Bullying in Schools: Harassment Puts Gay Youth at Risk

I found this at Mental Health America's website:

Bullying in Schools: Harassment Puts Gay Youth at Risk

While trying to deal with all the challenges of being a teenager, gay/ lesbian/ bisexual/ transgender (GBLT) teens additionally have to deal with harassment, threats, and violence directed at them on a daily basis. They hear anti-gay slurs such as “homo”, “faggot” and “sissy” about 26 times a day or once every 14 minutes.[1] Even more troubling, a study found that thirty-one percent of gay youth had been threatened or injured at school in the last year alone![2]

Their mental health and education, not to mention their physical well-being, are at-risk.
How is their mental health being affected?

Gay and lesbian teens are at high risk because ‘their distress is a direct result of the hatred and prejudice that surround them,’ not because of their inherently gay or lesbian identity orientation.[3]

Gay, lesbian, and bisexual youth are two to three times more likely to attempt suicide than their heterosexual counterparts.[4]

How is their education being affected?

Gay teens in U.S. schools are often subjected to such intense bullying that they’re unable to receive an adequate education.[5] They’re often embarrassed or ashamed of being targeted and may not report the abuse.

GLBT students are more apt to skip school due to the fear, threats, and property vandalism directed at them.[6] One survey revealed that 22 percent of gay respondents had skipped school in the past month because they felt unsafe there.[7]

Twenty-eight percent of gay students will drop out of school. This is more than three times the national average for heterosexual students.[8]

GLBT youth feel they have nowhere to turn. According to several surveys, four out of five gay and lesbian students say they don’t know one supportive adult at school.[9]

What can we do to help?

Schools should offer a safe and respectful learning environment for everyone. When bullying is allowed to take place, it affects everyone. For every GLBT youth who reported being targeted for anti-gay harassment, four heterosexual youth reported harassment or violence for being perceived as gay or lesbian.[10] Also, we know that bullying was a contributing factor in the Columbine shootings and other school violence. Students, teachers, and school administrators who look the other way are contributing to the problem. In contrast, kids who said that they had a supportive faculty or openly gay staff member were more likely to feel as if they belong in their school.[11]

Help end bullying at your school with the following actions:

Be alert to signs of distress.

Work with student councils to have programs on respect, school safety, and anti-bullying.
Ask school personnel to have a discussion at an assembly or an after school activity about gay prejudice.

Help start a Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN) chapter at your local high school.

Youth whose schools had these kinds of groups were less likely to have reported feeling unsafe in their schools.[12] Arrange for a group like GLSEN to present bullying prevention activities and programs at your school.

Do encourage anyone who’s being bullied to tell a teacher, counselor, coach, nurse, or his or her parents or guardians.

If the bullying continues, report it yourself.

Association of Gay and Lesbian Psychiatrists

4514 Chester Avenue Philadelphia, PA 19143-3707

Phone Number: (215) 222-2800

Website URL: http://www.aglp.org/

The Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network

90 Broad Street, 2nd Floor New York, New York 10004

Phone Number: (212) 727-0135 Fax Number: (212) 727-0254

Email Address: glsen@glsen.org

Website URL: http://www.glsen.org/

Human Rights Campaign

1640 Rhode Island Avenue NW Washington, DC 20036-3278

Phone Number: (202) 628-4160

Toll-Free Number: (800) 777-4723

TTY: (202) 216-1572

Fax Number: (202) 347-5323

Email Address: hrc@hrc.org

Website URL: http://www.hrc.org/

Human Rights Watch

350 Fifth Avenue, 34th floorNew York, NY 10118-3299 USA

Phone Number: (212) 290-4700

Fax Number: (212) 736-1300

Email Address: hrwnyc@hrw.orgWebsite

URL: http://www.hrw.org/

Parents, Families, and Friends of Lesbians and Gays

1726 M Street, NW, Suite 400Washington, D.C. 20036

Phone Number: (202) 467-8180Fax Number: (202) 467-8194

Email Address: info@pflag.org

Website URL: http://www.pflag.org/

References
[1] Bart, M. Creating a safer school for gay students. Counseling Today, September 1998

[2] Chase, Anthony. "Violent Reaction; What do Teen Killers have in Common?" In These Times. 9 July 2001

[3] Norton, Terry L., and Jonathan W. Vare. "Understanding Gay and Lesbian Youth: Sticks, Stones, and Silence." 17 July 1998: 3Lexis Nexis. 20 June 2002

[4] Report from the Secretary's Task Force on Youth Suicide (Paul Gibson, US Department of Health and Human Services), 1989

[5] Chase, Anthony. "Violent Reaction; What do Teen Killers have in Common?" In TheseTimes. 9 July 2001: 3.

