Issue with heterosexism

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Why is it that parents don't want to expose kids to homosexuality. They do the same with heterosexuality yet make it completely appropriate. Why can't they do the same with the former of the two? Examples of this are on television and other sources of media. Gay-ness is only permitted for teens and adults. Why?

Because our society is just that effed up. Sorry I can't give you a more detailed explanation. Stigmas are nonsensical and involve antediluvian prejudice.

All parental couples where both partners are directly related to at least one child are composed of a man and a woman, with heterosexuality implied. Thus, they are more likely to know many more heterosexual parents than not.

Now, a question for you: What is your personal interest in 'exposing' minors to homosexuality?

I have two theories as to why this is.

When people think of homosexuality, they automatically think of the sex acts associated with it. People have a problem separating homosexuals from the sex they have. Therefore, people do not want their kids to know of homosexuals because they think it'll mean talking about sex with their kids.

Another theory I have is that people think that, if their kids learn about homosexuality, then their kids will think of it as cool or trendy and try to experiment with it. People would absolutely dread raising gay kids, so they think that if their kids don't know about it, then the chances of them turning out to be gay diminish.

Whichever the real reason is, I know they're both illogical, but, to quote Leela from the t.v. series Futurama, "this society is a bunch of idiots. "

Simple. Exposing minors to different types of families, races, faiths, cultures, etc., teaches them about how diverse humanity is. By understanding the world better, they will be more comfortable in it.

Ignorance creates fear.

THIS.

I never kept my kids from homosexuality. My husband has several friends who are gay and they have been coming around for years. Hell, I am bisexual. I think I only know a few people (maybe three?) who are not. My kids learned real young that couples do not necessarily have to be a male and a female in order to be a couple. I think that is just silly to live with the idea that a happy couple has to be one man and one woman.

But to answer your question in regards to media, I guess first it would help me to know what age demographic you speak of. I mean, little kids (like toddlers) do not much care about gender in relationships. They are still into shapes, colors, songs, yadda yadda... the emphasis on those shows is all about education (at least in the good cartoons) that readies the child for preschool and kindergarten. And in a lot of those cases (at least when my kids were little, do not know how it is now) the parents were largely absent and the focus was on the child/ren (like dora and the backyardagains) or the oversized weirdos in crazy suits (barney/teletubbies). Can you tell I have teenagers? Heh. Old shows... but I think they leave family structure alone so parents can do that sort of teaching... besides kids mostly find family based shows boring at that age.

As for older kid shows, I do not know. I think tv tends to reflect what is common. It is still more common to have a two gendered or single parent home than it is to have same sex parents. I never thought of it as pushing the heterosexual lifestyle or shunning homosexuality... I think it just reflects life. In my kids elementary school, there was only one family that had two same sex parents... a lovely couple really, they were good people with nice kids. But they were in the minority. The minority is not where the money is where tv is concerned. People watch what they relate to and understand. It is like how they push some shows specifically to boys (like teenage mutant ninja turtles) and others to girls (like sabrina the teenage witch)... you give your audience what they want... what sells.

I think in a lot of cases its because parents realize, if only subconsciously, that if kids think homosexuality is normal then they'll:
a) be more tolerant of gays (heaven forbid!)
b) if they turn out to be gay themselves, then be more likely to be open about it

Mind you, I don't think that's the case in everyone. My mom is tolerant of gays (she has a gay brother who she is close with and she has no problem with me being gay) but does not seem to be a huge fan of seeing gay couples on TV (as more than minor characters anyway). Especially lesbian couples it seems. Gay men she has less of a problem with. This makes me think that deep down she isn't as comfortable with homosexuality as she seems.

Well, in my opinion, there actually are situations in media represented to juveniles that suggest homosexual love, but it is invariably portrayed as if it were a simple friendship. Not so fast, though:

Take Fox and the Hound, which details the forbidden friendship between a puppy and a fox kit. Yeah, they are portrayed overtly as juvenile characters and therefore essentially asexual, but the plot follows similar principles to Romeo and Juliet. Two youth from rival houses find something special in each other, and their secret affection for each other results in tragedy. Maybe Disney broke the ice before Brokeback was even up for consideration. And don't be surprised over Tod and Vixey getting together: bi guys are often more likely to be femme when they're with other guys, in my experience, and in fact that is sometimes the whole reason that men can provide something for them that women really can't completely fulfill.

A matter of interpretation? The thing is, I think that could be deliberate. I think that gay and gay-allied people involved in creating storylines published to children have been finding surreptitious and sneaky ways of slipping gay vibes into children's media, perhaps even moreso than media published to adults. They just can't do it overtly because the "religious" right would invariably turn it into yet another tacky hate-fest and ruin it for everybody.

Either that, or the script-writers are drawing their inspiration from real-life gay relationships where they didn't themselves know the whole truth. A gay couple isn't exactly going to go around calling each other "husband," you know, but there ain't no hiding genuine affection.

Unlike overtly homosexual themes, some of them don't end in tragedy. The moral of the story? If you're kissing each other, make sure you don't see any cameras. You might scare the parents.[i]

I was kind of thinking I'd do that someday. Assuming Canada's dear old Prime Minister doesn't go and repeal the gay marriage legislation...

Well, I was thinking in the mid-20th Century, when we still lived in caves.

Social change is not instant.

More and more parents are called upon to answer the question, "Why does my friend have two mommies?" And more and more of them are able to explain, "Why Uncle David and Uncle James live together?" in a sensitive, age-appropriate way.

One of the lessons that we learned from the experiences of the lost generation of aboriginal children raised in residential schools was that people learn their parenting skills from their own parents. How we deal with children is very much rooted in the skills that we have mimicked from our parents. But what we also know is that parents can distinguish themselves from their own parents--replicating those skills that served them well as children, and adapting away from those behaviours that did not.

With more and more parents like dossa in each generation, the diversity of families will become more and more normalized.

I still wonder why liking the same gender is such a taboo topic. You don't talk to little kids about sex but they know romance exists. I just hope, as visagrunt says, "that the diversity of families will become more normalized."

Because the West is still dominated by Christianity, which (in its fundamentalist form) claims homosexuality to be a sin. So a lot of people are uncomfortable with same-sex romance, even if they claim to be tolerant.

Many parents probably also believe that exposing their kids to homosexuality would make their kids gay. (And "no one" would want that, would they? ^^)


I couldn't have said it better.

We still have a long way to go.

I once saw a German children's book that tries to explain homosexuality to kids, but I forgot where I put the link. It was really cool.

Young children are usually very accepting of it. We took our daughter to a civil partneship ceremony last year (when she was 5), between two men. She knows they love one another and want to spend the rest of their lives together. That's fine by her and it needed no more explanation that if we had been going to a hetero wedding.