My 13-year-old son came out to us this morning. He plans to tell his brothers in the next few days. We love and accept our son, and this news isn’t surprising (but when will the stereotypical neatness kick in?), but we do have some concerns. He has, apparently, already made the news public at school. Any pointers you can give? We want to make sure he knows that we love him and don’t care about his sexuality, while at the same time preparing him to deal with those people who do. Also, any advice you can give for when he starts dating would be appreciated.
Dad Seeks Support
“On behalf of advocates for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender youth everywhere, let me be the first to say ‘thank you,'” says Eliza Byard, executive director of GLSEN (www.glsen.org), the Gay, Lesbian & Straight Education Network, which works to create safe school environments for LGBT—and straight—youth. “Simply by giving your son your love and support, you have already significantly increased his chances of living a happy and fulfilling life. The importance of an accepting home cannot be overstated.” (The damage that can be done by a hostile family also cannot be overstated: LGBT youth whose families are hostile are eight times likelier to commit suicide than their straight peers. Hostile parents can’t make their gay kids straight, but they can make them dead.)
“The bad news is that school can be a miserable place for LGBT youth,” says Byard. “GLSEN’s 2009 National School Climate Survey found that nearly 9 out of 10 LGBT teens experienced harassment in school in the past year. The good news is that engaged parents can make a huge difference.”
So, DSS, while it’s admirable that you want your son to understand that you “don’t care about his sexuality,” you also have to make your son understand that you care about him and that you’re aware of the challenges he faces.
“Talk to your son and learn more about his school and his experiences there since coming out,” advises Byard. “What kind of response has he received? What supports are in place for him at school? Does the school have a Gay-Straight Alliance? Do students have access to LGBT-affirming resources in the library? Does the school have policies that address bullying? Are there adults in the school community whom he trusts and feels are supportive?”
Call your son’s school, DSS, and set up a meeting. Making sure his teachers and school administrators know that you’re on your son’s side—and they know you intend to hold them accountable—can go a long way toward creating a safe environment for your son at school.
“Send a GLSEN Safe Space Kit (www.safespacekit.com) to your son’s school to give educators the tools they need to provide support and create a safe space in their classroom for your son,” advises Byard. “Visible signs of support, such as a GLSEN Safe Space sticker on a door, can fundamentally alter the school experience of an LGBT youth by helping them identify those adults in the community who are supportive.”
As for dating and sex…
“Treat your son with the same awkwardness you would your other kids,” says Byard. “I’m speaking as a mom myself now. Make sure he has access to all the health and safety information he needs. (Sitting down to watch reruns of Will & Grace together won’t cut it.) I have two daughters and want to be absolutely sure they have access to all the information they need to make smart and healthy—and potentially life-saving!—decisions. Make yourself available to talk whenever he needs and welcome his boyfriends inside the house the same way you would if they were girlfriends.”
I’m into BDSM and my safe word is “safe word.” It’s short, memorable, and unmistakable in its intent. Someone recently told me that “any serious BDSM player” would laugh me out of the community if I used that. Is she right? Is she just being a dickhead? Should I have to say something silly like “grapefruit” in order to get my point across?
Grapefruits Aren’t Good
I may not be the best person to adjudicate this dispute, GAG, as my safe word is “popcorn.” (And, yes, I cross my arms over my chest when I use it, as demonstrated here: tinyurl.com/safewordpopcorn.) But in my opinion, the woman who informed you that you would be laughed out of “the community” for your choice of safe word is being a huge dickhead. In fact, it sounds like she has a bad case of You’re Doing It Wrong.
YDIW is a social-skills disorder that members of the BDSM community are at particular risk of acquiring. (Others at heightened risk: religious conservatives, sports fans, advice columnists.) BDSMers with YDIW feel they have a right to inform other BDSMers that they’re doing it wrong—whatever it might be—even if the “it” being done wrong poses no risk to the YDIW sufferer or anyone else.
BDSM players should speak up, of course, when they witness other BDSMers doing something dangerously wrong. BDSMers who observe dangerous or nonconsensual play at public parties have a responsibility to speak the fuck up before someone is seriously injured. The secondary, tertiary, and quaternary goals of creating a BDSM community were the sharing of skills, the promotion of good play practices, and the holding of dangerous or malicious players to account, respectively. (The primary goal? Getting BDSMers laid.) But some BDSMers confuse a responsibility to speak up when they witness dangerous play for an invitation to critique other people’s kinks, sexual interests, preferred fetish roles, safe words, etc.