[6] Garofalo, R. Wolf, R.C., Kessel, S., Palfrey., J (1998) Pediatrics, 101 (5), 895-902

[7] Chase, Anthony. "Violent Reaction; What do Teen Killers have in Common?" In These Times. 9 July 2001

[8] Bart, M. Creating a safer school for gay students. Counseling Today, September 1998

[9] Sessions Stepp, Laura. "A Lesson in Cruelty: Anti-Gay Slurs Common at School; Some Say Insults Increase as Gays' Visibility Rises." The Washington Post 19 June 2001

[10] Reis, B. (1996). Safe Schools Anti-Violence Documentation Project, Third Annual Report. Seattle: Safe Schools Coalition[11] The 2001 National School Climate Survey, GLSEN, p.35[12] Ibid.

Are Gay Relationships Different?

Here are some excerpts from an article in Time Magazine online which I think is worth reading.

Research on gay relationships is young. The first study to observe how gays
and lesbians interact with their partners during conversations (monitoring
facial expressions, vocal tones, emotional displays and physical reactions like
changes in heart rate) wasn't published until 2003, even though such studies
have long been a staple of hetero-couple research. John Gottman, a renowned
couples therapist who was then at the University of Washington, and Robert
Levenson, a psychology professor at the University of California, Berkeley, led
a team that evaluated 40 same-sex couples and 40 straight married couples.

The psychologists concluded that gays and lesbians are nicer than straight
people during arguments with partners: they are significantly less belligerent,
less domineering and less fearful. Gays and lesbians also use humor more often
when arguing (and lesbians use even more humor than gays, which I hereby dub
"the Ellen DeGeneres effect"). The authors concluded that "heterosexual
relationships may have a great deal to learn from homosexual
relationships."

But Gottman and Levenson also found that when gay men initiate
difficult discussions with their partners, the partners are worse than straight
or lesbian couples at "repairing"--essentially, making up. Gottman and Levenson
suggest that couples therapists should thus focus on helping gay men learn to
repair.

The author of the article asks:

Why would gays show more beneficence in arguments, do a worse job of
repairing after bad fights and find palpitation satisfying? Researchers have
long noted that because gender roles are less relevant in gay and lesbian
relationships--it's a canard that in most gay couples, one partner plays
wife--those relationships are often more equal than heterosexual marriages.

Both guys do the dishes; both women grill the steaks. Straight couples
often argue along gender lines: the men are at turns angry and distant, the
women more prone to lugubrious bursts. Gays and lesbians may be less tetchy
during quarrels because they aren't forced into a particular role.

He finds an answer with this:

"In heterosexual couples," Levenson says, "men become very sensitive to
their wives' sadness and anger. It's toxic to most straight men and
disappointing. They want their wives to idolize them, and they are very, very
good anger detectors. And they don't see any of it as funny. In gay couples,
there's a sense of 'We're angry, but isn't this funny?'"

No one is sure why gay men are worse at making up after fights, but I have a theory: it's less important for their sex lives. Probably because they don't have women to
restrain their evolutionarily male sexual appetites, gay men are more likely
than straight and lesbian couples to agree to nonmonogamy, which decreases the
stakes for not repairing. And according to a big study from Norway published in
The Journal of Sex Research in 2006, gay men also consume more porn than
everyone else, making them more "partner-independent."

The author shares more of his thoughts:

That's one reason gays and lesbians end relationships sooner than
heterosexuals. In a 2004 paper, psychology professor Lawrence Kurdek of Wright
State University in Ohio reported that over a 12-year period, 21% of gay and
lesbian couples broke up; only 14% of married straight couples did. Too many gay
relationships are pulled by the crosscurrents of childhood pain, adult
expectation and gay-community pathologies like meth addiction. Kurdek has also
found that members of gay and lesbian couples are significantly more
self-conscious than straight married people, "perhaps due to their stigmatized
status," he writes.

