I don't know. He looks perfectly straight to me.
;-)
Posted on 04/27/2005 12:37:00 PM PDT by Behind Liberal Lines
Ritch Savin-Williams, professor of clinical and developmental psychology and chair of the human development department at Cornell University has studied teenagers for more than 30 years. His new book, The New Gay Teenager, documents new developments in adolescent sexuality, including a level of comfort in diversity their elders could only envy. Today's teens, says Savin-Williams, generally don't require a sexual definition in order to express who they are.
And being oneself might be anywhere on a broad sexual spectrum between having thoughts of attraction toward someone of the same sex to dating to having sexual experiences, with both the opposite sex and same-sex partners.
And teens are getting many of these diversity messages from media models and their parents, says Savin-Williams. Among them, "That same-sex sexuality is not such a big deal - not so much as in my generation, when it was hugely a big deal. In fact, if we gave high school kids the right to vote, we'd have same-sex marriage."
This in itself may not be a surprise because political and social experimentation are also a part of the teen years, "Sometimes when I interview my college students, even they are amazed at what's going on with the younger kids," Savin-Williams says.
"Here's what's intriguing," he continues. "The fact is that high school kids reflect their parents. Issues like racism and sexism are not declining with their cohorts. This is the one 'ism' that seems to have the widest generation gap. Why? I'm only speculating, but somehow, they don't think this will be adaptive for their kids in the future."
And as more and more people disclose same-sex sexuality - including friends, family members and admired celebrities - it can be increasingly difficult and unrewarding to divide into "us-and-them" exclusions.
"There is a reality that even those mammoth differences that used to exist are getting considerably smaller," he says.
Also, the definition of "gay" is increasingly harder to pin down. "For me, the word gay is technically a sexual identity label. What has happened is that it's become a very generic word to refer to anyone with same-sex attractions. I'm referring to a much wider group of things. I'm hoping we can accept a wide range on the sexual spectrum - most of us are somewhere in between [gay and heterosexual]," he notes.
For many people of all ages, love is situational, based on the person rather than gender. "If that were really freed up, you'd find a lot of same-sex couples [who would say], 'That's now what I am, this is who I love.'" Interestingly, these relationships are not an accurate predictor of the person's sexual future. This holds true particularly for young women, Savin-Williams explains. "[Women] tend to be more fluid, not exclusively genitally focused. Increasingly, I'm finding boys who are of the same belief and attitude. That gives me hope.
"I know male individuals who are gay but married and in love with a woman. That's there all along the spectrum - they fell in love with the woman but that's not their primary sexual attraction," he said.
On the flip side, he explains, a straight person could fall in love with someone of the same sex. "In the past, they would never pursue this. Now in the same-sex-friendly youth culture, the straight people could pursue their romantic relationships without being tied to only one sex," Savin-Williams says. "If we could build relationships on love rather than on genitals, that's probably more conducive to what we are or should be as human beings.
Debbie Tennant, a guidance counselor at Ithaca High School for he past 15 years, still sees occasional name-calling. "Kids are more accepting of the differences, but not always - some kids will be quick to label someone and use some labels people used in the 1970s and lash out in very hurtful ways," she says.
At the same time, she adds, "There are wonderful kids in the Gay-Straight Alliance, and they're confident and proud, regardless of who they are, enjoying their friends for who they are."
Di Constantinides, an educator for Planned Parenthood and one of the advisors to Ithaca High School's Gay-Straight Alliance, points out that a lot of the students in the group don't identify as gay but might have gay parents, siblings or close friends.
"I think that in lots of ways Ithaca is really lucky," Costantinides says. "It's very liberal, and people who have liberal attitudes do have an effect on the atmosphere. The right-wing ideology also does - it's not a place free of those. That's definitely in Ithaca and in Ithaca High school but we're a little shifted to the left because of the way politics goes."
The freedom to be oneself - whoever and whatever one is - offers tremendous possibilities to everyone, Savin-Williams says. "I do believe that this opening up of sexuality to acceptance does profit all of us in very significant ways. It allows straight people to have more flexibility, allows people to meet on more equal terms, so I don't keep looking for a person with particular genitalia but the person who is attracted to me as a person."