YDIW in BDSMers—and social conservatives—can be treated and cured through the application of “NO ONE GIVES A FUCK WHAT YOU THINK, ASSHOLE.” It should be applied liberally whenever YDIW flares up.
I enjoyed your pieces and posts about monogamish couples. However, it’s time for a Savage Love column or two dedicated to people who are in successful monogamous relationships! I have been with my partner for 10 years. Sure, we’ll both flirt with a cute waiter and dance with hot guys at gay clubs, but we always go home together. It pisses me off when people assume that, because we are gay, we’re having sex with every Tom, Dick, and Harry.
Couple Of Compatible Keepers
That’s a wonderful idea, COCK.
People in successful, long-term monogamous relationships—even those of you who aren’t but think you are—are invited to send in their stories. Letters from monogamous sufferers of YDIW will not make it into the column, however. If you can’t write about your monogamous relationship without disparaging those in nonmonogamous or monogamish relationships then, um, you’re doing it wrong. (I told you advice columnists were at heightened risk of YDIW.) Tell us why monogamy works for you, how you’ve made it work, and what the upsides are. But please refrain from telling everyone who isn’t doing it the way you do it that they’re doing it wrong. That’s my job.
CONFIDENTIAL TO CANADA’S UNKNOWN LAWYER: Next time there’s a legal hiccup in the fair application of Canada’s marriage laws where same-sex couple are concerned, let’s err on the side of not declaring thousands of same-sex marriages—mine included—to be “invalid,” shall we? Let’s skip the shitstorm next time and jump right to the fair and just resolution.
Find the Savage Lovecast (my weekly podcast) every Tuesday at thestranger.com/savage.
@fakedansavage on Twitter
“Safeword” has been a generally recognized and accepted safeword in the Seattle BDSM community and elsewhere for at least two decades. Not everyone prefers that word or safewords in general, but it’s usefully unambiguous particularly in semi-public spaces. Kinkifact says “pants on fire.”
– Eddie
Following up on @1, I agree that many people are moving away from relying on safewords these days.
For play parties, there’s no debate: all play parties I’ve been to this year had a default safeword of “Red” (or “safeword” would work too) — that alerts the audience that you want to be rescued from the maniac beating the shit out of you.
But the problem with a safeword is that it can give the top a false sense of security (that is, the bottom can be in trouble and unable to say the safeword for physical or psychological reasons).
Also, a safeword can give the bottom a false sense of security — after all, it won’t, on its own, get you out of a dangerous situation.
So many people these days emphasize:
1) keeping the lines of communication open;
2) having frequent check-ins to make sure the bottom can communicate; and
3) speaking in ordinary English about the situation (Ow, I have a cramp; hey, that hit my face; etc.)
Also, realize that it’s quite dangerous to play on the edge of nonconsent with people you don’t know well and haven’t played with much. I’m not saying don’t do it, I’m just saying that you should be ready for the consequences if it goes bad (as it did for me last year).
Great column this week Dan!
EricaP, thanks for that comment. I’ve shied away from the BDSM community out of concern for the things you mention, and I appreciate your insight on the matter.
For the first LW, maybe the school, or your son, can point out an older ‘mentor’ student that can help him in the school.
I went to the same school from 6th to 12th and while the middle school didn’t have a GSA, I was active in the high school GSA and president my final year. Teachers knew me well enough that they would ask me to talk to younger gay students having trouble and help them out. Sometimes just having an older accepting friend in the school is enough to help them feel comfortable, even if the friend (like me) is straight.
Excellent column this week. Great advice. For once I don’t have a lot to add, but thanks to the dad in letter one for being so awesome.
Good points Erica @ 2, too.
I’d like to tip my hat to you, Dan, especially on calling out the smugness of YDIW people (another cute acronym!). It’s fine to be informative & helpful, but as someone who’s been a member of a whole pile of different “scenes” (local coffeehouse poetry club, fave bar, gaming, comics, LGBT clubs, on & on) there isn’t much that gets on my nerves as much as the sanctimonious tone that folks in said club/scene/etc can use when delivering their opinions on the One True Way to enjoy the whateveritis. Sure, there are some things that are Rules, for good reasons, almost anywhere. But “safe word” not being an acceptable safe word? Puh-leaze. That doesn’t make you a respected elder of your Hobbit S & M clan, or whatevah.
