Welcome, straight people! And hello to our lovely LGBQT+ community as well … but we’re going to be focusing on the straight folks today, m’kay?
So, our hetero friends, how would you like to be superheroes and save lives? Ah, that piques your interest? And what if I told you that can do it just by sitting around watching some entertaining shows? I see you like that idea even more!
There is one catch, though. You have to provide your own popcorn.
A few sobering facts before we begin
LGBQT+ youth are:
They are also at much greater risk for self-harm (such as cutting), violence by others, drug overdose, sex trafficking, and more.
As the current regime strips “woke” and DEI from schools, libraries, and other public spaces, we should expect all of these numbers to get worse.
That’s where you come in, our heroes!
The silence is deafening
I’m sure you are a supportive ally of the LGBQT+ community, right? You’ve probably voted repeatedly for candidates who endorse gay rights and marriage equality. Perhaps you’ve spoken out against censorship of LGBQT+ books at a meeting of your town library. Maybe you’ve admonished a bully who was harassing a presumably gay teenager.
That’s terrific, we really appreciate it! But ...
Yeah, there are always “buts”, aren’t there?
Meteor Blades, our esteemed DK member, has said many times:
Don’t tell me what you believe; show me what you do and I will tell you what you believe.
That’s where we have a problem. Or, to be accurate, that’s where your kids may have a problem.
[Sidebar] When I use terms like “your kids” here, you need to interpret it for your own situation. Perhaps you have teenage children, or maybe grandchildren, or nieces and nephews, or even the kids of your friends.
Imagine if someone claimed they were a very devout Catholic. But they never went to church, never took communion. In their home, you couldn't find a rosary, or a picture of the Pope, or a Bible, or a crucifix. There’s a glaring absence of evidence for their claim.
You might start wondering if their claim was sincere. What they say doesn’t jibe with what they do.
That’s how it may be with you. You say the right things and do many right things – and that’s great! – but what is absent shouts a harmful message to your kids, day after day, throughout their adolescence … and I’m sure that isn’t your intention.
What is absent and how does it hurt?
How many times between your earliest memories and the end of your teen years did you see guys and gals kiss? My research shows – one moment, I’m calculating … 37 multiplied by the square of the hypotenuse …. minus [removes one sock to count on toes] … right, got it! – 17,734 times.
And how many times did you see two boys kiss? Much quicker calculation, this time it’s easy: zero.
Okay, I admit I pulled that first figure out of the air but I think you get the idea. Growing up, loving affection between males and females is shown constantly. TV shows, movies, print advertising, live-action commercials, cartoons, and much more flood us with straight imagery as normal and good.
Straight people fall in love with each other everywhere we look and it’s 100% totally normalized. You see it, your kids see it: guys and gals falling in love and showing their romantic feelings is charming and wonderful.
What do your gay kids see? They see nothing at all that’s like what they feel (and we all know how strongly teenagers feel things).
Can you blame them for thinking:
- “Mom and dad say they are for gay rights but apparently they mean it for other people; they don’t want it in our family and our home” or,
- “All those couples kissing are guys and gals; I guess boys kissing boys is too shameful and disgusting to show”
Even in an LGBQT-affirming home, the absence of love and romance between two guys (or two gals) sends a loud and powerful and crushing message to many not-yet-out kids (and it sends that message to straight kids, too, about their gay friends or family members): love and romance are reserved for straights only.
I confess!
I need to confess something: I cried the first time I saw a BL series. It was a lighthearted comedy so tears were not appropriate.
[Sidebar] A BL, or Boys’s Love work, is a film or episodic series that has a romance between two guys, usually late teens to early thirties, as its central idea. BLs include many genres such as comedy, detective/mystery drama, supernatural thriller, sci-fi, and more but there is always a gay love affair at their core.
Most BL content is produced in Asian countries (so you will read subtitles). The vast majority would be rated PG in the US, nothing more spicy than a bit of kissing (but there are some that would be R-rated). The classic BL formula is that the two boys finally kiss for about two seconds in the next to last episode, have a misunderstanding and falling out in the last episode, and then make up before the end with another two-second smooch.
You can read my introductory guide to BL here.
I cried from sorrow because I thought of the millions of LGBQT+ teens over the decades that I have been alive who never got to see themselves normalized in dramas and comedies onscreen. They never got to hope that they can find love and romance just like the guys in a TV show or movie. They didn’t see themselves in media with messages that they never need to feel less than anyone else.