Legalizing same-sex marriage would probably help prolong gay
relationships, if only because of the financial and legal benefits married
couples enjoy. Federal benefits are unavailable to lesbian and gay couples even
in Massachusetts, the only state that allows those couples to obtain marriage
licenses. Kurdek says in a 1998 Journal of Marriage and the Family paper that
even though gay and lesbian relationships end more often than straight
marriages, they don't degrade any faster. In other words, it takes squabbling
gay and straight couples the same amount of time to enter what is known as "the
cascade toward divorce." But straight couples more often find a way to stop the
cascade. For gays, breaking up usually means simply moving out, not hiring
divorce attorneys.

Gay couples an example to straight couple

Gay couples an example to straight couples
Jan. 14, 2008

SAN DIEGO, Jan. 14 (UPI) -- Studies of lesbian and gay couples reveal some key factors that may promote healthier relationships in straight couples, a U.S. psychologist says.Psychologist and researcher Robert-Jay Green of the Rockway Institute and of Alliant International University in San Diego says the studies of lesbian and gay couples found that the homosexual couples had flexibility about gender roles and an equal division of parenting and household tasks.

In a series of studies Green conducted with Michael Bettinger and Ellis Zacks, lesbian couples were found to be emotionally closer than gay male couples who, in turn, were found to be emotionally closer than heterosexual married couples. "It all comes down to greater equality in the relationship," Green said in a statement. "Research shows that lesbian and gay couples have a head start in escaping the traditional gender role divisions that make for power imbalances and dissatisfaction in many heterosexual relationships."

Heterosexual couples could learn from gays couples about sharing housework and childcare, using softer communication in conflict and having more nurturing behaviors toward one another and their children, the researchers conclude.

Dear Dr. Laura

There was a time when Dr. Laura was vocal about her anti-gay views. I wrote an article which was published in the Detroit Free Press in 1999 exposing her hateful and false beliefs about homosexuality.

During this time an article circulated by those who also wanted to expose Dr. Laura's hypocrisy. Here is that letter:
___________________________________________________________________

Dear Dr. Laura,

Thank you for doing so much to educate people regarding God's Law. I have learned a great deal from your show, and try to share that knowledge with as many people as I can. When someone tries to defend the homosexual lifestyle, for example, I simply remind them that Leviticus18:22 clearly states it to be an abomination. ......End of debate. I do need some advice from you, however, regarding some of the other specific laws and how to follow them.

1. When I burn a bull on the altar as a sacrifice, I know it creates a pleasing odour for the Lord - Lev.1: 9. The problem is my neighbours. They claim the odour is not pleasing to them. Should I smite them?

2. I would like to sell my daughter into slavery, as sanctioned in Exodus 21:7. In this day and age, what do you think would be a fair price for her?

3. I know that I am allowed no contact with a woman while she is in her 7 day period of menstrual uncleanness - Lev.15: 19-24. The problem is, how do I tell? I have tried asking, but most women take offence.

4. Lev. 25:44 states that I may indeed possess slaves, both male and female, provided they are purchased from neighbouring nations. A friend of mine claims that this applies to Mexicans, but not Canadians. Can you clarify? Why can't I own Canadians?

5. I have a neighbour who insists on working on the Sabbath. Exodus 35:2 clearly states he should be put to death. Am I morally obligated to kill him myself?

6. A friend of mine feels that even though eating shellfish is an abomination - Lev.11:10, it is a lesser abomination than homosexuality. I don't agree. Can you settle this? Otherwise do I have to kill any one I know who has eaten shellfish?

7. Lev. 21:20 states that I may not approach the altar of God if I have a defect in my sight. I have to admit that I wear reading glasses. Does my vision have to be 20/20, or is there some wiggle room here?

8. Most of my male friends get their hair trimmed, including the hair around their temples, even though this is expressly forbidden by Lev.19:27. How should they be put to death?

9. I know from Lev. 11:6-8 that touching the skin of a dead pig makes me unclean, but may I still play football if I wear gloves?

10. My uncle has a farm. He violates Lev. 19:19 by planting two different crops in the same field, as does his wife by wearing garments made of two different kinds of thread (cotton/polyester blend). He also tends to curse and blaspheme a lot. Is it really necessary that we go to all the trouble of getting the whole town together to stone them? - Lev.24: 10-16. Couldn't we just burn them to death at a private family affair like we do with people who sleep with their in-laws? (Lev. 20:14)

I know you have studied these things extensively, so I am confident you can help. Thank you again for reminding us that God's word is eternal and unchanging.

Your devoted disciple and adoring fan.

