The term gay adolescence is going throughout the MoHo world quite commonly these days. In Drex's most recent post, he talks about it and how people should grow up. There have also been some comments on some people's blogs and I have gotten a few emails about it. It is interesting how a term can be misconstrued and used to justify some actions.
Most of the MoHos in Happy Valley are in their gay adolescence. I know that I have been through it and sometimes I fall back into it. I also know how hard it is to go through it. It is, as Salad and Drex like to call it, "the new and shiny phase." During this time, people meet other gay members of the church and get all excited. They feel welcome and like they can be themselves. Is this, however, where the problem lies? Nope. This is the good aspect of it because people are dealing with things and receiving the help that is needed. The problem lies in the next step of gay adolescence. It is where people start falling in "love" and experimenting with their feelings and new found freedom.
I just want to say that I believe that two men and two women can fall in love like a man and a woman can fall in love. Do I agree with it? No I do not because I have been taught that it is against the teachings of the church. Do I accept it and allow people to have their freedom? Yes I do because everybody should have their choices in life so that they can learn and grow or ruin their salvation by the choices they make.
Ok, sorry to get off of track, but I thought that would be the best place to throw that in there. So in gay adolescence, people say that they are like a 13 or 14 year old straight person discovering boys or girls for the first time. In my opinion, there is nothing wrong with that. I do feel like that is a good definition. The problem with that is that people use that definition to start justifying their actions.
A 13 or 14 year old might just hold hands with the person that they "love." Then they might even get the courage up to kiss the other person. This is all that they might possibly do. We, on the other hand, are not 13 and 14 year olds. Our bodies are more developed and our sex drives are a lot stronger than 13 and 14 year olds. This causes problems because people end up doing things that they should not be doing. I have heard stories from a lot of people about how it just started out with kissing, it went to rubbing, it went to hand jobs, it went to blow jobs, and then ended up in sex. It usually does not go are far as sex or blow jobs, but people justify the other actions by saying that they are in their gay adolescence and that they are just experimenting like straight people do as a 13 or 14 year old. This is absolutely wrong! 13 and 14 year olds do not do this!
This is something that is serious and it should not be played around with! A lot of you are endowed in the temple and you have made temple covenants. How can you just throw them away? Are they no longer important to you because you are back in your "adolescence" stage? I have yet to go to the temple so I do not know everything that happens there and I do not know all of the covenants that are made there. I do know, however, that they are important and breaking them means big problems.
We are all adults here (some might not consider me an adult, but I do). We have more responsibilities than 13 and 14 year olds and the consequences are a lot harsher too. Gay adolescence might be a stage that MoHos go through, but it does not need to go as far as it is going. So as Drex said, "Grow up."
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6 comments:
Gay adolescence puts the homosexual through the emotional discoveries like a 14-year-old but not as a 14-year-old.
The distinction is important because it does change the dynamics significantly. I agree with you 100% Here.
But what's this talk of "grow-up?" Where? How? Perhaps we are to do as 14-year-olds do but what process is that?
I hate to play the devil's advocate, but you would be surprised how many 13 and 14 year olds do experiment with hand jobs, blow jobs etc. It's a very sobering thought. :(
Ydata, as usual, thank you so much for standing up for what is right and the teachings of the church. It's especially disheartening to see people that I know and love "enjoying" their adolescence and not caring about the consequences right now. When someone tells you they just want to have fun, but knows they will shape up and try and live the gospel later, it's heart-breaking. I hurt for people who don't see the effect their decisions now will have on their future. I wish someone had been around to knock sense into me and question me about how important my covenants and convictions were before I made some of the decisions I did. Being strong in what you believe can put you in a place to be a pillar to others who may not be on as stable ground as you.
Keep being that rock of spirituality.
You're great.
Gay adolescence comes at different times to different people based on past experience. It has nothing to do with age or being "grown up". Gay adolescence in my world is finally recognizing the joy of feeling attracted to another guy (just like I might have as a 14 year old had I not been so confused) and not kicking myself in the process, but actually enjoying the feeling. It's being held by or snuggled with another guy in a sense of male-to-male friendship - and nothing more. It is being affectionate without worrying about what others think.
But it also is infatuation just as a 14 year old, and that can lead to the slippery slope you describe. I am "old" as you have noted in the past, and as such, should be a "grown up" and should know better. It is covenants that keep me anchored in my mature state, keeping me from "knowing", and rightfully so. It is this same anchor that keeps me in the "gay adolescent" state.
Beck, in my defense... I did not call you old, but you called yourself old in the email you sent to Hidden and myself.
Also I agree with you on what you talked about in your gay adolescence. That's what it used to be, but it has become readily going away from that and experimenting with things that should not be experimented with. That is what gay adolescence is becoming for a lot of MoHos here at BYU.
I know that I have done some things that I have regret in my gay adolescence and I freely admit it. I wish that I never did those things, but I did and now I have to move on with my life. It's not the end of the world.
I'm a relatively prudish guy, I think, but even I'm aware that a heck of a lot of experimentation goes on in the teenage years. I've been shocked as I've talked to friends about past experiences and found out what goes on in those hormonally explosive years
Maybe part of what makes it seem so much more rampant in the moho world is that you're suddenly in a circle of people who actually talk about these things rather than keeping them top secret and dismissing them as "childhood experimentation."
Similarly, having never really experienced sexuality, many adult mohos end up going farther than they thought they would but maybe out of an almost innocent vulnerability and juvenile desire for closeness. But when they experience some things and gain more perspective on the emotional consequences, they pretty quickly make decisions accordingly. It's easy to fall back into patterns of behavior, but probably not much moreso, if at all, than our hetero counterparts.
That doesn't, in any way, justify actions contrary to covenants, but I'm not convinced it's as different a situation as it sounds like you think it is. But then, I'm going off of mostly hearsay, so I could easily be wrong.
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