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[CCBC-Net] True Believer: Patrick, Final Scene
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From: Maia <maiakevin>
Date: Thu, 26 Jul 2001 09:54:40 -0700
I intended to send this offlist only... but so many times the discussion of this topic has remained offlist... in our virtual closets... So, I'll throw it wide this time...
Ginny,
Yes, Patrick is sweet. A gentler model than LaVaughn - at least for now, although the passages that describe LaVaughn at the hospital "felt" the same to me as the Patrick passages. I'd love to see LaVaughn move to a more giving, less controlled space. I don't get the sense that Patrick is hopping class lines - but rather, perhaps, that his outlook transcends them. Evidence: that he maintains his honor for the nuns that raised him, even though he himself has moved to a different spirit.
By your by, I mentioned Michelangelo. And yes, surely, the gift reflects where Jody is at! But I also think that most adolescents confront the issues of their own sexuality at some point -- some run back into their boxes screaming, but a gay friend will make that a wee bit more difficult.
I've been reading the anthology "Growing Up Gay / Growing Up Lesbian" this week. One thing that comes back to me over and again, which is implied but nearly never discussed: sexuality is catching. By which I mean that if you are never around models for a given sexual/romantic behavior, you are a heck of a lot more likely to stuff any "deviations" (from the norm that you see) that rise in you down your own psychic drain. How often do we read in the accounts of lesbians and gays born earlier than the last twenty years a startlement, a shock, at the first encounter with same-sex love -- "You mean, you can do that?"
But kids today, unless they are growing up in a secluded community or a household so oppressive that denial rules, will be faced with a wider landscape of options. They can't miss it - the images may still often be lousy stereotypes, but the images of same-sex relations are there.
I wonder when YA literature in general will catch up to that reality? That it's not a topic just for the "minority" of teens who end up declaring themselves gay or lesbian (or, as is generally avoided in YA entirely, bisexual), but instead is an issue for the majority?
Isn't part of life looking at those who are near or dear to you and trying to discern the similarities and differences? Most especially so in adolescence? So mustn't having gay or lesbian friends raise the issue, somewhere in the mind: "am I different from that, or could that be me?"
Maia
-Little Folk Tales http://www.littlefolktales.org Water on the Web Designs http://www.waterwebdesigns.com
Received on Thu 26 Jul 2001 11:54:40 AM CDT
Date: Thu, 26 Jul 2001 09:54:40 -0700
I intended to send this offlist only... but so many times the discussion of this topic has remained offlist... in our virtual closets... So, I'll throw it wide this time...
Ginny,
Yes, Patrick is sweet. A gentler model than LaVaughn - at least for now, although the passages that describe LaVaughn at the hospital "felt" the same to me as the Patrick passages. I'd love to see LaVaughn move to a more giving, less controlled space. I don't get the sense that Patrick is hopping class lines - but rather, perhaps, that his outlook transcends them. Evidence: that he maintains his honor for the nuns that raised him, even though he himself has moved to a different spirit.
By your by, I mentioned Michelangelo. And yes, surely, the gift reflects where Jody is at! But I also think that most adolescents confront the issues of their own sexuality at some point -- some run back into their boxes screaming, but a gay friend will make that a wee bit more difficult.
I've been reading the anthology "Growing Up Gay / Growing Up Lesbian" this week. One thing that comes back to me over and again, which is implied but nearly never discussed: sexuality is catching. By which I mean that if you are never around models for a given sexual/romantic behavior, you are a heck of a lot more likely to stuff any "deviations" (from the norm that you see) that rise in you down your own psychic drain. How often do we read in the accounts of lesbians and gays born earlier than the last twenty years a startlement, a shock, at the first encounter with same-sex love -- "You mean, you can do that?"
But kids today, unless they are growing up in a secluded community or a household so oppressive that denial rules, will be faced with a wider landscape of options. They can't miss it - the images may still often be lousy stereotypes, but the images of same-sex relations are there.
I wonder when YA literature in general will catch up to that reality? That it's not a topic just for the "minority" of teens who end up declaring themselves gay or lesbian (or, as is generally avoided in YA entirely, bisexual), but instead is an issue for the majority?
Isn't part of life looking at those who are near or dear to you and trying to discern the similarities and differences? Most especially so in adolescence? So mustn't having gay or lesbian friends raise the issue, somewhere in the mind: "am I different from that, or could that be me?"
Maia
-Little Folk Tales http://www.littlefolktales.org Water on the Web Designs http://www.waterwebdesigns.com
Received on Thu 26 Jul 2001 11:54:40 AM CDT
