ABSTRACT
This chapter explores how museums must examine the prejudices that surround 'queer' what the author calls 'queer junk' before any effective changes in present institutional practice can occur. A summary of historic LGBT difficulties in defining queer prefaces a discussion of the author's experiences of 'queer junk' when he was the only overtly queer-designated delegate at professional museum conferences. To move beyond queer junk, the author promotes what he calls erotic intelligence, or the embracing of how human sexuality and the pursuit of pleasure underpins much of human activity, including free-choice learning. The chapter suggests on how the museum community might collectively and individually use queer issues as a springboard for embracing something much deeper and more universal our erotic intelligence. The experiences recounted below were accumulated at an American Association of Museums conference a few years ago, during which time the 'queer self' was myself as Exhibits Director of the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender Historical Society of San Francisco.
