Give me a god damn break Huffington Post…

Although I studied many subjects in college, my interest especially aligned with the radical thinking of my queer theories coursework. Queer theory obliterates the idea of good and bad sex and what should and should not be deemed deviant. As such, my courses covered gay history, the timeline of the gay rights movements, queer theory, and the burgeoning transgender studies, as well as genderqueers, kink, sexual fluidity, and asexuality.

But there was a strange silence in these class discussions as well. As my education continued, I began thinking about other people who transgressed cultural norms of sexuality, other people whose sexual desires had been labeled deviant — people who even queer theory courses weren’t talking about. There might be no group more maligned, marginalized, and disconcerting as modern-day America’s “sex offenders.”

In treatment, lawmaking, and cultural discourse, sex offenders are referred to as participating in deviant sexual behavior, having deviant sexual fantasies, and being inherently “deviant” themselves. From one angle, this is true; all sex offenders have deviated from the boundaries of one or more laws regarding sex or the body.

But sociologist Joel Best describes the problematic nature of how the term “deviance” is used in our culture. In his book Deviance, he emphasizes that “a deviant label was simply a sign that some groups with power had singled out some acts or conditions for disapproval.” The term means that, according to the rules of a powerful few, something is inherently wrong with you if you are not like everybody else. In other words, deviance becomes a viral social construct that serves as a moral imperative to dictate and intimidate people into behaving.