When I began writing this queer-themed opinion piece, I was thrilled. “Oh my,” I thought. “Now is my chance to stir up some controversy at Barnard!” I spent the better part of a Saturday researching issues of transgender rights at women’s colleges, curricular reform, and the history of LGBT activism at Barnard. In my haste to incite discussion about queer issues, however, I forgot that I needed to focus my opinion on queer sexuality.

Going back to the drawing board, I thought more specifically about why people care so much about queer sex. I can’t count the number of times a horny high school boy has asked me exactly how lesbians have sex, or how often my friends and I have discussed what it means to lose one’s virginity to someone of the same sex. (By some people’s standards of sexual activity, I am still a virgin, and therefore, entirely unqualified to write an article about sex. Just thought you might want to know.) From “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” and Senator Larry Craig (R-Idaho), to Lindsay Lohan and Clay Aiken, everyone seems to be fascinated by queer sex.

So why all the fuss? Why are LGBT lives so often reduced to little more than our behavior in bed? As a queer student leader, I try to remind everyone that we are people too, with the same basic wants, needs, and fundamental rights as anyone else. Our sexual activity shouldn’t determine whether we can join the military or adopt children or get married.

But just like anyone else, I admit that I do love to focus on queer sex. Having it, talking about it, watching people have it on TV—queer sex is definitely a lot of fun. The best student programming on Columbia’s campus, including First Friday dances, Queer Prom, and Queer Awareness Month, wouldn’t exist without some emphasis on LGBT sex. I am willing to bet that this year’s sex toys discussion will be one of the most popular QuAM events. In fact, one of QuAM’s even more anticipated events will be an underwear party tentatively titled “Genderf*ck.” I personally hope that lots of queer sex results when a few hundred hot, scantily-clad Columbians take over Lerner Party Space.

Naturally, as a student leader, I worry about drawing the line between too much attention on sex, and not enough. As much as I love celebrating queer sex, I don’t want to be inappropriate or offensive to those who simply choose not to have any kind of sex. And since queer people are much more than their sex acts, I try to focus on real issues of human rights. It’s complicated, since sexual rights are certainly human rights, but queer leaders don’t want to give the impression that we are all desperate to get laid every night. Some of us are addicted to queer sex, of course, but many of us are not.

I know what you’re probably thinking right now. “What’s your point, Anna? Should I continue to obsess about gay people having sex or not?” (At least I wish that’s what you were thinking.) Well, perhaps one lesson to be learned from the LGBT community is that we should all feel more comfortable talking about sex. People who think of themselves as “straight” might benefit from turning their attentions to their own sexual acts. In this regard, I hope that people do continue to openly wonder about what I do in bed, but only because I am allowed to question them as well.

But more importantly, curiosity about queer sex acts should lead to curiosity about queer people themselves. I am endlessly fascinated by the beauty and diversity of the LGBT community, especially here in New York City. We are by no means perfect, but we are pretty interesting and we have a lot to offer the rest of the world (beyond just a few different sexual positions). If people look beyond our sex acts once in a while, I hope that we can all move past focusing on the details of sodomy and oral sex and instead think about fixing discrimination, hate crimes, and inequalities inside and outside the queer community. I am grateful for the opportunity to write about queer sex, since it is near and dear to my heart, but I look forward to writing about the broader issues that affect the LGBT people in my life.

I hope that all of this talk about queer sex leads to queer activism among gay and straight people alike. And I hope queer activism leads to more queer sex, too.

The author is a Barnard College junior and co-president of Barnard’s Q.