So a scout tells you......

[Cambridgeskip]

Garrison Cap - It seems I think that I had misunderstood you!

 

However my experience of co-ed scouting is that to be honest I think adults are far more stressed about sexual relationships than they need to be. Yes kids are curious, that goes with puberty, but to be honest for the most part they talk about sex an awful lot more than they actually do it. We have rules on camp such as single sex tents, no going into each others tents after dark etc, we trust the scouts to follow those rules and they follow them! We have one couple in the troop (it's actually quite cute!) and they have simply never been a problem

[Scoutfish]

KC9DDI,

 

Nah, it's cool!

 

What I mean about kids possibly being confused remeinds me of a friend I had when I was younger.

 

Ther used to be about 8 of us who hung out and always did stuff together.

 

WEll, every group has it's witty guy or jokester. They are a load of fun to hang out with and could even make scapping dog poop off your shoes a cool and fun thing to do.

 

WEll, I started noticing that one of the guys in this group started getting distant and jealous when the "cool" guy did something with the botrher guys.

 

I talked to him and he says that he thinks he might be gay. He's all upset about it, ashamed about it, and is pretty sure he might be , but not 100% sure.

 

WEll, after talkiing for a couple hours, and thinking about a bunch of girls he had the hots for, he started leaning towards thinking he was both ways. ( we didn't have the term "BI" back then). So Iask him if he could imagine kissing a guy and holding hands or hugging him.

 

In about five minutes, he realized that what he was concerned were gay feelings were actually just feeling s of really enjoying hanging out witha good friend who could literally make you have a fun time scrapping dog poop off your shoes.

 

And who doesn't like hanging out with somebody who just makes everythinfg fun and enjoyable?

 

THose feelings are whuy we spend rediculous mounts of money going to see Jeff Foxworthy, or Eddie Murphy or Jeff Dunham.

 

They make us laugh, make us enjoy the moment and forget everything else.

 

Anyways,. my friend trhought he might be gay, turns out he was confused by his feelings.

 

As a side note, I had a cousin who thought she was pregnant even though she only "did it" once.

 

Turns out "did it" was letting a boy feel her breast under her shirt while playing spin the bottle.

 

Yeah, sounds corny, but even in thsi day and age, not everybody knows exactly what "doing it" means or what all those diferent associated feelings are or mean when going through puberty.

 

I also know that since some boys reach puberty early, and some reach it late..that the late guy who is hanging out with a couple early guys might wonder why he isn't experiencing the same feelings about girls that the other boys are.

 

He may wonder or think he is possibly gay because he doesn't have that fascination or obsession with girls yet.

 

And in todays society, if you aren't planning your wedding or who you are gona score with by 6th grade, everybody just knows you are gay.

 

So, that is what I meant by being confused with what you might fel or based on what you think you know.

 

Can't say what anybody else meant though.

 

 

 

[5yearscouter]

Scoutfish you explain it well, why we might want to make sure someone isn't just confused about things as the first step in a discussion like this.

 

Why would we assume someone is just confused? At certain ages and stages of development, it is normal for a young person to feel more attached and comfortable being around people of their same sex.

 

Say you put that normalcy to the test by having some in your peer group develop and go thru puberty at a different rate, and you start to wonder and worry that everyone else likes girls and you are the only guy not liking girls yet so there must be something "wrong" with you. And some of society says that maybe that = gay.

 

 

Might really screws with a young person.

 

[Hal_Crawford]

Scoutfish:

Your post reminded me of when I volunteered with a Hotline when I was in college. We often got calls from young girls who thought they were pregnant. Often it was for reasons like the one you mentioned, a boy felt her breast or they kissed with their mouths open. This was before sex ed was common and certainly not taught before the junior or senior year of high school.

 

One day I got a call from a girl with a really young voice, "I think I'm pregnant."

 

Sure that it was one of those calls I asked--and I hope I didn't sound smug--"why do you think you're pregnant?"

 

"My boyfriend and I have been having sex for about a year, I haven't had a period in four months and I am having trouble zipping up my jeans."

 

I suddenly felt clueless and totally unprepared for what I was doing.

 

 

[Tampa Turtle]

Hal,

 

I still feel clueless. I recall when I was 30 and an adjunct professor (and a very married one at that) teaching HTML in the ancient days of the internet. I had a very small class of 5 students (it was a 3 hour lab class 3 times a week) so everyone got a lot of individual attention.

 

One day one of my female students wanted to show me her website "I made it just to show you professor _"

 

On the screen were lots of *ahem* naked pictures, etc. Of course I advised her that was inappropriate especially on a State university network.

 

I later realized that she had misconstrued my attention as something more and it was a bit of a come-on. I did not have tenure and saw my academic career flash before my eyes. I ran to my Dean and told him what happened just to get it in on the record. He had a good chuckle and nothing ever came of it.

 

I tried not to hurt the feelings of the girl who seemed a little confused and neglected to me.

 

I told my wife too just in case this girl ever sent anything home. My wife got pretty mad at me anyway. Comely co-eds were always a occupational hazard.

 

I was always very careful around the female students after that which made me angry at that girl; it messed up my teaching. Males got most of the attention from the faculty and I saw a lot of brilliant females who needed more academic support.

 

(The older faculty mocked me for not sleeping with her when they found out. They never took the sexual harassment stuff very seriously. My nickname was "Boy Scout". LOL)

 

So when I saw the old YPT video "it happened to me" I have always taken it to heart. So I guess this subject always makes me touchy.

