Sons and daughters

Q: My 14-year-old son just
came out to me. He has a slightly older boyfriend, and they’re going to
the school dance on Saturday night. I am adjusting to a truth I had
long suspected. I am worried, though, that my son will get hurt. We
live in the South—North Carolina—but our town has a gay community
and an annual pride parade. When I asked him if the other students at
school would be cool with him bringing a boy, he said, “Who cares?”
Bullying is not a huge problem at his school.

We have had the sex talk several times, but I have always assumed a
hetero approach. I think my son is too young for sleepovers with his
boyfriend, and I would really like him to wait a couple more years
before he gets seriously sexually active, though I expect petting and
kissing are givens. Any advice? Still My Son

A: Treat your son to some of
that equal treatment we gay people are always going on about, SMS, and
treat him just like you’d treat your 14-year-old straight kid. No
responsible parent would allow his 14-year-old daughter—and that’s
how you should think of him for now (more on that in a moment)—to
have sleepovers with her slightly older boyfriend, right? So no
sleepovers for your gay kid. Remember: You can be supportive and be his
advocate without signing off on stuff you wouldn’t sign off on for a
straight child—indeed, it’s the best way to show your support.

What else can you do? You can hover, scrutinize, interfere—all the
crap that parents typically do when their children begin to date. For
instance, SMS, this boy your son is seeing? Have you met him? Meet him.
How much older is he? Find out. Are they messing around? Ask them. Make
sure your son understands that he doesn’t have to engage in anal
intercourse to be authentically gay, or all grown-up or out. He can
take things slow—he should take things slow. Encourage your son to
date, to hold hands, to make out. And you should, as awkward as it’s
going to feel to say so aloud, encourage your son, when he does become
sexually active, to stick with mutual masturbation and oral sex for a
good, long time—until he’s sure he’s ready for intercourse, not just
anxious for it. Patience is a major virtue here.

Getting back to the daughter business: You should also regard your
son, at least through his adolescence, as more of a daughter to you
than a son. We tend to be more protective of our daughters—our
straight daughters—than we are of our sons. Why? A sexist desire to
keep our daughters “pure”? That’s a part of it, sure, but there’s also
this: Men are pigs, and people on the receiving end of male sexual
desire/attention are in more danger than people on the receiving end of
female sexual desire/attention. (In general—individual results may
vary.) Testosterone is the crystal meth of hormones—a badass
drug—and men are more likely to be abusive and violent. The
prevalence of HIV among gay men makes the stakes higher for your son.
So don’t allow him to date anyone you don’t get to meet and approve of,
and don’t confuse “being supportive” with “letting him do
whatever/whomever he wants.” Be active, be engaged and never stop being
his meddling, interfering, hypersuspicious dad.

Good luck, SMS. It sounds like your son lucked out having you as a
parent.

Q: I’ve been seeing this guy
for about two years in August. We’ve been living together for six
months now, and it’s been really bumpy. We fight a lot, I cry a
lot and it just gets really messy. To tell you the truth, I’m tired of
it. I work two jobs, and I never get any time to myself because he’s
moody and insecure. He always wants to know where I’m going or who I’m
with. He doesn’t like to do the same things I do, and I’m beginning to
think this is all one big mistake. The problem is every time I try to
leave, it always gets ugly. Ugly to the point that he’s thrown my stuff
in the front yard, broken things of mine and even called me names. He’s
abusive.

As sad as this sounds, and as ridiculous as I feel, I want to make
this work. I want us to be happy. And the thing is, I know that we can
be. When we’re mad, it’s like World War III over here. But when we’re
happy, it’s so blissful that I know in my heart with him is the only
place I want to be. What can I do? People tell me it’s time to sever
ties, but the people who usually tell me this are the ones who can’t
stand him. How can I make a completely unbiased decision? Am I stupid
for believing in a love that feels destined to fail?

Hopelessly Devoted To Him

A: This is not a
relationship, HDTH, it’s a hostage situation. He’s a controlling,
abusive piece of shit—listen to your fucking friends, HDTH. When your
boyfriend breaks your shit, he’s making an implicit threat: I can
break your face just as easily as I’m breaking your shit, bitch, so
don’t even think about leaving me. And of course things are great
when they’re great—that’s part of an abuser’s MO. If abusers were
abusive 24/7—if they weren’t capable of doling out a little bliss now
and then—no abusive relationship would last longer than one date.
Like all abusers, he parcels out the good times, doping you up with a
little bliss now and then, because he knows that these glimpses of how
great things could be convince you to stick around against your better
judgment.

The bliss is a con, HDTH, a weapon that he uses against you, just as
much a part of the cycle of abuse as his tantrums, fits and threats of
violence are. Think of the good times as rainbow sprinkles on a
dog-shit sundae—sprinkles or no sprinkles, you’re still standing
there with a bowl full of dog shit in your hands.

Get a couple of friends to come over when he’s at work or out of
town, box up your shit and leave. You can’t change him. Go.

Q:Apropos of nothing,
Savage, you fucking suck ass.

You And Your Column Both Suck

A: Have I ever claimed
otherwise?

And apropos of nothing, YAYCBS, I’m totally grooving on Garfunkel
& Oates right now (garfunkelandoates.com), and
everyone has to check them out; Perez Hilton was absolutely right about
Miss California (she is a dumb bitch); Seattle-based artist Kim
Graham (kimgrahamstudios.com) is getting
centaur fetishists halfway there; and I recently visited the University
of Georgia in Athens, where the kids asked me to come up with a dirty
meaning for “between the hedges,” which is their football stadium’s
nickname. Off the top of my head, I said, “The boy in a girl-boy-girl
three-way could be described as being between the hedges.”

But upon further reflection, I think the term is a better
description of going down on a woman with a particularly hairy
bush—and the tongue, not the boy/girl doing the tonguing, is “between
the hedges.”

This article appears in May 7-13, 2009.