Mastodawn

𝐿𝒶𝓃𝒶 "not yet begun to fight"

"how am I supposed to explain gay to a child?"

My brother in Christ have you ever actually been around a child?? They will straight up ambush you with the most unhinged, bonkers, nihilist questions with a completely straight face. Questions that will cause grown adults to have an existential crisis if you think about them too long. Just yesterday in class a student stopped in the middle of playing a scale to ask me how does she even know if I exist or not and I had to sit quietly in a corner with that one for like an hour. PLEASE let me explain the gay. Explain the gay is fucking easy.

Matt Hall 3d ago

Riiight?!

Matt Hall 3d ago

I'm just saying I'm CIS-99% straight (I will always make an exception for Henry Cavill and I _will not_ be judged for it) and this is like the least threatening thing to talk about with a child.

It's not war, it's not famine, it's not injustice, it's just _love_. Love's easy. There's even a fairly decent description of it in their damned _book_.

@401matthall @Lana "Some boys love other boys. Some girls love other girls. Some people love many genders, others love no genders. It's fine."

@401matthall @Lana Now explaining homophobia...

@JessTheUnstill @401matthall @Lana
"Some men are afraid of being treated the way they treat women".

Ted Jackson 3d ago

@leeloo @JessTheUnstill @401matthall @Lana bingo

Cassandrich 3d ago

@JessTheUnstill @401matthall @Lana "Some people pick out something different about someone else and organize others to be mean to them to make themselves feel big. We call them bullies. Some people never grow up and still act like that when they're adults. Sometimes they even become presidents."

meta physical deflationist 2d ago

@dalias @JessTheUnstill @401matthall @Lana
i think "even when things are getting worse and there is no hope you still have to be your best self possible or youll hurt yourself and others more"

is so much harder than oh yeah people have butt sex, kids laugh at that one

https://sfba.social/@glassresistor/116219774327181866

meta physical deflationist (@[email protected])

having to explain to the kid that things feel bad and they might keep feeling bad very often and that sucks and its real and i believe them and am right there with them and what sucks even worse is knowing the only way to not make sadness worse is to sit with it and not rage against it without intention

SFBA.social

Cassandrich 2d ago

@glassresistor @JessTheUnstill @401matthall @Lana Like, there's no need for discussing the mechanics of sex in explaining homophobia any more than there is in discussing the existence of straight people. 🤷

@dalias @glassresistor @401matthall @Lana Not that people (should) really go into detail about het sex until kids are well past the age that they're aware of gay people anyways.

meta physical deflationist 2d ago

@JessTheUnstill @dalias @401matthall @Lana explaining sex to my kid was basically the xkcd 2051 cartoon except the punchline is my kid demanding to know which feldspar i was repeatedly

Felis_Catus_Domesticus 2d ago

@JessTheUnstill @401matthall @Lana

eestileib (she/hers)3d ago

@JessTheUnstill @401matthall @Lana

"Some girls like playing games with both boys and girls, but only fall in love with girls"

𝐿𝒶𝓃𝒶 "not yet begun to fight"2d ago

@JessTheUnstill @401matthall

And some boys like girls and also Henry Cavill and that's ALSO fine

Matt Hall 2d ago

@Lana @JessTheUnstill

<3

Faith, Purple haired feminist 🧋

@Lana I'm 99% gay and I'd probably make an exception for Henry Cavill. 😂

@JessTheUnstill @401matthall

@faithisleaping @Lana @401matthall I mean sometimes hot people are just hot. (I still don't know who the fuck that guy is 🙃)

Matt Hall 2d ago

@JessTheUnstill @faithisleaping @Lana

Matt Hall 2d ago

@JessTheUnstill

He's literally Superman, Jess. Come on, now. ;)

@faithisleaping @Lana

@401matthall @faithisleaping @Lana Ah that makes sense. I never saw a single one of his movies 😬

Matt Hall 2d ago

@JessTheUnstill

It's even more of a fantasy because he's a total nerd. Dude almost missed a call to try for Superman because he was running a Raid with his World of Warcraft Guild and he was the primary healer.

Anyway, if I get a terminal disease he's my Make-A-Wish.

@faithisleaping @Lana

𝐿𝒶𝓃𝒶 "not yet begun to fight"2d ago

@401matthall @JessTheUnstill @faithisleaping

Because OF COURSE he plays a healer

Matt Hall 2d ago

RIGHT?! This is what I'm saying.

@JessTheUnstill @faithisleaping

cognitively accessible math 2d ago

@JessTheUnstill @401matthall @faithisleaping @Lana Thanks for asking ne meither

Faith, Purple haired feminist 🧋

@401matthall Eh, I could take or leave Superman. But Geralt... 🫠

@JessTheUnstill @Lana

Sir Rochard 'Dock' Bunson 3d ago

@Lana ☝️ THIS

All day long & twice on Sundays!

Sir Rochard 'Dock' Bunson 3d ago

@Lana I just realized what it is.

It's not neccesarily even that they don't want to explain the gay as much as they're not ready to tell their kids yet what they want to do with "the gays". 😪

𝐿𝒶𝓃𝒶 "not yet begun to fight"3d ago

@SrRochardBunson "how do I explain to my child how to hate the correct people?"

Sir Rochard 'Dock' Bunson 3d ago

@Lana 🎯

That IS a tougher one to explain, isn't it?

Sir Rochard 'Dock' Bunson 3d ago

@Lana especially since the child would likely call bullshit on that explanation.