And I cried with happiness, also … that LGBQT+ kids now and tomorrow will have these works as inspirations for their own lives and futures. They will grow up feeling good about themselves and seeing how to find and build romantic relationships with someone they love.
Is that happy future possible? In your home and the homes of those near and dear to you? Will kids grow up seeing healthy queer relationships or will they continue to feel invisible, emotionally cast out, and worthy of nothing but shame, their relationships treated as “best unseen lest they disgust normal people”?
How to watch BLs with kids
Do you announce “this comedy starring a straight couple is supposed to be good” to your family? I doubt it. So why would you do that, substituting “gay”? You’d be defeating your own purpose, your presentation would “other” the movie and the gay characters.
Telling your teens “you should watch this series about gay teenagers” might be fine for your straight teens, if you can be 100% sure they really are straight. If you have a kid who is possibly a not-yet-out gay boy, though, you might as well just yell at him “Come out of the closet, you pervy deviant!” He will be certain that it’s some kind of a trap or fishing expedition to find out his sexuality.
A superhero for his kids
Yeah, we as gay teens tend toward paranoia … but it’s with good reason and it’s kept many of us alive, in a home, and not physically assaulted. A good thing.
Try to think like a gay kid who’s still not out. Maybe just watch without invitation or comment and see if they wander in and peek at it a while. Or a low-key comment after it’s over, like “Seeing Steve and John end up together was nice, they make a sweet couple.” You know your kids; be sensitive and draw them in.
Don’t make a big deal out of it or try to run some kind of week-long BL marathon. Include a BL series or movie now and then in your viewing mix as just another part of the entertainment you normally watch. Make it an inclusive viewing experience.
If you pass off BL content just to your gay kid to watch on his own, what is your message? “This distasteful stuff is for you; we, the normal members of your family, can’t relate to the gay characters (like you!).” That’s pretty harsh other-ing of your own kid. “You aren’t like us and your abnormal feelings make us uncomfortable.”
Coming-out porn
Please be careful about what you watch. For the love of Crom, don’t include Brokeback Mountain (see my review Let's talk about that famous "gay cowboys" movie).
In fact, most of the gay films that I see coming from the West (America and Europe) are not gay-positive at all. They’re almost invariably about painfully coming out, alienation, hopelessness, and suffering.
I call it coming-out porn. It’s not healthy for vulnerable teens already dealing with the overwhelming feelings of puberty and adolescence. Trust me, they already know that coming out can be scary, hard, and potentially have bad consequences.
Imagine if you grew up seeing absolutely nothing about straight love and romance except a few movies that showed society hating straight people, broken straight relationships, feelings of isolation and loneliness due to being straight, straight folks losing their jobs and homes, etc. Could you possibly feel like your heterosexuality, your intense emotions and desires, were anything but warped and wrong? It wouldn’t change your sexuality but it could very well destroy your self-esteem and your ability to love and build a relationship as a straight person.
Be kind to your kids. Treat those types of films as porn; handle with care.
But Will & Grace!
Right. There have been some shows and films with gay people as main characters. They were entertaining. Will & Grace was funny.
But do you think your teenagers can relate their own lives to some mid-30’s to 40’s people — a hotshot lawyer, an interior designer, a rich socialite, and an actor — living in Manhattan?
Karen and Jack, the very funny sidekicks on Will & Grace
Are they going to think “Wow, their lives are so much like my own, what an inspiration!”
Mostly, in popular media, we get sidelined as sidekicks. We are there to prop up the main characters, listen to their problems, mend their broken hearts, and provide some laughs. It’s their (the straight main characters) story, not ours.
Even when we are main characters, as in W&G, we’re pretty sterile. How much boy-boy kissing was there on that show? I remember a single kiss and it was a Very Big Deal on network television, precisely because it is so rare.
How many storylines involved Will’s love life? Oddly enough for a “gay show,” the primary relationship was that of a man (Will) and a woman (Grace).
Western media just doesn’t have anything comparable to Boys’ Love, which is a huge and popular genre in Asia, where its audiences are overwhelmingly straight (BL’s popularity is widely credited with influencing Thailand’s government to legalize gay marriage recently; Thailand is the world’s largest producer of BLs).
Get used to it
Scientists in the CERN tunnels deep beneath the Swiss Alps wish they had detectors as sensitive as those of a not-yet-out gay teenager. He knows that at times his very life literally may depend on instantly and constantly knowing what is really going on in someone’s head, on deciphering the tiniest clues of voice and gesture to know if someone suspects he’s gay or means him harm.