....my daughter is in middle school and says there are a few "gay" girls there. ....IN MIDDLE SCHOOL... I told her that those girls are too young to make that decision, they are not even supposed to be having sex. It is so scary that they are taught so young that this is okay.
An excerpt from "Psychiatrist "Reassures" Parents About Lesbian Experimentation"
"... The article describes a parent-faculty meeting at The Spence School, a private enclave overlooking Central Park, where several eighth-grade girls had declared themselves "bisexual." The school called in a Harvard-educated psychiatrist, Dr. Justin Richardson--himself a gay man--to reassure the parents that lesbian experimentation is common, and that it was too soon to know if they would be lesbians or heterosexuals.
At the all-girl Brearly School two weeks earlier, Dr. Richardson told a parent group to advise their daughters as young as nine years old that they, too, may have sex with other girls in the future. "It is a good idea," he said, "to mention that people have sex with members of the same sex sometimes, and that when they grow up they may have friends that do that--and that it may be something that they themselves do."
"A small but growing number of students," the Times article reported, "have come out at these schools, or at least say that bisexuality is stylish." Parents are concerned, and Dr. Richardson--"pedigreed, carefully-spoken, determinedly nonthreatening--has become the schools' gay issues consultant of choice" because he is "sane and clear," according to the Spence headmaster...
The mother of a Brearly seventh grader expressed some reservations after the meeting with Dr. Richardson. "It almost seems like they're presenting homosexuality to the kids as the cool thing to do...Girls' schools...pride themselves on 'Girls can do anything,' so it almost gets to the point of, 'Who needs men?' Dr. Richardson admitted that students often tell him that "bisexuality is in vogue..."
I encourage everyone to get a copy of the book The Death of Right and Wrong: Exposing the Left's Assault on Our Culture and Values by Tammy Bruce, and read Chapter Four: First the Culture, Then the Children: The Agenda of the Radical Gay Elite and Chapter Seven: Destruction of the Innocents: The Left Targets Children.
Excerpts from Chapter Four:
"The radicals in control of the gay establishment want children in their world of moral decay, lack of self-restraint, and moral relativism. Why? How better to truly belong to the majority (when you're really on the fringe) than by taking possession of the next generation? By targeting children, you can start indoctrinating the next generation with the false construct that gay people deserve special treatment and special laws." (Pg.88)
"I believe this grab for children by the sexually confused adults of the Gay Elite repesents the most serious problem facing our culture today." (Pg.94)
"Between GLSEN, the Happy Penis, Phil, and now Kami, I'd say the Gay Elite have your children as a captive audience. Whether you like it or not, they have appointed themselves your children's moral tutor." (pg.119)
Compare what Tammy Bruce has written with the following articles:
Targeting Children - How the gay movement intends to capture the next generation
Targeting Children - Part three: Activists encouraging experimentation
Targeting Children - Part four: Access to children: homosexuality and molestation
Additional information posted here and here.
Kids need to know that 'Gay' is NOT OK.
BTTT
I don't know. He looks perfectly straight to me.
;-)
The September 2002 issue of American Enterprise had an article about how the nation's colleges are not merely overrun by liberals, but that there are so many liberals on campus that conservatives are virtually non-existent.
And one of the worst offenders? You guessed it: Cornell University (no wonder they call it "the Big Red"), of which only approximately three percent of its professors are "republican" or "conservative." (Ithaca college only had approximately six percent).
How bad is three percent compared to other colleges of note? Let's put it this way: not only is it lower than Harvard (recently in the news for ITS skewed faculty population), but is even lower than Berkeley!
Brearley's headmistress swings from the opposite side of the plate too.
So he's recommending that being a slut and having sex with ANYONE, anytime, is a good thing for teenagers, that it is somehow 'freeing'?