 

 

[OldGreyEagle]

So, I had a similar circumstance back when I walked the ivy covered walls of Acadamia as a teacher

 

I had been warned of the possibility of student crushes and come ons. So, I thought about it and thought I was ready, I had a prepared speech about how I loved my wife and I would not betray her and the student should regard me as a mentor and nothing else.

 

The only problem was when I was confronted with the student who was "in love" with me, it wasnt one the comely coeds Tampa Turtle talked about. It was a tall muscular wrestler and I was the subject of his affections.

 

Never saw that one coming.... at all

[packsaddle]

Tampa Turtle, you know...I keep hearing stories like that one...and over all the years, including the years as a TA, nothing like that even REMOTELY happened to me - EVER. I have no idea how I would have responded to such an advance but the glaring absence of anything like that has always allowed a question to simmer in my mind...what manner of insult is THIS? That I have never had such a situation...EVER? And now as I approach the end of a last career, my greatest fear is.......that after I die my wife will sell my guns for what I told her I paid for them. Oh well.....priorities!

[Tampa Turtle]

I think at times that I was so dense/innocent that I walked right into a couple of stupid situations or days later thought "I think she was making a pass at me." I have been married almost 30 years so I think of myself "off the market". Some woman seem to think that makes you more attractive for some perverse reason.

 

I figure that if I ever acted on anything my wife would kill me outright. One of many reasons we have no guns in the house.

[drmbear]

It seems to me that Scouting should be a safe place for a youth to grow into a man - isn't that a key element of what Scouting is all about? For me, it doesn't matter whether a boy is gay or straight, they have exactly the same issues of developing and growing into a man, and I have found no better place for helping them be ethical, capable, impactful, leaders in society than through Scouting. I've said over and over in my life that a kid can't have too many loving, caring adults, helping them through their life. Regardless of sexual preference, a male child is growing to be a man, and that is what Scouting is all about. The Scouting principles I learned as a youth in the Scout Oath and Law, to be kind, helpful, friendly, courteous, and more, taught me to be respectful of others even when they are different. Even though every religion I've explored has general "rules" along the lines of "love one another," "treat your neighbor as yourself," "though shalt not kill," essentially - BE NICE - isn't it amazing when that is conditioned by most with "unless they are not exactly like me." Consider how many wars around the world have a foundation in religious differences. This whole argument in Scouting is the same thing, using religion to divide, create "wars" and hatred, instead of what I remember as B-P's objective of a world brotherhood of Scouting and finding ways to bring people together, to eliminate the need for wars. We haven't even eliminated the war within the BSA, maintaining a hatred of discrimination, so how can we ever hope to be a part of creating a world of peace. And it makes no sense to me that it is religion at the root of it. That youth coming to me needs what Scouting has to offer to grow into a man just as much as any other.

[Mr. Boyce]

I can't blame entirely the gay advocates for this kind of issue. I think the media generally has latched upon sex as a sales tool, and that's why our culture is drenched in it.

 

Give me a break! I'm more than a pair of gonads.

 

At age 11, what kid REALLY understands sexuality. Oh, there may be bare knowledge of the facts and such, but not too likely an understanding of the emotional levels involved here.

 

I'd shut my mouth up on the whole thing. Let the kid grow up. Let him realize he didn't know what he was talking about. Homosexual males are what, 1-2% of males? Unlikely he's gay.

 

I feel sorry when I see the gay pressure advocates pressuring teens to try out the idea of being gay. . . perhaps knowing that teens are susceptible to such tricks. Serious studies show that homosexuals are much more "tolerant" of pedophile sex than your basic heterosexual males: we'll see the "normalizing" of homosexual pedophilia soon, given a fancy bit of propaganda narrative to sugar it up for the general public.

 

All told, I suspect that gays will end up wishing they'd stayed in the closet.

[KC9DDI]

So a 3-month old thread gets dug up, and the next two responses are polar opposites - "be nice," followed by a prediction that gays will want to go "back in the closet."

 

I'm personally not overly impressed with either argument.

 

Serious studies show that homosexuals are much more "tolerant" of pedophile sex than your basic heterosexual males

 

That's very interesting, and concerning. Could you point me to one of these serious studies, as I'd really like to see that evidence first hand?

 

At age 11, what kid REALLY understands sexuality

 

Fair enough, but the point is that, even at age 11, he is definitely feeling and experiencing something. And there's a fine line between telling him that he might not yet fully understand what those feelings mean, versus being wrong about having the feelings at all.

 

And what's a "gay pressure advocate?"

 

drmbear - I think you're over-simplifying the issue a bit. While I personally feel that the BSA is in the wrong based on it's baseless legitimization of discrimination, I don't think that "be nice" really addresses the solution. The reality of the situation is that there are practices, beliefs and lifestyles that I don't think are compatible with Scouting, and that I don't think youngsters need to be exposed to in a Scouting context. Granted, homosexuality and atheism doesn't particularly bother me - but there are plenty of "nice" people who I don't believe have a place in the Scouting program.

 

As far as religion goes, sure it can be used for powers of evil. But don't be fooled into thinking that these wars are based on religion. Even in the middle East, or in Northern Ireland, or even the Crusades - it's about power, money and resources. Religion can and has been used as a weapon, but trivializing these conflicts as "religious wars" is not entirely accurate.