Graeme

I've been in email contact with him, so I know he's okay. He's just busy

LOL -- Definitely one of the most memorable ones, at least

Sadly, I still see parents that try to control their children too much. It can be a fine balancing act at times, because the parents need a lot of control at a young age, and then ease off as they get older. Some don't.... Thanks for the review, Maarten!

Thank you Mental health issues can show in many different ways. Dave's problems are showing as insomnia, but he's addressing symptoms, not causes.

Neil is just a poor, misunderstand, stalkerish, obsessive, paranoid, oppressed teenager. Nothing to worry about....

Okay, this is going to a long thread... Welcome, jcswift! I'm not even going to attempt to respond to your request because I'm sure I'd leave out way too many stories.... However, as a suggestion, I'd starting with the stories by Dom Luka

The problem with the centrefold is that it would've be in a woman's magazine....

Ty paced outside the train station, peering towards the car-park entrance several times a minute as he waited for Jim to pick him up. His original intention had to been walk home, but when he received the text message from Deon as to who was waiting for him, Ty decided he wanted to make sure he had backup. Ty glanced up at the overcast sky, a reflection of how he was feeling about the unexpected reappearance of his old man. At least it wasn’t raining, and it didn’t look like it would. The day h

Thanks for the post, W_L, but I do have one minor problem with it. I don't like the word "normal" in that paragraph. I think "average" would be better. And, as has been pointed out before, homophobia isn't the only problem. Anti-effeminate behaviour is not acceptable, either. Getting young males to meet and get to know non-effeminate gay guys is a step along the path, but it's only a step. Eliminating the intolerance means doing much more than that.

Absolutely correct Which is why I prefer to try to educate people rather than calling them homophobes for having a misinformed opinion.

Since we're talking about educating people, the most common behaviour that can be corrected is behaviour that derives from a perception of stereotypes. That is, "Well we all know..." behaviour. This sort of behaviour is being driven by abstracts, and can be corrected by concrete examples. Let's take the three examples I've given in turn. Homosexuality definition: Attraction or Actions This is probably the toughest one to change because even if you convince them that their definition is incorrect, they can still point out that acting on sexual desires is a choice. Just because their next door neighbour is attractive, the heterosexual male typically does not act on that desire. The way to deal with this one is probably long term. You need to ask if they believe they could go celibate for the rest of their lives, and if they can't, ask them how they can believe that homosexuals are capable of do what they can't? Once they accept that point, it becomes a matter of pointing out how unfair it is to ask the homosexuals to do what they can't, and that as long as it doesn't impact on them (and how could it?), what harm is it if homosexuals do things that they are uncomfortable with? Many of the arguments in this category seem to relate to 'seducing' young people in to a homosexual lifestyle. Once the change of definition has stuck with them, a lot of those arguments disappear. Homosexuals can't recruit young people because the attraction is not a choice. The objections to gay teachers, etc., then start to disappear. Effeminate does not equal Homosexual This should be addressed during the teenage years as part of a general education approach on accepting diversity in all its forms. That's racial, religious, gender, cultural, etc., diversity, as well as sexual orientation and transgender. Young boys are generally intolerant for reasons discussed earlier in this thread. But they're also capable of learning, and what they learn can carry forward into their adult lives. Being different does not make someone wrong. Once that's taught successfully, a lot of the issues in this area disappear. Raising Children This is probably the easiest one to address because it's so narrow. As a parent, I can appreciate that other parents can be concerned about children and how they're raised. Most parents are naturally conservative in this area as a consequence. Concrete examples are the best way to show that homosexual couples are perfectly capable of raising children. Studies are fine for a generic argument, but that requires careful research because many studies are flawed. The key issue I've personally found is that there is ample evidence that children who are not raised by a mother and father have more issues than those who are...but that's because of the impact of divorce, not because of the gender of the parent raising the child. Once the impact of divorce is eliminated, most of the research I've found supports single-gender parents as being quite capable of raising children successfully. As I point out when this is being discussed, there are a lot of single parent families with great kids. How can it be damaging to have a second parent of the same gender? If anything, the second parent means that there's double the amount of time for the parents to spend with their children because while one parent is doing chores/shopping/working, the other one can be concentrating on the children. I know I haven't explicitly addressed the question of what behaviour can be corrected, but that's because the question is too broad. What I've tried to do it give examples of behaviour that can be corrected through appropriate education. As long as it's done tactfully, as the original poster asked

