My 14-year-old son just came
out to me. He has a slightly older boyfriend, and they’re going to the
school dance on Saturday night. I am adjusting to a truth I had long
suspected. I am worried, though, that my son will get hurt. We live in
the South—North Carolina—but our town has a gay community
and an annual pride parade. When I asked him if the other students at
school would be cool with him bringing a boy, he said, “Who cares?”
Bullying is not a huge problem at his school.
We have had the sex talk several times, but
I have always assumed a hetero approach. I think my son is too young
for sleepovers with his boyfriend, and I would really like him to wait
a couple more years before he gets seriously sexually active, though I
expect petting and kissing are givens. Any advice?
Still My...
...to wait
a couple more years before he gets seriously sexually active, though I
expect petting and kissing are givens. Any advice?
Still My Son
Treat your son to some of that equal
treatment we gay people are always going on about, SMS, and treat him
just like you’d treat your 14-year-old straight kid. No responsible
parent would allow his 14-year-old daughter—and that’s how you
should think of him for now (more on that in a moment)—to have
sleepovers with her slightly older boyfriend, right? So no sleepovers
for your gay kid. Remember: You can be supportive and be his advocate
without signing off on stuff you wouldn’t sign off on for a straight
child—indeed, it’s the best way to show your support.
What else can you do? You can hover,
scrutinize, interfere—all the crap that parents typically do when
their children begin to date. For instance, SMS, this boy your son is
seeing? Have you met him? Meet him. How much older is he? Find out. Are
they messing around? Ask them. Make sure your son understands that he
doesn’t have to engage in anal intercourse to be authentically gay, or
all grown-up, or out. He can take things slow—he should take
things slow. Encourage your son to date, to hold hands, to make out.
And you should, as awkward as it’s going to feel to say so aloud,
encourage your son, when he does become sexually active, to stick with
mutual masturbation and oral sex for a good, long time—until he’s
sure he’s ready for intercourse, not just anxious for it.
Getting back to the daughter business: You
should also regard your son, at least through his adolescence, as more
of a daughter to you than a son. We tend to be more protective of our
daughters—our straight daughters—than we are of our sons.
Why? A sexist desire to keep our daughters “pure”? That’s a part of it,
sure, but there’s also this: Men are pigs, and people on the receiving
end of male sexual desire/attention are in more danger than people on
the receiving end of female sexual desire/attention. (In
general—individual results may vary.) Testosterone is the crystal
meth of hormones, a badass drug, and men are more likely to be abusive
and violent. The prevalence of HIV among gay men makes the stakes
higher for your son. So don’t allow him to date anyone you don’t get to
meet and approve of, and don’t confuse “being supportive” with “letting
him do whatever/whomever he wants.” Be active, be engaged, and never
stop being his meddling, interfering, hypersuspicious dad.
Good luck, SMS. It sounds like your son
lucked out having you as a parent.
I’ve been seeing this guy for
about two years. We’ve been living together for six months now, and
it’s been REALLY bumpy. We fight a lot, I cry a lot, and it just gets
really messy. To tell you the truth, I’m tired of it. I work two jobs,
and I never get any time to myself because he’s moody and insecure. He
always wants to know where I’m going or who I’m with. He doesn’t like
to do the same things I do, and I’m beginning to think this is all one
big mistake. The problem is every time I try to leave, it always gets
ugly. Ugly to the point that he’s thrown my stuff in the front yard,
broken things of mine, and even called me names. He’s abusive.
As sad as this sounds, and as ridiculous as
I feel, I want to make this work. I want us to be happy. And the thing
is, I know that we can be. When we’re mad, it’s like World War III over
here. But when we’re happy, it’s so blissful that I know in my heart
with him is the only place I want to be. What can I do? People tell me
it’s time to sever ties, but the people who usually tell me this are
the ones who can’t stand him. How can I make a completely unbiased
decision? Am I stupid for believing in a love that feels destined to
fail?
Hopelessly Devoted To Him
This is not a relationship, HDTH, it’s a
hostage situation. He’s a controlling, abusive piece of
shit—listen to your fucking friends, HDTH. When
your boyfriend breaks your shit, he’s making an implicit threat: I
can break your face just as easily as I’m breaking your shit, bitch, so
don’t even think about leaving me. And of course things are
great when they’re great—that’s part of an abuser’s MO. If
abusers were abusive 24/7—if they weren’t capable of doling out a
little bliss now and then—no abusive relationship would last
longer than one date. Like all abusers, he parcels out the good times,
doping you up with a little bliss now and then, because he knows that
these glimpses of how great things could be convince you to
stick around against your better judgment.
The bliss is a con, HDTH, a weapon that he
uses against you, just as much a part of the cycle of abuse as his
tantrums, fits, and threats of violence are. Think of the good times as
rainbow sprinkles on a dog-shit sundae—sprinkles or no sprinkles,
you’re still standing there with a bowlful of dog shit in your
hands.
Get a couple of friends to come over when
he’s at work or out of town, box up your shit, and leave. You can’t
change him. Go.
Apropos of nothing, Savage,
you fucking suck ass.
You And Your Column Both Suck
Have I ever claimed otherwise?
And apropos of nothing, YAYCBS, I’m totally
grooving on Garfunkel & Oates right now (www.garfunkelandoates.com), and
everyone has to check them out; Perez Hilton was absolutely right about
Miss California (she is a dumb bitch); Seattle-based artist Kim
Graham (www.kimgrahamstudios.com) is
getting centaur fetishists halfway there; and I recently visited the
University of Georgia in Athens, where the kids asked me to come up
with a dirty meaning for “between the hedges,” which is their football
stadium’s nickname. Off the top of my head, I said, “The boy in a
girl-boy-girl three-way could be described as being between the
hedges.” But upon further reflection, I think the term is a better
description of going down on a woman with a particularly hairy
bush—and the tongue, not the boy/girl doing the tonguing, is
“between the hedges.”
mail@savagelove.net