Indoctrination is right!! The same thing has happened with homosexuality as happened with abortion. There was a concerted effort, after Roe v Wade to change the public's mind to a position that, if not ACCEPTING abortion, then at least tolerating it. They started doing this with homosexuality with shows like "Will and Grace", and even with decorating shows with homosexual couples re-doing their homes, etc. With MTV, it's more salacious, but I'd expect that of folks beating the kids over the head with it. They want to push the envelope with them cause they figured that wouldn't work with adults who had already formed opinions about the lifestyle.
"It's amazing how so-called "intellectuals" really can't think their ideas through"
Oh, I can assure you these ideas have been thought through.
I believe that sex should only happen between a man and woman married to each other. This happens to be the Christian moral position as well. People have a right not to accept it, but they have no right to use public funds and platforms to impose their views on others. Teaching this man's moral views in high schools should be unacceptable. College is probably allowable.
Of course. In the space of a couple generations, we have sown enough intellectual and moral doubt among our young people to cripple them, in time.
If you don't check the organ donor box, you're selfish.
If you're not a rabid recylcler, you hate the earth and all its people.
If you don't embrace homosexuality as a "lifestyle" as valid as any heterosexual marriage, you are intolerant, hateful, and a really, really bad person.
BTTT
Ya got a bad, bad case of astigmatism, eh, BLL? LOL!
My sister is a guidance counselor at a MS. She says there are a number of male and female students in the 6th and 7th grade who identify as homosexual until she ask them if they know what that means. After she explains it to them she tends to get the "yuk I'm not like that" response. She says most of these kids are the wall flower types who are looking for acceptance and often find it from the members of the G-S alliance group. For my money that sounds like recruitment of the vulnerable. I am not sure why a publicly funded school should allow a homosexual advocacy group to exist on their campus.
Today's teens, says Savin-Williams, generally don't require a sexual definition in order to express who they are.
Say what?
And teens are getting many of these diversity messages from media models . . .
"Media models". It could certainly be that he means role models like actors or news anchors, but I think he means characters in fictional stories, "media" or reached out in a projection type format.
This would be social engineering, and, since every tiny part of a story is contrived, deliberate social engineering. Remember when actors and actresses playing pregnant or birthing characters in the soaps would get a flood of gifts?
"Sometimes when I interview my college students, even they are amazed at what's going on with the younger kids," Savin-Williams says.
This 'way too fast for a society normally evolving toward beneficial and stable governing principles.
. . . it can be increasingly difficult and unrewarding to divide into "us-and-them" exclusions.. . .
There will always be an "us and them" when it involves disgusting behaviors made so by the antithesis of same to basic paradigms of physical reality.
Also, the definition of "gay" is increasingly harder to pin down. . . .most of us are somewhere in between [gay and heterosexual]," he notes.
Right. 3% homosexual and 97% heterosexual.
For many people of all ages, love is situational, based on the person rather than gender.
Certainly. Most folks have a close friend that they love, but he's not talking about love; he's talking about greasing each other.
I'm convinced that's how most teenagers get involved in the lifestyle, especially boys. Up until a few years ago, women were drawn into lesbianisn in college as a way to a feminist protest against all men. Now the media is driving this for girls in middle and high school as a way to seem sophisticated.
This is so gagsome.
"I do believe that this opening up of sexuality to acceptance does profit all of us in very significant ways."
Notice the codewording. If sexuality is innate, as you point out, why would it "open up"; and more to the point, why is it desirable that it "open up"? Does he mean that homosexuals should "open up" to the possibility that their preoccupation is a paraphilia, to the possibility that their bodies are designed to cooperate with a member of the opposite sex?
Somehow, I think the only "opening up" he has in mind involves cute young men and boys.
You-got-that-right bump.
Like Ted Bundy "thinking through" a hot date.
Concurring this-is-all-recruitment bump.
This guy isn't talking about love; he's talking about luuuuuuuuuv!
Or in his case, about skinning himself some callow chicken.
These homoliberal predators are training those kids to join a sexual Children's Crusade. These "teachers" will never, in this world, be fully punishable commensurate with the burden of their betrayal of their charges. We are talking here about a thoroughly decadent educator who is smacking his lips over a prospective toll of boys.
You forgot the projectile-emesis warning.
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