40!

This is my fourtieth post on this here blog. I feel like that's actually a pretty decent milestone, though I find it kind of sad that it took this long to reach this milestone.

So right now, my psyche is in a state of conflict, because the solemnity I felt this afternoon after my trip to the Gay Community Center of Richmond for an exhibit on Nazi Persecution of Homosexuals has been contrasted by the music I have recently been rocking out to, courtesy of:
http://www.onlythefinest.org/
http://www.camelbackmusic.com/
http://www.dirtymexicanlemonade.com/

On the one hand, the trip to the GCCR for the Holocaust exhibit was amazing and sobering. Homosexuals were persecuted under Paragraph 175, a law put in place under Kaiser Wilhelm, which made "indecency" between two men a crime punishable by imprisonment (a repeated theme throughout the exhibit was the fact that lesbianism was virtually ignored by this statute). One of the things that I found the most disturbing about the entire exhibit was the focus on rigid, old-fashioned gender roles under the Nazi regime. They felt the need to reinforce the strength and masculinity of the German man, and blamed homosexuality and feminism for the declining birthrate and declining status of Germany in the world post-war. In the Weimar Republic, both the feminist movement and the gay community in Germany made huge strides, and the actions of the SA party in the Holocaust set both movements back decades. According to both the exhibit and the head of the Student Alliance for Sexual Diversity here at Richmond, the burning of the library of Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld, a prominent sexologist in Germany before WWII, set the gay rights movement back almost a century.

...Paragraph 175 remained on the books in Germany until 1969. Similar laws are still on the books, though deemed unconstitutional, in states like Virginia and Texas today.

On the other hand, the bubbly, upbeat, dance-y music I've been listening to for the last few days (weeks) is making it really hard to maintain the sense of solemn respect I had leaving the exhibition.

Conflictually yours,
Rachel Leigh