From: Nancegar_at_aol.com <Nancegar>
Date: Wed, 29 Jun 2005 21:38:42 EDT

Maia (et al),

Re your/Maia's post nearly a week ago -- I applaud almost everything you've said -- I wish more people were as sensible and healthy about sex as you. And I find your thoughts about virginity most interesting -- I never really wondered about what virginity meant to GL kids, although I've always assumed that for straight people it did indeed mean penetration. I suspect it still does, especially now that so many kids feel oral sex isn't really sex. As to gay kids -- well, I think virginity means "the first time" there's overtly sexual behavior, i.e. genital in some way, with a partner, which is pretty much what it's always meant.

Yes, we must talk about these things, and write about them, too, without reservation or shame, as you said. And I agree that YA books shouldn't judge characters for their "choices" of male or female partners on the basis of their gender alone.

As to choice itself, though -- there I disagree. To me, choice is primarily a matter of which specific person within a group one is attracted to. But the fact that one is drawn primarily or exclusively to the opposite sex or to the same sex or equally to both sexes doesn't seem to me to be a choice, or at least not exclusively so. Of course this is enormously complicated, for many people have the potential to be attracted to different genders at different times for different reasons. This would be simpler if we didn't further complicate it by making "rules" and moral statements about it!

But homosexuality and hetereosexuality involve far more than sex, and that's perhaps the most important point, and one that needs to continue to be shown in YA books. Uninhibited people can be aroused by either gender, usually -- but the real question I think is that of which gender one can relate to emotionally and on all other levels. There perhaps is the real place at which there's no or little conscious choice. Being gay also has to do with how one sees and relates to the world in general -- just as being straight does -- and for both straights and gays has to do with the mix of whatever is perceived culturally as male and female in each person -- which in us gay folks is often a bit different than it is for straight folk.

But it's still more complicated than that, by far. I wonder if we'll ever know the answers to these questions!

As to Pride Parades -- well, I can't agree there. It's nice that you think they're for everyone and yes, of course everyone's surely welcome. But please, they're primarily ours, just as a parade put on to honor and celebrate any other minority group is primarily for that group. Do you know how they started? They started as an annual celebrationb of the Stonewall riots, which galvanized the gay rights movement to new and more insistant action. I would be very distressed if Pride became a time for everyone to celebrate their -- what? For us Pride isn't a celebration of sexuality, although that's part of it -- but a small part. Its primarily a time to say "We're here, we matter, we've survived oppression, we're not afraid to be out and strong, and we're not all the bad stuff that's been said about us for eons, we're entitled to equal rights and we're going to keep fighting for them till we have them." Pride's not a big deal subject in books for YAs, but it wouldn't hurt for more kids to know a little aout gay history!

Peace, Nancy


____________________________________________ Please visit my website at www.nancygarden.com Budding Writers: The Exercises, #2 is up!
Received on Wed 29 Jun 2005 08:38:42 PM CDT