Plz be more welcoming to the noobs you meet on your travels, y’all. Sure they can be annoying, but new blood invigorates a place/group & being inclusive is more fun in the long term than showing off (IMO).
Not to be horribly stereotypical, but shouldn’t DSS be welcoming his kid’s boyfriends as if they were boyfriends? That is, guys who may not have the best of intentions, who may be pressuring the kid for sex the kid is not ready to have, and who need to know that not respecting DSS’s kid’s boundaries would result in a swift and brutal ass-kicking.
In other words, if your kid (boy or girl) is into boys, then you should protect that kid from the kind of shit teenage boys pull. Just like if your kid (boy or girl) is into girls, you should protect that kid from the kind of shit teenage girls pull.
Hey DSS,
The downside of being “enlightened” and caring for your child, as opposed to the “You shall do it this way” that I got from my parents, is the constant nagging fear of “Am I doing this right?” and missing the smallest thing that might make everything go to shit. I have observed with my older and experienced sibs that being open and consistent is a large part of doing the right thing. Just do the quick “thought experiment” of what you yourself would need to reinforce yourself as you were at that age, and start with what helped (and avoid what hurt). Listen to your son and work with him.
Peace.
The first 2 boyfriends that my oldest daughter brought home as a teenager came out within a year, the 3rd determined that he was bisexual. Her acceptance of them didnt change when their awareness and acknowledgement of their sexuality changed, these young men continued to be a presence in our home even after she left for college, up until we moved.
Since the girl has been at college, she’s become a bit more comfortable in her own skin, and is able to acknowledge that no one’s sexuality is completely black or white. During her last visit with us, we determined that she and her mother have similar taste in men, but our taste in women is completely different.
DSS has a handle on the most important thing: your child is your child, and nothing changes that. My view is that as parents, we act as advocates for our children. In everything. If they can’t count on us, who can they count on?
@5:
Glad I read that through one more time before nearly responding, “How do you know which school DSS’s son goes to?”
Dan once gave great advice along the lines of I Hate Screen Names, basically said to protect gay sons, as you would straight daughters, recognizing that male sexuality can be powerful and sometimes destructive (or something along those lines).
Hey Dan, do you no longer believe that? I really loved that advice, it helped me as a straight-ish woman.
I don’t like it when statistics like “9 out of 10 gay students were harassed in the past year” are whipped out. Haven’t 9 out of 10 high school students been harassed in the past year?
People harass other people. Being harassed when you’re young is valuable training in being able to handle harassment as an adult.
That’s not to say any form or level of harassment is OK, but an environment with NO harassment (whether that be because you’re fat, short, dumb, poor, gay, pale, goth, a redhead, acne-ridden, scrawny, clumsy, too tall, lanky, curly-haired, or whatever other excuse one kid will use to harass another kid) is not healthy either.
Kids have to learn how to handle it when other people are mean to them, EVEN if they are mean to them because they are gay. We should stop trying to eradicate harassment – it’s not going to happen, and it wouldn’t be healthy if it did.
What we need to do is teach kids how to cope with the harassment they will inevitably encounter in their lives, and provide them the support structure they need while they figure out how to do that.
@12, I think you don’t know what the word “harassment” means.
It doesn’t mean “occasionally poke fun at” or “moderately mocking”. It refers to persistent, repeated hostility.
It’s the kind of continuous abuse that doesn’t make one better at “handling” it, but rather often results in lifelong issues and difficulty with relationships. The effects of actual harassment are more like PTSD.
You are probably right that some moderate teasing, etc. does help build resilience in kids, and might make them more resistant to harassment later. But harassment is not valuable training, it just makes people fucked up.
That said, the “9 out of 10” statistic seems high if we’re talking about a persistent pattern of repeated behavior. Quite likely, the originators of that statistic are guilty of misusing the word as well. I don’t doubt that gay teens are targets, but are 90% of them continually subjected to serious hostile treatment?
In so far as speaking the safeword should be the equivalent of interrupting the actors mid-sentence, stopping the play, turning up the house lights, and quite possibly sending everyone home for the evening, a safeword logically _shouldn’t_ be something stylish or stylized. The only thing it needs to be is something that you wouldn’t say as part of a scene, so as to not yank the emergency brake inadvertently. Beyond that, the idea that the safeword itself needs to conform to some sort of aesthetic ideal is stupid, counterproductive, possibly even dangerous.