What Straights Can Learn From Gays about Relationships and Parenting

Newswise — Psychological studies of lesbian and gay couples reveal two key factors that promote healthier relationships and provide examples for all couples: (1) flexibility about gender roles, and (2) equal division of parenting and household tasks.

“It all comes down to greater equality in the relationship,” says Robert-Jay Green, PhD, executive director of the Rockway Institute and a nationally recognized researcher in both family issues and gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender relationships. “Research shows that lesbian and gay couples -- by virtue of being composed of two partners of the same gender -- have a head start in escaping the traditional gender role divisions that make for power imbalances and dissatisfaction in many heterosexual relationships.”

Green is Distinguished Professor at the California School of Professional Psychology at Alliant International University, the nation’s largest nonprofit training institution for doctoral clinical psychologists. In a series of studies he conducted with Michael Bettinger, PhD, and Ellis Zacks, PhD, lesbian couples were found to be emotionally closer than gay male couples who, in turn, were found to be emotionally closer than heterosexual married couples. Lesbian and gay male couples also showed dramatically more flexibility in the way they handled rules and roles in the relationship. Thus they avoided the traditional division of labor and division of expressive versus instrumental roles toward which heterosexual couple typically evolve over time despite their best intentions, especially after the birth of children.

More equal relationships for same-sex couples also were confirmed in recent
studies by John Gottman, PhD, of the University of Washington, and Robert
Levinson, PhD, of the University of California, Berkeley. Based on observations
of couples interacting in conflict situations, these scientists found that
same-sex couples were better at resolving disagreements because they approached
problems from a position of peer equality, using “softer” starts in the
initiation of conflict discussions and more humor during the discussion to avoid
escalation of hostilities. With married heterosexual couples, the researchers
observed, there was “much more of a power struggle with someone being
invalidated.”

Other research on parenting also found significant advantages for same-sex couples. In three separate studies, Charlotte Patterson, PhD, at the University of Virginia, Valory Mitchell, PhD, at Alliant International University in San Francisco, and Henny Bos, PhD at the University of Amsterdam found that lesbian partners tend to share parenting and household responsibilities more equally and to be more satisfied with this division of labor. By contrast, in heterosexual dual-career families, mothers often did much more childcare and housework compared to fathers, regardless of equal hours spent at work. This imbalance often breeds resentment over time.

Psychologist Jerry J. Bigner, PhD, of Colorado State University, found that gay fathers are more nurturing than straight fathers. They are also less likely to limit their parenting role to being only a provider. All of these family researchers concluded that the freedom to defy traditional gender-linked parenting roles helped gay men and lesbians take good just as good care of their children yet preserve greater feelings of fairness in their couple relationships compared to heterosexuals.

Green’s research suggests some lessons straight men could learn from gay men. Heterosexual men need to “stand up to the pressures of conformity from their male peers and relatives” by becoming more flexible in their behavior and taking on tasks and roles more traditionally assigned to women. Green believes that heterosexual partners could learn by observing how their lesbian and gay coupled friends share housework, childcare, use softer communication of feelings in conflict situations, and more equally nurturing behaviors toward one another and their children.

“Our research found that the most successful couples demonstrate closeness and flexibility,” said Green. “We found high levels of both characteristics in 79 percent of lesbian couples, 56 percent of gay male couples, but in only 8 percent of heterosexual married couples. Clearly, the more egalitarian approach taken by same-sex couples is an advantage that could benefit straight couples too,” he concluded.

To Contact Experts at the Rockway Institute for commentary on relationships and parenting, visit http://www.RockwayInstitute.org, click on the For the Media link at the top of the page, then click on the Experts link. About Rockway Institute: The nonpartisan Rockway Institute promotes scientific and professional expertise to counter antigay prejudice and improve public policies affecting lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people.

The Institute’s view is that public opinion, policies, and programs should be shaped by the facts about LGBT lives, not by political ideology. A primary goal is to organize the most knowledgeable social scientists, mental health professionals, and physicians in the United States to provide accurate information about LGBT issues to the media, legislatures, and the courts. The Institute also conducts targeted research projects to address the nation’s most pressing LGBT public policy concerns.

Website: http://www.rockwayinstitute.org

Sex Starved Gay Male Couples

Sex-Starved Gay Male Couples: The Untold Secret

Gay male couples feel a lot of pressure to remain sexually fresh, new, and exciting. That's the popular stereotype.

"All gay men love sex and have it a lot" trumpets the popular press. "If I were gay," straight men joke, "I would be having sex all the time with my partner! Guys always want it!"

