As a queer person of color, there are distinct moments in your life that serve as markers for personal growth: learning to love your skin and your culture, coming out of the closet and pissing off conservatives enough to give you a national award. I am currently the recipient of a Campus Outrage Award, given out by the Collegiate Network to universities for “political correctness, curricular decay and violations of academic freedom.”

Unfortunately, I cannot accept this award. The Chicano studies thesis in question was not a thesis, but a simple community workshop. I did not receive any payment or course credit from the university, as has been claimed. If Nicholas Romero of the now-defunct Gaucho Free Press had taken the time to interview me and double-checked his sources, UCSB would not be tied with Yale, and we certainly would not be covered on FOX News. I guess the conservative outrage over gay men of color in porn was blinding enough to bypass basic journalistic practices.

However, I do want to state that although the workshop was not a thesis paper, it does not delegitimize the issues presented in the workshop. “F@#%ing With Stereotypes: Queer Men of Color in Porn” was an examination of racist images in gay male pornography. Given that the pornography industry is larger than all major sports franchises combined as well as one of the most accessible forms of media and watched by roughly 40 million people on the Internet alone, it is not something to be dismissed.

Pornography is like every other form of media in that it is scripted and carries many messages about our society. However, pornography is not held to the same scrutiny as television or films because it is dismissed as smut. In the queer community, porn is one of the only venues where queer people are actually represented and where you will actually see a variety of different ethnicities. However, the depictions of both queers and men of color in porn are composed of baseless stereotypes, like every mainstream form of media made for a white audience.

Pornography in the queer community has a large effect on how queer men relate to each other, especially when it comes to interracial relationships as the “well-endowed black man,” the “submissive Asian” and the “spicy Latino” stereotypes play themselves out in real-world situations. My research was not solely based on watching pornography – although I did and it was fun – I also did a lot of reading. In fact, my bibliography is available upon request. The inability of the Gaucho Free Press and the Collegiate Network to recognize the validity of study in porn media and its social effects on queer communities of color is not only narrow-minded but bigoted as well. Given that a porn class is taught on this campus every year and there has not been any conservative opposition, I can’t help but feel singled out for including too many scary, liberal-sounding words in my workshop’s title.

I would like to encourage everyone to pursue his or her own academic venues and not to let the threat of conservative opposition affect your research methods or subject matter. Issues are for debating, and in this case, pornography is a huge issue with many social, political and personal ramifications. The information I presented stimulated discussion about porn, free speech and academic freedom. For this I have to quote the motto of the Gaucho Free Press when I speak for all the supporters of free speech: “We Do Not Apologize!”

Alejandro Juarez is a senior Chicano studies and art studio major.

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