I’d say that ‘safeword’ is a perfectly good one. It indicates beyond a shadow of a doubt “Okay, I’m done, NOW,” while still not being mistaken for other protestations not intended to interrupt the action.
(Says the guy who knows nothing about BDSM, is pretty damned vanilla, but can recognize a logical inconsistency when he sees one)
Hmmmm… For what it’s worth, “password” does make a lousy password, and having it as your password will indeed get you laughed at, if not disciplined for putting company assets at risk. Does your dickhead friend work in high-tech, perhaps? Maybe she has just confused the two concepts.
Hey, Dan!!! Everybody!!! I’m in a monogamous, loving relationship with a hot 38 year old!!! While we’re both used to Pacific Northwest rain and gray days, when it’s sunny, we hit the beach!!
@EricaP, since the little exploration I’ve done of BDSM was strictly outside of “communities” and solely with individuals (who I took time to get to know before actually trying anything out of the ordinary, and vice-versa), I’m sort of curious about what happens in the kind of situations you mention. What kinds of consequences does one have to accept when things “go bad”, and what does one do when it happens — assuming that the “going bad” was non-intentional, and the person is basically good and ethical? Does “going bad” usually come from not respecting accepted rules, or can it happen anywhere, anytime, no matter what (‘shit happens’)?
I play pretty rough, and I find safeword to be the best possible safeword. If I need it to STOP, I don’t want to be trying to remember what the french word for grapefruit is. Per the “green, yellow, red” system, I also use “bad ow!” for when I need a specific activity to stop, but not the whole scene.
In the BDSM world, we sometimes call those who suffer from YDIW syndrome as “twue”…as in “there is one twue way to do this!” and pretty much everybody I know mocks the hell out of them.
@12 – Are you sure that an environment with no harassment is not healthy? How do you prove that? How do you explain it?
For years people said that kids who went to daycare/groupcare situations and came home with every illness going around the neighborhood were strengthening their immune systems, that there was an eventual benefit to being a kid who was constantly sniffling and frequently sick. I read a study some years ago that this popular theory was essentially bunk.
It’s like saying that everyone needs to have a finger or two broken, and maybe a couple toes, so they’ll be able to handle it when they get a broken arm or leg later in life. It’s a ridiculous idea.
I agree that we need to teach kids how to deal with harassment and provide them with strong support structures, but that doesn’t mean we need to legitimize abuse. Recognizing that it happens is a good thing; believing that it’s healthy and beneficial is not.
@12, @18, I don’t think it’s quite right to say that harassment is normal and needs to be accepted. I think, more importantly than teaching our kids how to deal with the people who harass them, we should teach them not to harass others.
I think if even 9 out of 10 parents could successfully raise their teenagers to not be dickheads, we’d all be better off.
@12 (biggie)– “Being harassed when you’re young is valuable training in being able to handle harassment as an adult.”
Yeah, this was my initial reaction to a lot of the anti-bullying work that’s been going on in the last few years. After all, when it happened to me as a kid, I understood that this was just the way the world worked. I couldn’t expect to go around being so weird and inept and not as good as the other kids and not expect to get hassled for it, right? It was just teaching me how to deal with the fact that people would naturally always dislike and despise me, wasn’t it?
Yeah, so, no. People are very good at rationalizing bad things that happened to them as normal or even helpful– it makes us feel better than just saying, “yes, that was a shit thing that happened to me, and it wouldn’t have happened in a just universe.” And sometimes these rationalizations get us through tough situations. But rationalizations are all they are, and we need to learn that before we allow other people to go through the same crap that we did.
Great topic! Just love your kid, support them *no matter what* (love, confidence, security, belief, empathy…) and instill in them that there’s nothing anyone can’t handle or deal with as long as you have the guts to be honest and live honestly.
Being openly gay (even in this day and age of uber-acceptability with LGBT stuff) is *still* one of the ballsiest, gutsiest moves *anyone* can make: it’s taking back your life from the fuckheads in the name of *truth*!
Some people hate on and/or are envious of others’ bravery. Good! May it inspire them to have the guts to live and walk it as they really are.