There's two issues here. I totally agree that when you're on the receiving end the distinctions don't matter. Bullying and harassment are bullying and harassment: totally unacceptable. However, if you are try to correct behaviour, you need to understand the behaviour that needs correcting. It's why the 'homophobe' brush is too broad. As an example, people who are indifferent to homosexual behaviour with the belief that what happens behind closed doors is none of their business get rather upset by being called homophobes because they also believe that children are best raised by a mother and father. The solution is to identify their particular issue and address it with reasoned arguments, not tar them with a broad brush that insults them because it's not nuanced enough. This gets back to the original post and how to educate others tactfully. The first step is to identify where they've gone wrong. It may be that they have the wrong definition of homosexuality. It maybe that they're incorrectly merging homosexuality and effeminacy. It maybe that they have a misguided view on how children should be raised when it comes to gender roles. All of these are examples of how someone could be perceived as a 'homophobe', but the way to address each of these is different. There's no one answer that fits all cases.

My apologies. I meant that it was perfectly fine (and probably accurate) as a statement as to what was happening. I didn't mean to imply that the behaviour was perfectly fine. If that's the way it came over, I unreservedly apologise -- that wasn't my intention.

What about the effeminate straights? I have a big problem with the constant mixing up of effeminate and homosexuality. There is a relationship between the two because a significant percentage of effeminate guys are gay, but it is by no means 100%. Indeed, at the age of fourteen, a guy can be perceived as being effeminate simply because he's not macho -- too many kids at that age have a dichotomy view of the world and don't understand that there's a spectrum with lots of shades of grey in between. I find the sentence "These kids aren't homophobes, yet, they are just anti-effeminate" perfectly fine. The "yet" is important. At that age, the kids don't understand the difference between the two and it's easy for them to conflate them. This can be seen by how many schoolboy taunts relate to effeminate behaviour: being called a 'sissy', 'weak', 'girly', 'gay'.... When viewed from that perspective, you can see that the term 'gay' in schoolyard abuse is being used to mean 'effeminate', not 'homosexual'. If this isn't corrected, the young boy will grow up to be a man who is a homophobe, because they maintain their anti-effeminate stance and incorrectly equate homosexuality with effeminacy. But at the age of fourteen, it's anti-effeminate, not anti-homosexual.

Very interesting, though we have to be careful with assigning interpretation, especially motivation, to what was found. It's hard enough guessing motivation for something that occurred only a couple of hundred years ago, let alone a couple of thousand years with less data!

Sasha, if you check the link I gave you'll see that 'fair use' for educational purposes is much more relaxed than for non-educational purposes. That's why students may be allowed to photocopy upto 10% of a book, but that doesn't mean an author can quote upto 10% of another book or song. I was going to use the lyrics of a chorus of a song in my latest story, but after reviewing the fair use criteria again, I'm going to change it to just the song title and leave the lyrics unstated (though it does help in my case that most of the lyrics in the chorus are the song title repeated a few times ).

It can be as explained in this article on fair use. Essentially, the lyrics are owned by someone else. Even if you know them and attribute them, you can't distribute your own copy without permission. It would be like someone taking one of your stories and putting it on their own website without your permission. Even if they say who wrote it, it's still a copyright theft. As per the link I've given, there's different rules for educational vs non-educational uses. For people used to academia, this can be a source of confusion because the rules they're used to no longer necessarily apply when they try writing fiction.