So gay couples think that other gay couples are enjoying all kinds of adventurous sex. After all, aren't men, gay men in particular, supposed to be sexually open and alive? But this is often not the case at all.

Gay male couples in long-term relationships (LTRs) in my office complain that they haven't been sexual for long periods of time-sometimes years. They tell me that they've agreed to get sex outside their relationship, or they are only sexual with each other when it involves a third man.

These partners question if they are really right for each other, if they're unable to keep sex alive between just the two of them. I'm quick to reassure them this problem is more common than they think. It isn't only gay couples' for whom sexual activity tapers off after their initial "honeymoon" period. For both gays and straights, sexual excitement wanes after the first two or three years.

Romantic Love...

This stage of love is only the doorway to the relationship with a new partner. In this stage, people often report feeling drugged. If originally depressed, they feel less so. If suffering from some addiction, they may experience diminished craving or feel entirely "cured." But love's a stimulant, too: People find they can suddenly operate on a lot less sleep; and a sluggish libido will ratchet up to match a partner's higher sex drive.
　
New lovers feel an elation, exhilaration, and euphoria mostly due to their bloodstreams being flooded with chemical cousins of amphetamines such as phenylethalimine (or PEA), dopamine, norepinephrine-all natural stimulants and painkillers. So if they feel drugged, it's because they are!
When first released, PEA is at its most potent, which is why you never forget your first love. PEA eradicates pain, lowers anxiety, makes the world bright and renewed-but above all, it heightens sexual arousal and desire for the beloved.

...And the Power Struggle

In this, the second stage of relationships, conflict naturally arises and couples begin having difficulty communicating. Like romantic love, this universal stage is supposed to happen-and end, though it lasts longer than romantic love and doesn't feel anywhere near as good. Worst of all, sexual interest in each other partner wanes, for gay and straight alike.
Being upset and angry with your partner and perhaps hurt, the last thing on your mind is showing physical affection.

Breaking up to make up

Many couples split up and make up-repeatedly, often in unconscious attempts to jump-start their romance. During a break-up, the fear, risk and danger all heightens PEA, which makes couples enjoy ecstatic sex. This "second honeymoon" is short-lived, naturally, and they soon return to less frequency and enjoyment.

Sexual Desire Discrepancy

Few partners are equals in libido. Typically, one wants sex more than the other. But at the start of their relationship, the "love drugs" make each want it as much as the other, with the partner with the lower sex drive experiencing an increase-again because of PEA. But when its effect wears off, he reverts to his naturally lower desire.

What happens after romantic love and sexual desire wane? Typically, each partner blames the other, not understanding why this physiological dynamic is occurring. They begin arguing, fighting and hurting each other-which really brings sex to a halt.

The problem with postponing sex for long periods is that you are creating a new behavioral template: The two of you become more like family, friends or brothers, but less like lovers. As a result, unfortunately, sexual anorexia can set in for any couple, gay or straight.

Sexual Anorexia: Not a Common Term

Anorexic usually describes people with an eating disorder who can literally starve themselves to death. Logically, but incorrectly, many people assume that "sexual anorexia" means erotic starvation, or depriving oneself of sexual pleasure.

In his book, Sexual Anorexia: Overcoming Sexual Self-Hatred, Patrick Carnes writes about it as a disorder that parallels sexual addiction (a term that he coined) and compulsivity. Sexual anorexia he describes as "an obsessive state in which the physical, mental, and emotional task of avoiding sex dominates one's life." The sufferer is obsessed with avoiding sex and finds it repulsive-which is wholly different from having a low libido or being simply not interested in sex.

Sexual Anorexia is different from having low sexual desire. Those with low sexual drives do not avoid sex, but can't activate their libido, try as they might. They simply lack interest, since their desire has been squelched or is non-existent. They may be avoiding a partner who wants sex more than they do, but they also seek to avoid confronting their own low desire.

Sexual anorexia takes on many forms:

1. A pattern of resistance to any sexual topic or overture
2. Continuing that pattern of avoidance, even though he may know it's destructive to the relationship and might drive his partner away
3. Going to great lengths to avoid his partner's sexual contact or affectionate attentions.
4. Rigid or judgmental attitudes toward sexuality and the physical body-his partner's and his own
5. Obsessing over sex and how to avoid it, to a point where it interferes with normal living

The sexual anorexic's main goal is to find ways to separate intimacy and sex. Men and women alike can suffer from this disorder. Most initially feel out-of-sorts and keep silent about their apathy, lest they be judged negatively in today's sexually-affirmative society.

