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

Mme - I love your wording, we should campaign with Gove to have it accepted.

Am I allowed to bang on about the fact that I feel very strongly that we should be teaching children/teens to recognise controlling behaviour - not only in potential sexual/life partners, but also in friends and relatives.

We should be teaching young teens the 'red flags' of abusive behaviour - how to recognise said knobhead and how to send him to the far side of fuck.

Will send this to the Dept of Education. Mr Gove, you are welcome.

I've been thinking that if we teach kids that sex should/can only happen within a loving relationship then we may be doing them a disservice - those kids that are vulnerable and exposed are possibly more likely to be manipulated into sex by older people saying 'I love you so much'. It turns it all on its head.

The fact is that for many people - the older 'half' of the pseudo-couple - sex may very much not be part of a loving, stable relationship, but they know what to say to make the young person think that it is.

If that makes any sense at all.

There was a fantastic campaign in dd's school that said the don't have sex with knob heads thing only in more circumspect language. It was called, I think, "Love shouldn't Hurt"

I totally get where you are all coming from. There are so many different flavours of family these days - and that is a good thing - and I should not let my negative experience colour that. But on the other hand I think there ARE consequences when indiscrimate shagging is encouraged,

I took so long to post that, it had already been said by MmeLindor and debated!

As a single parent by choice, I would be fucking furious if my child were taught at school that babies should only be the result of a 'loving relationship'.

If anything, the message should be that babies should ideally be planned rather than accidental.

I like that Seeker. I had very low self esteem as a teen. I want my dd to be different to me. At the mo, she is 8 so I have a few years to come up with the message I want to give her.

Oh, no. Linerunner. you added a whole new aspect that I hadn't yet thought of.

Hate to do a DM style link in of a tragic current case - but look at that young girl who ran away with her teacher to France. Of course she thinks that he is her one true love and that they are star crossed lovers.

This is such an interesting thread, I've stayed up way past my bedtime reading it all.

DD2 has only just started year 2 - she's six - and her reading books this year already have contained a single dad, and a lesbian couple with kids. I am happy and a bit proud that she has just taken it as "oh so what" in a way that would not have really been possible when I was her age (1976).

I am also convinced that introducing a whole variety of family types in all different parts of the curriculum helps when they get to that specific PHSE stuff at age 10:

1. Maths problem - Stuart and his dads drive to the seaside in 30 mins...
2. English grammar - Punctuate this sentence - the two women who loved each other had a lovely meal at a restaurant which they had not been to before

Etc.

Those are incredibly crass examples but it's late and hopefully you see what I mean. Different family types become normalised by normal references to them.

I know I've strayed off the thread a bit, seeing as you were talking about teenage sex. But I think this normalising approach helps there too - what if the sex you want to have as a teenager is not the hetero type?

I've just read back my post and realised that "normalised" might not be the right word. I'm not saying anything is abnormal - I was using the word more in the statistical sense (numbers geek) - hope that is ok.

Mumsnet is lots of things. What it is not is one homogenous single opinion. It is ridiculous to try and make it out to be so.

Yes Hothead so true. At the school I work in, there are a couple of families with two dads (none with 2 mums I don't think), and our pupils start at nursery age so about 3. Those from hetero or other families might not have come across it before and it is important to address it in the right way. You don't want to make a big deal of it, but little kids do have a way of asking questions (why doesn't she have a mummy? Whose tummy did she come out of?) and you want to protect the little one with the 2 dads from any unpleasantness that stems from ignorance.

Very,very sadly, if there is anyone with a problem with it, it's almost always another parent.

Hearts
We watched Britains Got Talent last year with the kids - there was one act - ballroom dancers, both male who talked about their love for one another, and being married.

Our DC both asked if men could marry men, and I told them yes, and that women could marry women.

7yo DS said, 'They were really sweet, weren't they? They were really in love'.

For our children, it was so very unremarkable. I can't think that it would have been the same when we were young, despite my parents being very open and accepting.

Hothead - how does that apply in what you tell boys?

The reality is some blokes take no responsibility for contraception. The reality is that some blokes take no or very little responsibility for the children they father.

This is what they choose, and it gives them great independence, but i dont think its a bad thing to say that its not a good thing. If that's propaganda so be it.

So, what I kinda told DCs:

Sex is fun if you're doing it right

Bad relationships are just bad

Good relationships are, well, good, and can make sex feel a bit magical sometimes

For god's sake please understand and use contraception and don't think you have to remain pregnant ever, if you don't want to be, but deal wth it really early if you can and I will always love you.

Whereas I think my own mother told me, 'No-one's ever meant to be happy.' But that's another story.