On October 3, Sue Johansen, health educator and popular host of television’s The Sunday Night Sex Show, visited Lakehead University to give students a greatly - anticipated, frank and informative talk about sex. During the hour-and-a-half session, she covered such topics as STDs, sex toys, oral/manual stimulation, the (dissimilar) socialization of boys and girls regarding sexual behaviours, and the importance of communication between partners, but without mention of issues especially relevant to lesbian, gay, bisexual, and gay-positive students either within these topics or separately. (While condoms were discussed at length, even a reference to the use of barriers to help protect lesbians and bisexual women from sexually-transmitted diseases was absent.) When concerns about the exclusion of non-heterosexual issues from the talk were anonymously raised, Johansen responded that there just wasn’t enough time available for those issues, which she candidly assumed to represent the interests of a mere minority of students in attendance. Clearly, careful planning on her part could have made for an exceptionally inclusive 1.5-hour seminar!

Upset about the one-sided focus on hetero-sexuality, the Coordinator of Lakehead’s Pride Central fervently singled herself out of the crowd to further question the ignorance of such important matters as safe sex for lesbian, gay, and bisexual students - she strongly felt that even just five minutes of attention could have made the difference. Moreover, Pride had made a generous contribution from their limited budget to help bring Sue Johansen to Lakehead students in the first place. Johansen reacted to the inquiry in an immature and unprofessional manner: the audience member was condescendingly asked if she’d prefer to get up on stage and do the talk herself!

At the same time that non-heterosexual issues were being excluded from the discussion, Johansen openly labeled herself “gay-positive” as if to suggest that this admission in itself should suffice (and shut those lesbians up). Isn’t the point to educate all students about sexual health and happiness?

Then do lesbian and bisexual women not deserve to hear about proper methods of protecting themselves against STDs at least? In addition, the entire talk could have appeared more egalitarian had Johansen simply employed gender-neutral language by substituting words like “partner” or “couple” for “girl/boyfriend” or “she” and “he”.

Upon reflection, a rather disturbing thought comes to mind: an educator as well-respected, forthright, and (supposedly) gay-positive as Sue Johansen had the opportunity to exercise her influence to raise positive awareness of lesbian, gay, and bisexual realities instead chose to reinforce pervasive heterosexism in denying the inclusion of others. By the time “Sex With Sue” came to a close, the crowd was tense, loud, and in painfully obvious support of Johansen’s focus on heterosexuality as the only sexuality worth discussing. Sadly, those lesbian women in attendance, some of whom became quite visible to the rest of the audience, were left feeling disheartened, devalued, angry, and concerned about their own safety on a homophobic campus. (with thanks to Shannon Cruickshank!)