Sorry if someone was made to feel unwelcome

[GetOrfAKAMrsUsainBolt]

I refer to a complaint made to Rowan on the 'sleeping with the enemies' thread - it was made by a gay woman who felt that she was being made to feel unwelcome.

I don't know exactly what the complaint was but I assume it is to do with the lesbophobia terminology used.

I am really sorry if that has upset someone - it is not a word intended as an insult. I only used it in context of an argument about vile thread a few months back. In that thread a MNer (who happened to be gay) stated some very distasteful and triggering views, and a good number of MNers complained about it and rebuked her on the thread. Another MNer (call her X) said that this was a mark of 'lesbophobia' (her words) and that a lot of MNers were homophobic.

This was strongly contested by lots of people - I am not homophibic in the least, and neither are most of us on here, there are plently of long standing gay women on MN, and some were raised in families with gay women, so for a great sweeping statement of 'you lot are lesbophobic' was bloody out of order.

Hence the reference to it on that thread. I am sorry that it was upsetting, it is certainly not a word I use and I only used it in the context of the above. I can see that at best it looks like ignorant flippancy and at worst looks insulting. So please accept my apologies.

Rowan - if you want to delete this thread as you don't want another bunfight please can you forward my apology to the MNer mentioned by you (I am going to report this post but I think this is the best way to communicate directly with MNHQ). Thanks

Oh no - I have inadvertently opened a can of worms just before I go to bed,

A bit of Tina is alway a fine thing.

porto, it is interesting, it's not a bad can of worms, is it?

Would it be better to emphasize that a parent should love a child? Surely that's the primary relationship in question.

Maybe I am just old fashioned!

Or maybe I come from an odd set up and have romantic notions about families.

Oh, I have romantic notions about families - I just don't think we should be teaching them.

And hothead, I think you are articulating it just fine.

Linking a child's relationship to their parents with the romantic/sexual relationship between those parents is fairly patriarchial, isn't it? It surely goes back to all the stuff about controlling women as the means of reproduction.

(That was meant to be enthusiastic, not condescending. I hope that came across. I don't have a clue, and you do, and you are articulating it in a way that is helping me make sense of it all.)

I was brought up by GPs for example. They were lovely but for many, many years of my childhood and adolescence, I yearned to be with my parents, or parent, as my mother died. I felt odd, I lied about it, I felt ashamed.

oh, that is tricky, Hothead.

I do think that schools do the 'sex as part of a loving relationship' to try and steer teens away from casual sex, but tbh I don't think it is working, or ever has worked.

I am torn. From personal experience, casual sex was never good for me. I preferred to get to know the guy first. Not that I think casual sex is bad, but it wasn't for me.

It would be wrong though for me to insinuate to my children, or others that because I prefer to be in a loving relationship, then they shouldn't have sex unless they are in one too.

The truth will set us free.

Humans are a disaster.

Love thyself and as many others as you can manage, tho it's very hard work as mostly they are a bit shit, have sex if you want, but safe.

A respectful relationship, maybe?

And I think you can respect someone in a pretty short time if you are both decent human beings.

I am sorry too, Porto. That sounds tough.

It is however, like my experience, a reminder that we have to take our personal feelings out of the equation and think about the big picture.

If we allow our feelings, and our memories of our own childhood to cloud our thinking on how the children of others should be educated in these issues, then we risk giving a very different impression than would be healthy.

yup a hard one.

I think schools are treading a line between the parents who would rather they say 'don't have sex until you are married' and those who say do it if it makes you happy (and to be honest I think that most people who would subscribe to that as an adult, don't necessarily think its the best message for teens)

I agree Mme 'sex as part of a loving relationship' is a compromise message and meant to steer teens away from casual sex. Whether it works or not,
I don't think there is anything they can say that will please everyone.

Its one thing to recognise that children will have been conceived and brought up in all different situations. It is another to think of them as potential parents for whom it is a better idea to plan to have children than to fall pregnant/make someone pregnant by accident, and if they do have sex to do it with someone they have mutual respect for (...if not love...call me an old romantic) .

I think at some stage, you can reasonably separate out 'having sex' and 'having a baby, can't you?

I mean, fuzzy memories of school, but by secondary school we were all perfectly well aware sex didn't have to lead to a baby!

Sorry Hothead I meant rather than teaching sex to be in the context of a respectful relationship rather than necessarily a loving relationship. Meaning: if you don't feel the other person respects you, even if you've only known them briefly, then sex might not be the best plan. Not on the con text of parents being in a relationship per se.

Have had lots of so am going to stop posting now.

Himalaya
Yes, I guess that mutual respect is a good one.

You can't really tell the teachers to say, 'if you are going to have sex with a guy, make sure he is not a controlling knobhead first, and if you go ahead anyway, make sure you use a condom so that you don't have that controlling knobhead in your life for the next 18y till your child is grown'.

It would perhaps help though.