Children that age-at or near puberty-are highly suggestible, curious, influenced by pleasure and are easy targets for sexual predators of both genders-they do not come up with being “gay” all by themselves.
Most of the people I know or worked with who were homosexual/lesbian admitted that they were sexually abused at that age by an older relative or friend of the same gender.
Those who were heterosexual and compulsively promiscuous-also called sexual addiction- had been abused/raped by someone of the opposite gender, and equated sex with love and acceptance. Kids at that stage in life are adrift in a hormonal ocean, and their interactions with those who may have ulterior motives should be monitored-you don’t let your 11-13 year old spend time alone with that 17-18 year old who flatters them and watches them in what seems to be an inappropriate way.
You can’t trust to prayers and teaching alone to keep a kid from harm-parents have to be helicopters at the time a kid is vulnerable...
Everything you say is correct.
On a lighter note, I wish we could return to the days of Bye, Bye Birdie when one of the characters exclaims: “I didn’t know what puberty was until I was past it!”