Is it common ? No it’s not common at all. And for a group of boys that age, it just plain stands zero chance of getting off the ground. Why ? Because the first boy to suggest it would be mercilessly ridiculed.
I’ve worked with kids of all ages and this scenario simply wouldn’t fly with any group of boys that age anywhere. It’s a total non-starter.
Dom is absolutely correct and out of all of us, he would be the one to know.
Girls at that age are simply not as homophobic as boys are. And this is a reflection of the culture at large.
When a best selling female pop singer happily proclaims “I Kissed a Girl” and you have Madonna and other famous women kissing each other on TV, girls don’t feel it’s that taboo for them.
And even if they are not the least bit gay or bi, they’re young and many havent yet developed the assertive skills to decline what they perceive as sort of cool. So it just takes one girl more assertive than the rest, to get the ball rolling.
So, while it may not be exactly common for a whole group of girls that age to do this en masse, it’s not necessarily so outlandish for them either.
Boys are a totally different story. But they are also reflecting current cultural mores. There is still such revulsion and disapproval for straight boys to be doing anything that could be perceived as gay.
I’m certainly not praising or endorsing that attitude. I’m just acknowledging that it does exist and very powerfully so.
So the most that people can do is to try to imagine what they would do themselves with a scenario totally in the realm of the impossible.
Perhaps a long long way into the future it might be different (we can hope) but unfortunately it’s not now.
While it’s true that younger generations are becoming increasingly more tolerant and even gay positive, (regarding gay marriage and Armed Forces integration, for instance) there is still a huge gap between what a straight male is willing to tolerate in others and what actions are acceptable for himself to participate in personally.
Unless a boy at that age is a little bit bi, the plain fact is that straight boys wouldn’t be caught dead kissing another boy. Just the thought would make their stomach churn.
Again, I’m not saying it should be that way. I’m merely acknowledging that it is that way for straight boys.
And even tho Dom now openly speaks about how he loves the idea for himself, at 12 yrs old he never would have suggested it. Even tho he knew he was most likely gay by then, he was not yet out. He couldn’t take the risk yet. And it would have been the same for any other bi or gay boys in the group. They wouldn’t be willing to risk suggesting it (for fear of ridicule) and for the straight boys, it would have no appeal whatsoever and wouldn’t occur to them to begin with.
I’m basing my opinion of what a 12 yr old Dom would likely do on his own accounts of how he finally did come out.
If I’ve surmised anything wrongly, I’m sure he’ll correct that :)
So, to answer the original Q. If my 12 yr. old boy told me about a scenario like that and his reactions to it, i would know its a fabrication I’d assume he was most likely gay and using it to gauge my attitudes towards gays in general as well as how I might react to his coming out.
This would be his first attempt to open up a dialogue about being gay and I’d be proud of him for being brave enough to open the subject.
Then we would have a long easy going conversation about how he could live a happy fruitful life as a gay man.
Hopefully he’d feel comfortable enough to begin tackle a few of the numerous questions which had been buzzing around in his head for quite a long time.
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