I had (and still have) great parents who get it 😉 and love me as I am: an honest, openly-gay, hopefully-well-balanced male.
That, and I’m one of those types who doesn’t give a shit what people think in the best possible way: when it matters most; being yourself and having the guts to do just that.
My kids could be aliens and omni-tri-polysexual and I would *still* do my very level best to guide them and love them to the best amount of self-acceptance and self-belief as I can.
Honesty is everything, man. *No one really gives a shit about anything as long as you have the common sense and the poise to just be honest, and keep it moving 🙂 *.
That, and if the kids at school are that unruly about everything (nothing’s shocking anymore in the age of the internet, and what with it being 2012 already), then maybe change schools are consider home-schooling until the brouhaha about being newly-out dies down.
It’s true: no one really cares what anyone is or isn’t as long as people are forthcoming enough with honesty, with a minimum of drama and bullshit in serving up what is: the truth to silence those who don’t dare to walk it as they talk it!
Great thread and topic! Cheers On Everyone!
POPCORN!
I volunteer at the Citadel in San Francisco as a dungeon monitor . . . basically a hall monitor in sassier clothing. The “house” safeword is “safeword”–that way players can yell anything they want during a scene without triggering an interruption, but if I hear someone yell “safeword,” I’ll come over, stop the scene, and see if everyone’s okay. (If I hear someone yell “red,” or “stop,” or “that’s it you bastard, you’re off my Christmas card list,” I’ll wander over and observe for a bit, make sure that this really is just part of the fun. We do everything possible to avoid interrupting a scene, but if it looks like the bottom is having a bad time, we’ll politely interrupt and make sure everything’s okay.)
@16 . . . I can answer a little bit of the “what happens when things go bad.” I think like any nonideal situation it’s very case by case . . . and the joke is “it’s always the top’s fault.” Which is not to say that the bottom can’t contribute to a bad scene, but the top does have greater responsibility, since many people go pretty deep into subspace and can lose some judgment as they let themselves get overwhelmed by sensation.
I have been in one scene that went badly–it was a negotiated resistance scene where the bottom was supposed to fight back, hard. Basically, a takedown by myself and another woman of a big, strong guy. And it went pretty much as we negotiated but, for various reasons, it turned out to be way more emotionally triggering than he expected and he ended up really devastated. I sat with him and held him for hours, and felt horribly guilty. It all worked out okay, and we all still play together, but it was pretty unpleasant, and now I would negotiate much, much more carefully and even if someone says they want a really intense, violent scene, I’d ramp up way, way more slowly and check in more, even though that’s not what he thought he wanted.
Another friend of mine had a scene go badly because someone thought one of her hard limits was silly. Basically, she doesn’t mind being beaten, whipped, fisted . . . but she hates getting water on her face. He thought that was funny, and splashed her with water. She ended the scene and never played with him again. Respect someone’s hard limits even if they strike you as weird.
FInally, I had a friend whose “scene gone badly” story involved someone having an asthma attack while in bondage. He got her untied, got her inhaler, and she was okay but it was really harrowing and scary for both of them. Lesson there? Be sure to tell your top about any physical conditions that might come up . . . if he’d known, he could have done different bondage and had the inhaler handy.
Without working from a very specific definition of harrasment as @13 has pointed out, kids need to grow some thicker skin and deal with things outside of the warm and fuzzy environment, which I think was @12’s point. One of my biggest concerns is that kids getting out of school over the past 25 years have gotten progressively harder to have as employees, because someone at work (God forbid maybe even their boss) wasn’t nice to them and didn’t respect their feelings. Unfortunately that is the real world, and they need to work within it. Lots of pampered kids whose parents wouldn’t let suffer the consequences of their actions have a lot tougher time in the big bad world.
This in no way condones abusive behaviour, and @19 makes the best point…parents need to teach their kids both how to deal with real life, and how not to be a dickhead. I don’t think that it is too Mayberry, but kids in the 70’s took shit and gave shit, but generally weren’t damaging others. Their were always exceptions, and adults seemed to be more willing to step in the middle of those cases. Agree that LGBT youth were certainly less visible then, and that was a challenge we may not have addressed as well as it should be addressed now.
@ 24; BTR: I’m with you. One of the most important steps in coming out (which I myself did when I was 27 {I’m 42 now}) is *knowing* you can handle what may or may not come your way by way of others’ intolerance, harrassment and/or bullshit.
