Sure, marine biology bewitches you. But when you're naked as a needlefish, what if your prurient preferences paddle against a traditional tide? If you're hot for oceanic science but not heteronormativity, a book can help make sense of it all. So can a private college; at least, it recently did.
Last month, Brown University posted to Instagram as follows:
Join the LGBTQ Center and the Department of Ecology, Evolution, and Organismal Biology...for Lavender Reads, our co-sponsored book club! We’ll be reading "How Far The Light Reaches"...
Rhode Island's Ivy League institution described the book as "a powerful blend of memoir and marine biology." Notably, readers may not so much observe exotic animals as fawn over their fascinating selves:
[The work explores] environmentalism, queer theory, and biracial identity through the lens of deep-sea creatures and personal reflection.
So imagine you're a skoliosexual, pangender Person Of Color who's dead-set on clobbering carbon. Or suppose you're a BlaQueer bunself with a birthing-person front hole and a penchant for pummeling pollution. Might you better behold yourself through the perceptive peepers of an octopus? Maybe a scallop more sharply sees you for who you are. Either way, it seems both those aquatic animals have a grasp on queer theory; and they and a lobster might've cracked the code on bisexual identity.
LGBT biologists were sure to eat it up:
Come by (school Pride center) Stonewall House...to share your thoughts, engage in lively discussion, and connect with others in a welcoming and inclusive environment! Dinner will be provided!! All Brown University affiliates (students, staff, faculty, and postdocs) are welcome.
The first 20 responses, per the post, would garner a free book.
Call it a cutting-edge combo -- mixing ancient marine life with the new idea of gender identity; swirling sexual turn-ons with sea study.
Even so, the fusion fits our contemporary condition. Across all arenas, familiar focal points frequently float to the surface. Education has a message -- about group identity, sexual possibility, and marginalization. Industry has a message, and it's much the same. Religion has a message, and you can guess it. Wokeness is as widespread as the Pacific:
University President Sends a Letter Announcing the School's Top Priority: Racial Justice and Equity
Nickelodeon Schools Kids on the 'Environmental Racism' of Pig Farming
Science Journal Decries Racism in Geology, Claims Black People Are Too Scared to Hold Hammers
Scientific American: The Racist Myth of Binary Sex Wasn't Invented 'Til Nearly 1800
A Whistleblower Shares a Racial Justice Lesson From Coca-Cola: 'Try to Be Less White'
Hospitals Are Starting to Ask Men if They're Pregnant
Christian Church Leads Prayer to the 'God of Pronouns,' the 'Great They/Them' Who Breastfeeds
Back to Brown University and "How Far The Light Reaches: A Life in Ten Sea Creatures," Instagram's ad offers further insight:
Each essay...profiles one...creature: the mother octopus who starves herself while watching over her eggs, the Chinese sturgeon whose migration route has been decimated by pollution and dams, the bizarre Bobbitt worm (named after Lorena), and other uncanny creatures lurking in the deep ocean, far below where the light reaches. ... Exploring themes of adaptation, survival, sexuality, and care, and weaving the wonders of marine biology with stories of their own family, relationships, and coming of age, "How Far the Light Reaches" is a book that invites us to envision wilder, grander, and more abundant possibilities for the way we live.
RELATED: Brown University Caves to Antisemitic Hecklers During Speech About Hate Crimes
And a bit about the Brown-alumnus author (they/them):
A queer, mixed race writer working in a largely white, male field, science and conservation journalist Sabrina Imbler has always been drawn to the mystery of life in the sea, and particularly to creatures living in hostile or remote environments.
The sea is indeed a remarkable place, and it's been enthusiastically embraced by our modern sexual sphere. Consider these points from 2021 article "The Rainbow Ocean: Six Ocean Species to Celebrate Pride Month With":
- Most seahorses are bisexual.
- Lesbian albatrosses are committed partners and parents.
- Starfish are both female and male at once.
- Wrasse fish can change gender to become male.
- Clownfish change gender to become female.
- Teenage orcas have guys-only gay gangs.
Do such wonders reflect on the human animal? Either way, perhaps nothing is more state-of-the-art than staring at the incredible, ripe-for-exploration ocean...and catching ourselves in its mirrored veneer. Contemporarily, affirmation is key; and amid Earth's liquid blue blanket, queer, biracial environmentalists can be cozied by confirmation they're not alone. So can -- it seems -- teenage, guy-only gay gangs. If only they and the whales could signal one another with their blowholes.
Famed oceanographer Jacques Cousteau once said, "When one man, for whatever reason, has the opportunity to lead an extraordinary life, he has no right to keep it to himself.” Perhaps society's prancing peacock of identity politics is merely trying to put that edict into practice. Cousteau also insisted, "We must go and see for ourselves." Maybe scratch the word "for."
For the sexually sophisticated and otherwise marginalized masses, comfort awaits in the depths. Social justice sits in a sea of tran(s)quility. At Brown University as well as the enlightened world's elsewhere, there's wokeness in the water.
-ALEX
See more content from me:
University Yearns to Know: 'Why Do Trans Women Make Awesome Music?'
Medical School Dean Fights the 'Stereotype' That Women Have Vaginas
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