Kat Heintzman- Guest Lecturing and the Beauty of Interdisciplinarity.

When I was given the opportunity to do a guest lecture I was both excited and terrified. Some of this comes from being in a stream of this department that typically deals with sport, a subject about which I know next to nothing. However, with a background in queer theory I felt like I would be able to put something together on sport and sexuality.

Inspiration comes in the strangest of places. While working on a conference presentation on the representation of transmasculinities in queer feminist pornography I stumbled onto a link to a new porn release called Champion, which tells the story of butch Jess’s sexcapades. She is a mixed-martial-artist fighting for a Championship title in a homophobic industry. (Plot matters!) This opened a whole new door and I went from thinking about discussing LBGTQ athletes to presenting on how sport is eroticized (ie. homoeroticism in contact sport that permit physical contact under the guise of homosociality) as well as how sex is sportified (foxy boxing).

What I valued most as an undergrad in this department and am glad to be a part of as a TA is the diverse material we address in the sociology classes. Courses on sexuality taught me about war and pedagogy, courses on medicalization taught me about branding and consumer choice. I feel so privileged to be a part of that. In sport class that day we talked about Christina Aguilera, foxy boxing, and group showers.