Know yourself, your attributes, as well as your limitations, and go from there.
No one has power over you anymore once you take it all back for yourself, the way anyone deserves: gay, straight or fucking alien lol.
Argh! Phones await! Come to Pigeon Park: they await you ;-D +~+
I think a column devoted to monogamous couples is on par with having a straight pride parade.
@ 26; sadinoe: Monogamy’s only boring when you’re with the wrong person altogether. Get back to me when you happen to walk into true love (sixteen+years and counting!) and you find you’ve found *everything* you ever wanted and/or needed in one person.
One of My True Love is better than 1,000 of anyone else! That, and My Babe Gets Me Hot in the sack and in the mind (the heart, too <3 🙂 ).
I’d have a straight pride parade just to watch the horses take a dump in the middle of the street lol ;-D.
Did this Eliza Byard get the majority of Dan’s salary this week, since the entire response to the first question was all from her & not him?
Pretty sweet racket, pretending to write an advice column that occasionally gets passed over to someone else to do the work!
@ 27 (pigeon park)
I don’t think sadinoe was saying monogamy was boring; I think they were saying it was the norm, and totally accepted and acknowledged, and didn’t need any encouragement. Monogamists are not a persecuted minority, and giving them a lot of extra support and visibility is kind of coals to Newcastle.
That said, it’s always nice to hear about a working alternative lifestyle, and monogamy is one of those. But it’s not exactly lacking in social approval.
@16, for me what happened was that I discovered that apparently some people use the negotiation system differently. When they say “this is a hard limit, I don’t want this,” they mean — “this is what I really fantasize about, but can’t ask for.”
That’s not how I use it (and I think they’re out of their minds, personally), but I ran into a top who was (a) inexperienced overall, and (b) the experience he had was with people who negotiated that crazy way.
So when I took rough anal off the table, he heard me saying that’s what I really wanted more than anything.
At the time, I just thought he was an asshole who ignored hard limits, but I’ve run into tops & bottoms since then who see the scenario from his perspective, so now I see him as clueless, not an asshole.
So, yeah, bad can mean a lot of different things. Talk to people about their worst scenes, to get some insight into what to watch out for, but realize that you can’t plan for everything…
Sorry about the stupid lawyer, Dan. The most bizarre thing to come out of that story is the our useless excuse for a government actually did the right thing shortly afterwards and made it clear that all marriages were indeed legal in Canada. I’ve never agreed with them before… and probably won’t again.
@ 29, Gaudior: Thanks for clarifying what I couldn’t at the time.
I’m beginning to think that just having a solid, rewarding, fulLfilling relationship *is* the minority after all!
Anyone can love or do what they want. I rarely ever get caught up in the “ism”s, or the catch-phrases, buzzwords; all of that bullshit.
I never thought I would be as monogamous as I am, and I’m gay! Who thought that shit was even still possible anymore?
🙂
(Blessed Am I, Blessed Go I, and all that good 🙂 stuff 😉 ) +~+
@ 30, Hi EricaP. I have read in here for quite some time, and I enjoy what you have to say and share in here, so *thanks* 🙂 .
It is sometimes hard enough to establish openness and intimacy to be able to say what you are into…and to making your wishes and dreams become a reality.
*Talking about* what gets either of us hot is what gets me hot. ALL a precursor and foreplay, if you will… But then, I’m still hot as fuck for The Love Of My Life 16+Years On!
Pretty wild, man.
But Moreover…
Beautiful 🙂 .
+~+
Mr Park – I’ve observed that most people don’t have the capacity to find *everything* they ever wanted or needed in one person; that requires a unique practitioner. Good for you.
And I never expected to *attract* monogamous partners who would match my own tendencies, but did. Who knew? All that time I spent preparing to accommodate non-monogamy – wasted, when I could have been mastering Swedish. (I’d never dare attempt Latvian, as then Mrs Ank would deliberately reinforce and expand Miss Ank’s homophobia by way of revenge.)
DSS– Advice for when he starts dating– Give your son a huge number of reminders that sex and emotion go hand and hand. Logically they don’t have to. Possibly they won’t for some one at some time. But they will go together enough of the time that he should be prepared to accept responsibility for that. In other words, he’s going to experiment; he’s going to get his heart broken, and he’s going to break someone’s heart. That doesn’t mean that he shouldn’t experiment. It means that he should proceed with caution.