I often see this affliction in gay male couples. They often break up, thinking that there is nothing they can do to fix their impasse. "If desire isn't there anymore," they assume, "that must mean it's over." But that's not true.

To bring passion and sex back into your relationship, you have to want to do it-and know that this time around, it takes work. It wasn't work in the beginning, when Nature was on your side, drugging you with excitement and ecstasy. To bring it back in healthy doses now, you're on your own-and you can.

Smart Things Gay Male Couples Can Do to Rekindle Their Sex Life

1. Plan time for sex.

Most couples-gay and straight-insist they shouldn't have to plan for sex, which should come naturally and spontaneously the way it did in the beginning of their relationship. But after the first five years, you must make time for it. Planning can help you anticipate being together, making the coming experience more exciting.

2. Focus on some detail(s) you find attractive about your partner.

Is your partner not quite as attractive as when you first got together? He's put on some pounds, lost some hair, and doesn't seem as hot to you now.

Then focus on what you do like about him-his genitals, hair, feet, hands? The way he kisses? Focus on any aspect of him that most arouses you.

3. Fantasize about some hot experience you had in the past.

It can be an experience and/or fantasy with your current partner, or with someone else. The popular press media claims that not being fully present with a partner during sex is destructive and to fantasize about anyone else is like cheating. Not true! If that's the only way you and your partner can enjoy sex, that might be an issue. But doing this every so often can spark sexual excitement in you both.

4. Watch porn together; get on the webcam with other guys on the Internet.

This aphrodisiac can heighten your sexual desire-and thus, for each other. There's nothing wrong with being stimulated outside your relationship, if you bring that sexual energy back into the relationship with your partner. Again, this is no problem unless it's the only way you can have sex together or one of you is jealous. This would not be recommended if so.

5. Consider opening up your relationship.

Many gay couples open their relationships after five to seven years together. In fact, studies show that 75% of gay male couples have non-monogamous relationships. However, these couples communicate and have agreements with each other so that both know that neither is cheating or doing anything in secret. This frank openness helps partners helps them reactivate sexual desire in one another.

6. Role-play.

Have you and your partner ever discussed your deepest, darkest sexual secrets? Maybe one or both of you like to be spanked? Maybe humiliating someone sexually turns you one? Perhaps you've never told him of your fetish of licking his feet or armpit? Fantasy role play can help you escape daily living, forget about your busy lives, and perhaps even problems in your relationship. Remember, you should only do this when you feel good about each other. The goal is to connect, not disconnect.

7. Do anything except have sex.

After a long drought in a relationship, engaging in sex directly may be too tall an order. If so, give each other massages. Take a bath or shower together, lie naked beside each other, kiss, rub strawberries on each other's lips and feed each other. But whatever you do, don't have sex! If you both honestly decide to, fine-but your goal should not to create any pressure to perform.

Gay male couples not having sex for long periods of time can now come out of the closet of shame and lonely isolation, knowing that their worry is more common generally talked about. Following some of these guidelines or creating your own, you might not have to walk away from the relationship you've always wanted.

CHILDREN AND SEXUALITY

I talked with a journalist in the June issue of Metro Parent Magazine in the Detroit area about helping parents talk to their children about sexuality. On the Birds and Bees: Royal Oak psychotherapist Joe Kort adds that if parents are uncomfortable with their own sexual feelings, they are going to be uncomfortable with their kids.“

They don’t want to see their child as sexual,” Kort says. On Masturbation: Royal Oak psychotherapist Joe Kort says that throughout history, masturbation has been associated with shame, guilt and all-out fear. “You’ll go blind!” was a common threat, as parents slapped chastity belts and other medieval contraptions on their children to prevent them from the sinful act of “spilling their seed.” (I am reminded of the joke where the father says to his little boy, "Don't masturbate you will go blind" and the boy responds, "Can I do it until I need glasses?"

On Having Gay Children: “You can really end up making them feel they don’t belong,” says Kort, warning that the more disapproving you are, the more you’ll damage their self-worth and send them into hiding. “Often a child will turn to the Internet, pushing them to do dangerous behavior,” Kort warns. He says that gay teens can be vulnerable to sex abusers because they have no one else to talk to. He recommends if parents feel uncomfortable, or cannot discuss the topic in a respectful manner, they should seek out assistance, such as family counseling or a sex education class.