So when you give even a hint of raising an eyebrow while watching a scene of two boys kissing, your kid isn’t going to think “Mom/Dad finds this a bit difficult to watch.” Nope, he’s going to — not think — but know down to his core that “Mom/Dad finds me repulsive and disgusting.” Is that what you want him to feel?
So put this Youtube video on a watch loop, or find some similar boy-boy kissy-kissy vids, and keep watching until you get to the point where you truly feel “Aww, that’s sweet, I’m happy those boys found romance and affection with each other.”
Really, this should not be a challenge. We queer people have watched straight people kissing the same thousands of times that you have and we don’t need to fight down nausea or sweat profusely or turn bright red with embarrassment. If we can do it, so can you.
What if your kid is already out?
Why not do as suggested above and incorporate some BL entertainment in your family’s viewing time, regardless of the status of, or your awareness of, your kid’s sexuality?
Even an out-and-proud gay kid can benefit from watching BLs.
BLs generally don’t dwell on the difficulties of coming out. In fact, they usually treat it as a matter-of-fact thing, with none of the character’s friends finding it at all unusual for their friend to be gay.
Perhaps it’s fantasy, or perhaps they reflect our modern world in some places, but BLs let gay characters be themselves, in most ways just like their straight friends. Their romantic struggles are the same as straight kids: does so-and-so like me? How can I spend time with so-and-so and still practice enough to win this swim meet? So-and-so seems angry with me, what did I do and how can we make up?
You know, normal stuff every straight young person goes through.
In real life, gay kids most often have a truncated adolescence in terms of romance and affection. They don’t get the same years of experimenting with dating and flirting and such because their chances of finding partners is much more limited, especially if they live in an environment that is disapproving.
So, kids can gain experience and confidence vicariously about dating and building relationships by watching gay characters leading normal lives … not as oddballs but as valued friends among their peers, who cheer on their romantic successes and offer help and advice when things go awry. BLs can help your kids learn and grow.
BLs also affirm that their desires, crushes, and awkward moments are normal and fine. That’s a good message to send to LGBQT+ kids.
Watch BLs even if your kids are 100% straight
Word gets around among their friends and classmates. If your kids see a BL they really like at home, they might mention it at school or feature it in a TikTok or Instagram post. Every action like that helps, bit-by-bit normalizing gay romance and affection.
Be a hero for them
Some other kid, seeing or hearing your kid’s reaction may take hope that at least in some families he would be loved and accepted and treated with respect.
Do you have any idea how powerful it is for a gay kid lost in depression and self-loathing to think, for the very first time, “Maybe I’m okay after all”?
You may have saved his life. Or lent him the strength to stay in his home and in school, rather than flee to the streets.
And you did it without even needing a cape and tights, just by the subversive (under this regime) act of watching a BL.
Be a BL hero. You’ll feel good about it. And you’ll enjoy some well-crafted and emotionally satisfying stories.
We have a guide prepared for you about where and how to watch BL series and movies (below).
Coming up
Next week I will be reviewing Until We Meet Again. Look in the calendar section below for links to watch it. I have a couple of warnings for you:
- The first scene, approximately six minutes long, has shocking violence and is hard to watch. However, it is absolutely necessary as it is the foundational event that affects three generations of people over the following 3+ decades. There is a lot of cuteness and sweetness in the series too so tough it out through this brutal opening segment (peek through your fingers, if you must)
- Yes, sweetness is all over UWMA … but it is also the tearjerker of all tearjerkers, of any genre. I am not kidding when I tell you that you will cry buckets of tears throughout the 17 episodes. It will be a powerful experience that you will never forget. So watch it with lots of boxes of tissues at hand
BoysLove group publishes stories every Tuesday at 1 pm Eastern / 10 am Pacific. We are looking for authors to join us. Please contact Krotor if you want to write stories for our group!
Watch these videos below before upcoming stories about them so you can avoid spoilers and participate in discussions in the comments section.
When possible, we include links where you can watch the videos for free (click here to read our story all about how and where to watch Boys’ Love content).
BL series and movies in upcoming stories
| Story date |
Series or Movie |
Episodes |
Where to watch |
| Mar 18 |
Until We Meet Again (2019) |
17 |
Viki (free) or Youtube playlists (free)
|
| Mar 25 |
Wicked |
|
Fandango |
