At California State University Long Beach, 24 students from the theater arts program protested in front of Brotman Hall earlier this week by tribbing (lesbian sex act more commonly known as scissoring) with each other. They were protesting the state school's refusal to advertise their play on the marquee because it has "tribades" in the title, according to Daily 49er.

The play, The Night of the Tribades, is about playwright August Strindberg's relationship with women. The production is part of Cal Rep, Cal State Long Beach's graduate acting program.

Courtney Knight, a theater arts major at the school, explained that tribade is archaic Greek terminology for lesbian. She said that CSULB's refusal to advertise the production on the marquee comes from the word's similarity to tribadism. "When you put tribade into a Google search image, apparently it comes up with the word tribadism, which is a sex act and they decided it was inappropriate," Knight said.

In response to the school's decision not to promote the play, the students opted for a more creative kind of protest. The protest was a flash mob (a group assembling in public for a short period of time to heighten awareness about an issue by using physical gestures or acts), according to flyers that were handed out.

The students protesting paired up, posing in positions known as tribadism (they scissored) for just over 10 minutes. A few of the students donned shirts with "tribade" printed on them, and tape with "censored" written across it on their mouths.

Knight feels it is unfair on the school's part to expeditiously select what will be advertised. "This is the same marquee that has words on it such as genocides, such as rape, and these produce far more violent graphic images than tribadism," she explained. "I feel this is our art being censored."

Protester have planned to discuss the censorship issue following The Night of the Tribades on Nov. 20 at the Queen Mary.

Photo credit: Alejandro Hernandez | Daily 49er

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