Tuesday, August 09, 2005
Not That There's Anything Wrong With It
This is going to come as a shock to The Mrs., our family, and our friends, but James Dobson's Focus on the Family group has posted a helpful series called "Helping Boys Become Men, and Girls Become Women" that addresses the question of how parents can keep their children from going homosexual, and after reading the series and reflecting on my childhood, I am pretty sure that I might be gay.
For example, one sign that a boy might be gay is "A strong feeling that they are different from other boys." Yeah, I had that. You could suggest that every kid feels that they're different from other kids, but that's just your godless liberalism talking. "A tendency to cry easily, be less athletic, and dislike the roughhousing that other boys enjoy." Well, I didn't cry easily, but I was not blessed with athletic talent, not even a little bit. I liked to play football, however--but touch and not tackle. Most unathletic kids who grew up to be gay "had traits that could be considered gifts: bright, precocious, social and relational, and artistically talented." That was me, definitely. (Why couldn't I have been a dullard?) "A repeatedly stated desire to be — or insistence that he is — a girl." I think I wore drag for Halloween one year. Does that count? "A strong preference to spend time in the company of girls and participate in their games and other pastimes." Well, as a kid I don't remember going through a phase when I thought girls were icky. Most of the new and enduring friendships I have made as an adult have been with women. At my last corporate gig, I was the only man in a department with 20 women, and I got along just like I was one of the girls. I was once invited to go shoe-shopping with them, and I'm going out drinking with some of them tomorrow night.
The evidence is piling up.
Plus, I think my dad messed me up, too. Dr. Dobson has all kinds of suggestions for proper dad behavior, but my dad didn't get the memo. He was supposed to play rough-and-tumble games with me, but unless you count horsie rides to bed, I can't recall any. It wasn't like we played rugby or anything. He was supposed to teach me to pound a square wooden peg into a square hole in a pegboard. I had a pegboard, but putting the square peg into the round hole seemed more challenging and fun. (Damned precocious and artistic behavior again.) Most worrisome of all, Dr. Dobson recommends that a father should "take his son with him into the shower, where the boy cannot help but notice that Dad has a penis, just like his, only bigger." (I'm sure the boy can't help but notice his father's penis in that situation, what with it being at eye level and all, but I digress.) In any event, my dad never took me into the shower, not once. Despite that, I know for a fact he has a penis, and that's good. Knowing such a thing is apparently key to preventing homosexuality, so at least I have that going for me.
So many behaviors can be signs of gayness, and we'd never know if Focus on the Family didn't tell us. So now I'm starting to doubt everything I do: I own cats instead of dogs. I thought about watching Sex and the City tonight instead of baseball on ESPN. I just had a tangerine-lime bottled water to drink instead of a cup of black coffee.
Yep, gay as an Easter basket. No doubt about it.
This is going to come as a shock to The Mrs., our family, and our friends, but James Dobson's Focus on the Family group has posted a helpful series called "Helping Boys Become Men, and Girls Become Women" that addresses the question of how parents can keep their children from going homosexual, and after reading the series and reflecting on my childhood, I am pretty sure that I might be gay.
For example, one sign that a boy might be gay is "A strong feeling that they are different from other boys." Yeah, I had that. You could suggest that every kid feels that they're different from other kids, but that's just your godless liberalism talking. "A tendency to cry easily, be less athletic, and dislike the roughhousing that other boys enjoy." Well, I didn't cry easily, but I was not blessed with athletic talent, not even a little bit. I liked to play football, however--but touch and not tackle. Most unathletic kids who grew up to be gay "had traits that could be considered gifts: bright, precocious, social and relational, and artistically talented." That was me, definitely. (Why couldn't I have been a dullard?) "A repeatedly stated desire to be — or insistence that he is — a girl." I think I wore drag for Halloween one year. Does that count? "A strong preference to spend time in the company of girls and participate in their games and other pastimes." Well, as a kid I don't remember going through a phase when I thought girls were icky. Most of the new and enduring friendships I have made as an adult have been with women. At my last corporate gig, I was the only man in a department with 20 women, and I got along just like I was one of the girls. I was once invited to go shoe-shopping with them, and I'm going out drinking with some of them tomorrow night.
The evidence is piling up.
Plus, I think my dad messed me up, too. Dr. Dobson has all kinds of suggestions for proper dad behavior, but my dad didn't get the memo. He was supposed to play rough-and-tumble games with me, but unless you count horsie rides to bed, I can't recall any. It wasn't like we played rugby or anything. He was supposed to teach me to pound a square wooden peg into a square hole in a pegboard. I had a pegboard, but putting the square peg into the round hole seemed more challenging and fun. (Damned precocious and artistic behavior again.) Most worrisome of all, Dr. Dobson recommends that a father should "take his son with him into the shower, where the boy cannot help but notice that Dad has a penis, just like his, only bigger." (I'm sure the boy can't help but notice his father's penis in that situation, what with it being at eye level and all, but I digress.) In any event, my dad never took me into the shower, not once. Despite that, I know for a fact he has a penis, and that's good. Knowing such a thing is apparently key to preventing homosexuality, so at least I have that going for me.
So many behaviors can be signs of gayness, and we'd never know if Focus on the Family didn't tell us. So now I'm starting to doubt everything I do: I own cats instead of dogs. I thought about watching Sex and the City tonight instead of baseball on ESPN. I just had a tangerine-lime bottled water to drink instead of a cup of black coffee.
Yep, gay as an Easter basket. No doubt about it.