Encourage him to keep a harassment/teasing diary. Others have noticed that there’s no clear line between the sort of insult that kids should learn to brush off and deal with (yo-mama jokes that go both ways for instance) and targeted harassment that no one should have to endure. Since it can be hard to know when one turns into the other, a diary can help identify.
Make sure he has friends! A single friend can make all the difference. In order to make sure he has friends without getting too intrusive into his life, you have to be perfect hosts. Offer to do the driving when the young teens want to do something like go to the mall or the park or whatever teens do in your part of the world. Make your home the hang out where kids want to be. I don’t know if that means ping pong or a trampoline or the best video games or great cookies and milk. (Obviously it’s not enticing the kids over with alcohol or porn, but you knew that.)
Know your son’s friends’ parents before problems arise. If they don’t arise, no problem with knowing a few more adults. If they do, you’ll be calling someone you have a previous relationship with, not calling to complain out of the blue.
Can you think of a role model/mentor? No matter how great your communication with your son is, he may have some question or concern he’d rather talk to a gay adult about rather than his straight parents. Is there anyone in your community you could introduce him to? Someone with a sterling reputation who wouldn’t mind being called in for the role? Be upfront about what you’re doing. “My gay son may want a gay adult to talk to some time, so I thought I’d introduce the two of you now.” Then, as with all of your son’s friends, you keep track of the relationship so your son still knows he can come to you if something disturbs him.
I thought “cacao” was the standard safe word to be used in all BDSM situations. Hunh. Guess Portlandia isn’t as reliable as I thought for information about kink.
auntie grizelda@15 (h/t Hunter @36) – I thought you were kidding when I saw your post, but are you in fact dating now? Either way, sending warm hugs your way.
@4/33 – thanks for the kind words!
@7, I don’t think the advice was stereotypical; in general it would be, but to treat a gay kid’s boyfriend the way you would a girlfriend is good advice for a parent who had the preconceived notion that they would need to be welcoming to a girl. Of course, the preconceived notion isn’t ideal, but it probably isn’t bigotry in this case. I’m as supportive of the gay community as the next person but the fact is that we live in a heteronormative society. Most people are straight, and I don’t think this parent who is clearly trying to do the right thing can be faulted for not knowing what exactly to do with a boyfriend instead of a girlfriend.
@7, In this case it’s good advice to treat the boyfriends like the parents would if they were girlfriends. DSS is the product of a heteronormative society where the vast majority of people are straight and he and his partner are clearly trying to do what is best for their kid and they needed advice. The simile was a succinct way to communicate to them how boyfriends of their gay child should be treated.
I’m having a hard time picturing someone getting laughed out of a BDSM community for using “safeword” as a safeword. Let’s try it on for size:
“You know that scene was really hot until you used ‘safeword’ as a safeword. Don’t you know scene etiquette requires you to use some cryptic word like ‘grapefruit’? Seriously, get the hell out of my club and don’t come back again.”
Nope. Not seeing that happening. But if you want to get a few chuckles, use “aardvark” or something like that. Not because it’s poor form or anything; it’s just because “aardvark” is a really funny word.
@7
+1 for reinforcing gender role stereotypes of males being sexual predators and females hapless victims with no desire or agency of their own. Keep up the good work.
The parent who “doesn’t care about [their son’s] sexuality” might need to rethink that phrasing. (“I don’t care” sounds a bit hostile.)
I care about my kids’ sexuality, and I’m sure that this person cares about their kids’ as well. I think what the LW means to say is that “I am neutral about my son’s sexual orientation, but want to support his developing sexuality so that it becomes a source of joy, inspiration and love for his lifetime.”
Also, the bit about how the letter writer is still waiting for the good feelings of being special and different also deserve discussion. It’s probably totally normal for this parent to have mixed feelings, and right now it’s probably anxiety for their son’s peer experience (which Dan handles really well) that is overwhelming them. I’m sure they are also deeply proud of their son’s bravery and his honesty, and – every parent’s favorite! – that he came to them and talked to them directly about an extremely vulnerable topic. Well done, parents! : )
Between 7 and 43, I’m putting my vote with 7. Sure, maybe it is stereotypical, but it’s not harmfully stereotypical. Treat your son’s boyfriends the way you would treat your daughter’s boyfriends. That is, encourage friendship, caution, care, caution, laughs, caution, things in common, and caution. Don’t forget caution. That’s not accusing all boys of being sexual predators, a sexual stereotype that they will somehow grow into. Nor is it insuring that girls have no agency. It’s acknowledging a potential and using — caution.