Talk about awkward. 😬 😅

disorderlyf 3d ago

@Lana @SrRochardBunson "Some people decide to make their own problems with a certain kind of person everyone else's problem. Those people will often lie about why they feel that way because they know what they're doing is wrong, but they're letting their emotions control them because it's easier than thinking about the possibility they were wrong and mean to someone for no reason."

Wait, we were supposed to teach our kids to hate bigots, right?

Sir Rochard 'Dock' Bunson 3d ago

@disorderlyf @Lana 😅

Yes, we are! That one is way easier to explain to kids, though.

"You know that bully that's mean to other people, probably because his parents don't know how to love, even though they didn't do anything to him?

It's like that, but they got older without growing up. "

GhostOnTheHalfShell 2d ago

@Lana @SrRochardBunson

An old queen friend of mine explained it to his very Christian siblings. “I have feelings for other men the way you have feelings for men”, end of story

Of course they’re those kind of Christians so it’s been an interesting life for him

GhostOnTheHalfShell 3d ago

The one time a father got to drop on his kid

https://www.cse.iitk.ac.in/users/amit/books/img/ch930919_world-was-black-white.gif

Cassandra is only carbon now 3d ago

@Lana I once saw a six year old break down crying because she remembered that triangles exist. Kids are wonderfully bonkers!

𝐿𝒶𝓃𝒶 "not yet begun to fight"3d ago

@xgranade to be fair that is deeply saddening news

@Lana @xgranade
six year olds 🤝 game devs

break down crying because they remember that triangles exist

@xgranade I once broke down when I remembered trigonometry exists. Fully empathise with that kid.

Matilda Love 3d ago

@xgranade @Lana that kid gets me

🇩🇪 🇺🇦 🇨🇦

@Lana I told someone recently that life can be simple... if you find someone you love, love them. Don't worry about labels. Love who you love, be who you are.

datarama 3d ago

@Lana One of my colleagues has two little daughters, one of whom asked him a while ago what a gay* was. He told her that it meant a man who becomes lovers** with other men rather than with women. She said OK and went about her day, with no further questions or explanations needed.

Really, small kids don't seem to find that concept strange at all.

*) Actually a noun in my language, and there are separate words for gay men and women.
**) Not an awkward or unnatural construction in my language, though it sounds stupid in English.

@Lana It's extra funny when people pull this sort of argument with kink, cus it basically translates to "how do I explain the concept of make-believe to a child?" Something tells me they understand the basics of that one already.

𝐿𝒶𝓃𝒶 "not yet begun to fight"3d ago

@Owlor hOw dO I eXplaNe maKe bEliEve tO a cHiLdReN??

Dave "Wear A Goddamn Mask" Cochran

@Lana I mean, yes, but there's another even simpler answer: "some boys like girls and some boys like boys; some girls like boys and some girls like girls."

That's it.

That's all they need to hear.

Rev. Dr. Mazigazi 3d ago

@Lana kids are super smart and don’t care about it unless their scary parents tell them to

Tito Swineflu 3d ago

@Lana one of the earliest complex sentences my son read was from a "life in hell" comic: "today, the Supreme Court outlawed sodomy". He was four.

spiegelmama 2d ago

@tito_swineflu @Lana When my friends (grade 4/5?) came across the word "sodomy," they called me up. I said, "Do you want the dictionary definition or the slang one?" They wanted slang. "Butt sex," I said, and they hung up roaring with laughter. Too bad they didn't stick around for my slang definitions of oral sex, which is also considered sodomy. They got the gist.

Rin 💖 (Mari 💙) // &3d ago

I asked my parents about what happens after death, I'm sure explaining the gay is a tiny drop compared to that.

Woozle Hypertwin 3d ago

@Lana Heck, I independently deduced the concept of gay when I was about 10: "most X like to play with other X when they are kids but then when they grow up they fall in love with Y -- but I (an X) prefer to play with Y, so maybe when I grow up I will fall in love with X?"

@Lana
'But how do I know it's not just a dream I've never woken up from, and the real me is passed out and a fire is burning down the house?'

Genuine question I got babysitting a 5 year old.

Thank god you can distract small children with candy and ice cream.

https://www.smbc-comics.com/?id=2313

Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal - 2011-07-21

Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal - 2011-07-21

Gentleman Programmer 3d ago

@Lana RD Laing's daughter asked this question.

Can God kill God?

It's in Laing's book Conversations With Children.
Explaining gay seems easy by comparison.

@Lana From a kid's perspective there's nothing notable to explain. It's only once society layers on a bunch of baggage is there something curious.

Now, explaining why they shouldn't jump off of the furniture, or why ice cream isn't a suitable food for all meals, _those_ are hard conversations. Or a bit older you get the philosophical questions like the ones you noted, or questions about death...

George B 3d ago

My 2 year old daughter's best friend has 2 dads. We never even had to explain it, it just is.

Misuse Case 2d ago

@gbargoud @Lana One of my son’s preschool classmates had two moms and he was like “huh, two moms huh?” for about a day, and then fully absorbed this fact and moved on with his life.

Not nearly as awkward (and hilarious) as when he was three and asking every adult he knew if they had a penis or not.

𝐿𝒶𝓃𝒶 "not yet begun to fight"2d ago

@MisuseCase @gbargoud

When I was that age I used to ask total strangers how many teeth they had and then fully count my own teeth in public in front of them.

@Lana fuck, how do I know that *I* exist. what I'm just imagining all of this.

@aeva @Lana What if you're just a dissociated dream of some host? (That phrasing of it predates simulation theory. Arguably by centuries.)

@lispi314 @Lana maybe nothing is dreaming but the dream itself