There's a 'fair use' exemption to copyright, but be careful using that exemption, too, because it's not always clearly defined what constitutes 'fair use'. For example, using the name of a song, movie, book,, etc., is generally considered fair use. Quoting part of a song, movie, or book, however, can be questionable. Some things are allowed, others are not, and it's always better to get permission than to find out afterwards that you've crossed the line.

Without having detailed knowledge of the incident I may be wrong, but I have to disagree. Kids at that age are not taught to hate -- they're taught to fear. In particular, they're taught to be afraid of rejection, of not belonging to the group. Peer pressure makes them conform, and makes them attack things that are not the norm. It's not hatred. It's the fear of not belonging that is the primary driver at that age.

:music: Happy (belated) Birthday! :music:

I've found that the problem usually lies with the definitions being used. The ones that claim it's a choice are correct...because their definition is based on behaviour, not attraction. That is, they define homosexuality by same-sex sexual activity. Since sexual activity is a choice, they are correct to claim that homosexuality (by their definition) is a choice. The more common and scientifically accepted definition, however, is based on attraction, and that's not under conscious control. It's not a choice. So, by that definition, homosexuality is not a choice. Solarmaxx -- do those highly educated people say that attraction is a choice, or that homosexuality is a choice? I suspect it's the latter, and you're then applied the usual definition of homosexuality to extrapolate that they're claiming that attraction is a choice. If you check, I'm sure you'll find that their definition is based on behaviour, not attraction. In their defence, the claims of homosexuality within the animal community are based on observed behaviour. If that's the definition used for the animal kingdom, why do we have a different definition for human homosexuality? The answer is, of course, that for humans we're able to dig deeper to the underlying reasons by investigating motives -- something we can't do for the animal kingdom. But it makes it clearer why there's often confusion as to definition what is homosexuality.

Dungeons and Dragons marks 40 years of time-killing fantasy I started playing AD&D when I was at university, back at the start of the 80s. I'm not ashamed to say that I still play similar games regularly, more than 30 years since I started. Currently, the group I'm with are playing Warhammer 2nd edition, though we recently played Pathfinder (a D&D 3rd edition spin-off) for awhile. Other roleplaying games I've played over the decades include (in no particular order): Traveller 7thSea Powers & Perils Runequest (2nd and 3rd editions) Dragonquest Conan Dark Heresy The One Ring Rolemaster Middle Earth Roleplaying Game Edge of the Empire plus several others that I can't recall the names of....

I have only one reservation about this article and it's the fact that the two-year-old boy appears to be identifiable. That means that this article on the Internet is going to follow him for the rest of his life. In particular, during school years when other boys are at their lowest level of tolerance. It may be they live in a nice, safe, and accepting community, in which case my concern can be ignored, but protecting my sons from being bullied (for having a gay dad) is the number one reason I haven't come out fully. One son has already been bullied at school several times -- I don't want to give ammunition to any other bullies out there. Having said that, I applaud the father's mature response to his son's preference for wearing dresses. EDIT TO ADD: Ron, we crossposted. As a parent myself, I know you have to pick your battles with your kids. This isn't one worth fighting -- something the father eventually realised. Some battles are, like wanting to stick knives into power sockets.... You get firm on the things that are important, and be more relaxed on those that aren't.

For those who participated in the Out on the Fields survey, the first results have been reported. Study shows gay athletes face rampant homophobia While the newspaper article's headline is stating the bleeding obvious, the details are more interesting. I had to cringe when I read about the eighteen-year-old who was voted off his rugby team by his so-called teammates.... What I'm waiting for is to see how much things have changed over time. That survey was looking at any homophobia at any time. Has it gotten better recently? Still waiting, but I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

The main coverage lasted a day, but it was covered by all news services as a major item. That, I think, qualifies as "big news". There's still news reports on the subject, like one I saw today about how Mark Spitz was speculating as to whether being gay had stopped Ian Thorpe from meeting his potential as it took his mind partially off his swimming, or whether he channelled his internal problems into his swimming and it made him better. Both are viable interpretations and only Ian Thorpe would know for sure, but I suspect that the struggles he had with his sexuality probably played a part in his early retirement from the sport.