Letter To The Editor: Queer Theory

In his hilarious interview with Decca Aikenhead (22 December), Tory MP David Davies advances the "erasure" theory of homosexuality, akin to similar theories such as the "Sound of Music" and "Judy Garland'. This may be extended to a wider range of tastes than music. For example, when, a few years ago, I owned a large and aggressive poodle, I and my partner were often accosted – in a perfectly friendly way – by individuals who would regale us with jokes about poodles suggestive of effeminacy.

I had a less warm encounter with a gent in blazer and grey flannels in a newsagent's in a Suffolk village. When I wandered in (with dog) to buy a Sunday paper the gentleman recoiled, gasping, "Is that a homosexual dog?" By contrast, a theatre director friend told me how when he and his boyfriend were mincing (his word) down the street accompanied by their pitbull (or it might have been a staffie, I forget which), burly lorry drivers would lean out of their cabs, thumbs up, with a "Great dog, mate!". Clearly, in consumer society, we really are what we buy.
Elizabeth Wilson
London

I think this letter in The Guardian has been buggered by a sub after one too many Christmas sherries.
The correspondent surely meant "Erasure theory" - capital E, after the electropop group - and not the more high-falutin' and po-mo sounding "erasure theory".
Mr Davies was quoted as saying;

"Can I say something else as well?" he adds. "It may or may not be relevant." When Davies was 16, a popular school friend had announced he was gay. Davies ran into him again at 19, "And it turned out the guy had got engaged. To a woman! And he absolutely didn't want to talk about what had gone on between the age of 16 and 19. He'd started coming down to the pub at 16 with, you know, splits in his jeans, and started buying Erasure albums, and all the rest of it – and three years later he's suddenly horrified by the whole thing!"

Oh dear.
People like this are now running the country, guys and gals.
Oh, and this letter is presumably by the noted Marxist feminist queer academic, Elizabeth Wilson, whose partner is Angela Mason, of both Angry Brigade and Stonewall fame.
Respec'!