@ 34: Hi Venominnon (reads like phenomenon with a ‘v’! That’s crafty! Good one.)
And Thank You for addressing me as Mr. Park lol. Pidge, or Didgey: any addressed name aside from a’hole is kosher with me ;).
But I mercifully digress…
I suppose what it is, Ven (if I may call you that 🙂 ), is that I only ever wanted to find someone who clicked with me, got and was quick to reciprocate on the wavelength, and the fact that they’re gorgeous, smart and strong is an additional bonus.
He’s my best friend, and I lucked out beyond a beyond to have run into him so many years ago, and now we are still here: hard-won, happy and proud for the work and the faith, you know?
Life could be worse! Thanks for the feedback and rock on with your bad self!
Graciously Yours,
Mr. Park
😉
@AuntieGrizelda, congrats also from my neck of the woods! Enjoy!
@EricaP, when I saw you referring both AuntieGrizelda and Hunter78 in your post congratulating her, my neurons got crossed and I somehow interpreted it as you saying Griz and Hunt were going out together. I was about to say, and do they know each other in a non-www way?
(Sorry to visibly hog airtime here, but if I may…)
For D.S.S.: It already seems like you’ve got it together in how to be there for your son. It’s sooooooooo a whole ‘nother universe (really) since when I came out fifteen years ago: at age twenty-seven. Here it all is in 2012, the internet, shows like ‘Glee’ making gay as offensive as a handshake: kids today have so much information (good and bad) to draw upon, to find themselves much quicker than I ever would have back in ‘my’ day.
13, man: my one nephew came out at 16 (about seven years ago). He’s a successful graphic artist for Walt Disney World imagery in Florida now.. Hard-working, healthy, focused, successful.. Everyone grows up so damn fast nowadays..
Your son should be applauded for such a strong, keen sense of self at such a young age. It’s a testament to your love and good parenting that he’s able to take such a bold, self-assured, strong step into his own life.
Awesome.
Dan’s words and resources likewise are awesome.
Thanks for that.
@ L2: There has to be some sort of safe-word, unless yer both mutual masochists or something lol. I kinda like “safe word” as the safe word.
It’s a bit like the goof of getting a tattoo that just says “tattoo”! 😀 Nice! (And Effective.)
@ L3: Couple Of Compatible Keepers/C.O.C.K.: I relate. Hey, I too expected I would wind up going through the run-of-the-mill motions of several partners in my lifetime.. Somehow, love ran into me and took over from there.. That’s pretty much it in a peanut shell. A lot of hard work and solid love for the hanging on, but there you go. It can still happen. It happened to me and I didn’t even look!
🙂
@ 47, Ankylosaur: If I may…
Yes. The Grizmeister and Great #78 met in the market.. I think it had something to do with frozen spinach falling on top of one’s head, if memory serves (and it tends to serve well 🙂 ).
At any rate, greetings and bonhomie from upstate New York, my neurons get crossed and refracted all of the time and that all is just part of the ride, man lol 😉 .
Cheers.
@ That silly, disturbingly-ugly mug of Rick Santorum’s in that ad above: I hereby rename it “Rick Santorum For 2012 Slaps Upside The Head”.
Slap, knuckle-punch, it’s up to you lol.
re: safeword. Did anybody see House of Lies on Sunday (super funny, I love Don Cheadle). Anyway, there’s a sex scene where she’s protesting, and he keeps saying say the safeword, say the safeword.
So I guess my point is, by #23’s definition of safeword (which I think is very good) safeword as a safeword could be confusing because you could use it playing but not mean it as a safeword.
just say popcorn and KISS.
Fine, in the interests of fair and equal representation I guess we can print some monogamous letters like COCK wants. Sounds pretty fucking boring to me, though. “Hey, Dan! We have a normal relationship! It’s normal!”
A special column for monogamous couples sounds to me kinda like when clueless white people ask why there’s a special Black Entertainment Television: it’s because every single other channel is White Entertainment Television, dummy.
Anyway, I guess let’s try to be open-minded and run it. That doesn’t mean I have to like it, though.