Celia, Christine, Theodora, and I wrote this dialogue about the repressive hypothesis. Christine and Theodora performed it in class.
1: Hey everyone, let’s start a student group called “Sex is Hella Repressed.”
2: Wait, is sex hella repressed?
1: Of course it is! We’re never allowed to talk about it, which is why I talk about it all the time. We need to start a movement!
2: Wait, if people aren’t allowed to talk about sex, how come you’re able to talk about it all the time?
1: It’s because I’m so radical! It feels great to talk about it, because I’m defying power. I’m sticking it to the man!
2: Wait, so this is why you feel compelled to talk about sex?
1: Yeah! Fight the power!
2: Wait, so in your movement you’re trying to get other people to talk about sex?
1: Well, yeah. I feel personally repressed by this system. So everyone needs to talk about sex all the time so we can overthrow it.
2: So you want to use S&A funds to have people sit around and reveal their sex lives?
1: Yeah, dude. S&A needs to fund more radical things. We should publish a manifesto about our sex lives so we can have pride in our subversive identities.
2: So we should all name, confess, and display our sexual practices?
1: Yes, then we won’t be so repressed! We should do a performance, and have a parade in red square.
2: Check it. That’s basically what happens every day. We’re told all the time that we’re repressed, so we talk about sex all the time. Don’t your radical friends applaud you every time you talk about sex? So how exactly are you repressed?
1: Well, dude . . .
2: Society wants to know people’s sexual behavior so it can categorize them. So you’re repressive hypothesis is an incitement to talk about sex. You’re not fighting the man, you are the man.
1: [looks befuddled]
2: And I’m done.
