Sample images from our Ethnic Studies 101B extra credit project, "Q". Models included myself and my group mates.

Our project aims to examine how queer sexuality physically manifests itself in the dark. Queerness--while socially acceptable in popular media--has difficultly existing on its own in public. For queer people, their lives and habits are often restrained to small city blocks, sex shops, clubs, and other specialized spaces.

When it comes to being queer in a non-queer setting, there is a disconnect, a dischord.

As such, queerness physically manifests in the dark. It is in shadow that our hands can wander, our lips can part, and that we can exchange what is so personal and dear to us: our bodies and emotions. We do so in the isolated corners of Rage and The Crib. We open our bedrooms for complete strangers and old flames. We flick the switch off before stripping off our hesitations and regrets.

Be it for one night or for a lifetime, queerness is a creature of solitude. We may never know what queerness looks like, but we do know what it's like to make love to it. We do so on a daily basis as we engage not only in queer sex, but queer thinking.

Yet, there is something ethereal and fantastic to being queer. When we finally leave the safety of the dark, where do such passions go? Do we dare bring such feelings and experiences to the light? Or do we keep our sexual narratives faceless and nameless?

This begs the question: how do we bring queerness out of the dark?