay men are promiscuous or camp myself even though I realisethat this is not always the case. For me, it’s just easier to not come out. I don’t have to incessantly prove myself to the lads that I am actually good at sport and that shopping isn’t that big a fixation of mine. If I knew for sure that I was gay or bisexual, I would be more inclined to come out and enjoy being me. I don’t know what I am and for that reason I haven’t explored my sexuality.

I will leave Oxford unsure, regretting never having experienced an emotionally honest relationship. In my mind it was a sacrifice which had to be made in order to maintain the façade and friendship groups which I had established. I’ll go along with the cliche and say that my time at univesity was the best time of my
life. But I will always regret not being able to be truly happy. 

OUT AND ABOUT Harry Cooper
Once, whilst attempting to get through a sixth pint of lager (not a cocktail with one of those umbrellas languishing in it), I was pounced upon by a rather brash girl. “Oh my god, are you actually gay?” she asked. “Erm, yes,” I replied.“That is SO cool, we MUST go shopping,” she squealed enthusiastically. Aside from feeling rather bewildered at being accosted in such an aggressive manner bya complete stranger, it got me thinking about what exactly I’m meant to be, as a gay individual.

When asked to write this article, I was initially hesitant. I loathe to be labelled as a ‘gay’, in the same way, no doubt, that a girl who happened to be lucky enough (or not) to be born blonde would feel annoyed at being the butt of countless jokes. Conjure up the image of a gay. Do the same for someone straight. While the gay stereotype springs to mind immediately, the latter seems harder to define. On what grounds does this stereotyping of gays rest? Why has a sexual preference for men become inextricably tied up with the ‘gay
stereotype’?

Of course, straight stereotypes do exist. The emotionally unstable blond bimbo or the aggressive loudmouth lager lout are just two examples. But who actually assigns straight people these stereotypes on meeting them? Almost nobody. I decided that writing this article would, in fact, be the ideal chance to make the point that being sexually attracted to men does not reflect on an individual’s personality. Anyone who does not want to be identified as gay, but is attracted to the same sex, is immediately locked away in the proverbial closet. Many fear that their group of friends might decide that that their sexual preference clearly has some fundamental influence on who they are. Stereotypes are destructive and misleading. They only encourage prejudice. To
my mind, there are three main stereotypes that have come to dominate mainstream society’s perception of gay men.

The first is the so-called gay best friend. The lovely lady I mentioned above clearly expected me to respond with, “That would be so amazingly cool, I would be like the perfect accessory.” The idea lies in the belief that girls don’t feel threatened by gays, and that, as a gay, you are still privy to the mysterious world of men. It’s an unfortunate misconception that every gay guy will, by definition, love shopping and gossiping. Of course, some men do, and that’s absolutely fine. But this generalisation shouldn’t be accepted as the norm.

The second relates to the supposed promiscuity of gay men, who are, apparently, notorious for being promiscuous and overtly sexual. Of course this completely ignores the fact that there are many gay men who are monogamous. And ironically sexual activeness is something many straight men would probably envy. The promiscuity of a straight man is often lauded as an achievement, whilst gay men are regarded as in some way sexually predatory. A room mate at school once told me he had thought, for about two years, that I was going to try to rape him during the night. This type of irrational fear was responsible for much of the isolation I felt for much of the time before I came to Oxford.

The last stereotype equates being gay with being camp. Let me emphasise that there is absolutely nothing wrong with being camp. Still, it is inaccurate to classify such a diverse group of people as all sharing the same personality traits. It would probably surprise a significant number of people that an individual is just as likely to be gay if they play on a rugby team as they would be if they worked in a flower shop. It’s no wonder these stereotypes exist, given their media reinforcement. Think Daffyd, Queer Eye for the Straight Guy or, closer to home, the Wadham Queer Bop.

Having said all this, it must be said that our generation no longer suffers from the appalling discrimination still in existence around the world. We are reaping the benefits of the work activists did in the 60s, 70s and 80s and it seems that homophobia is thankfully at last receding. I feel incredibly lucky to live in Britain, and especially Oxford, rather than Iran, where only a few months ago two 19 year olds were stoned to death for the ‘abomination’ they had committed. Put into context, being stereotyped pales into insignificance. But this doesn’t make life any easier for those still struggling to come out for fear of being identified in a particular way. The gay scene, whilst allowing individuals to feel comfortable and free from harassment, can encourage the entrenchment of stereotypes and segregation between gay men and mainstream society. That a gay man was beaten up by a group of homophobic drag queens at a bop meant to celebrate the tolerance of ‘queer’ society is testament to the hypocrisy and paradox of modern prejudice and acceptance. It has become increasingly apparent to me that the ignorance and prejudices concerning gay men will not be dispelled until both gay and straight realise that such stereotypes are unfounded and extremely dangerous.