Thursday January 26, 2012
On December 7th it was Jacob Rogers, Jeffrey Fehr, on January 1, Eric James Borges on January 11, and last week on January 20th, Phillip Parke became the most recent teen to take his life over anti-gay bullying.
No one will argue that these suicides and the bullying that lead to them are anything but tragic. But not these tragedies have been perceived differently by different people. Some have suggested that the teens have taken suicide's "easy way out" instead of trying to get help or find answers. Others have called for more anti-bullying legislation, and suicide education.
Carole Ditosti argues in Technorati that suicide is far from an easy solution, saying: "There is nothing that can make this situation right for the bully or the victim: the hate from the bully, the victim internalizes and in an act of self-hating nihilation engorges his bully with victory. But this is a blind: both victim and victimizer are destroyed in the end, for hatred has been uplifted."
Most people can agree that suicide is tragic. But what do you think about the notion that it can increase the hate that could have lead to it in the first place?
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Sunday January 22, 2012
I recently got an email from a teen who uses this site's forum asking how to tell if someone he was chatting with was actually a teen, or an adult pedophile.
I gave him a few tips, but I also told him something that is equally important: the majority of adult predators do NOT pretend to be teens. Most are upfront about the fact that they are adults. They just try to mask their intentions by gaining the trust of the teens they are talking to...Keep reading
Image (c) escapedtowisconsin
Friday January 20, 2012
Every few years, the Gay, Lesbian & Straight Education Network GLSEN reexamines the issues of bullying and looks at the climate of schools in the United States towards GLBT and gender non-conforming students.
This week, the organization released its most recent study, this one looking at elementary schools, and some of what it discovered after conducting national surveys of 1,065 elementary school students in 3rd to 6th grade and 1,099 elementary school teachers of K-6th grade, is troubling.
Here are a few important findings:
- About one-quarter of the students and teachers have heard students say "fag" and "lesbo"
- 20 percent of the students have heard their peers getting harassed for seeming gay or not conforming to gender norms.
- About ten percent of the students say they don't always conform to gender norms and that makes them feel unsafe at school.
- Under 20 percent of the students say they have learned about GLBT families and under 40 percent of teachers say they talk about them.
- 75 percent of students reported that they were called names or bullied on a regular basis. The reasons for bullying were often about looks or body size. But twenty-six percent of the students reported hearing negative comments based on race or ethnicity, and twenty-one percent because other people think they are gay.
For everyone out there who idealizes the carefree days of childhood, this should be a wake up call as to just how tough a lot of kids have it simply because they don't fit a pretty traditional mold.
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Tuesday January 17, 2012
When I googled the phrase, "hooking-up" the first thing that came up was that fact that Demi Lovato and Wilmer Valderrama were no longer doing so. Well, I have to admit I never knew they had this type of relationship to begin with. I also have to admit, that like a lot of people, I wasn't really sure what, exactly, hooking-up was.
Keep reading if you, like me, are a little confused about the difference between hooking-up, making out, kissing and sex...
How do you define hooking-up? It is the same as making out? Does it mean that two people had sex? Let us know your thoughts!
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Image (c) Walt Stoneburner
