No such thing as "coming out" even being considered an "issue" in 20 years?

[oceansunshine]

Would it be possible that being attracted to someone of the same sex will not cause undue social stress in 20 years, but rather be accepted as being "normal", just like social acceptance of one preferring blonds, brunettes of the opposite sex without feeling "guilt". This no fear or concern over the concept of "coming out"?

 

I had a hard time accepting being gay. And did not come out to family/close friends until a few years ago. Media educates and assists today. It was too hard for me to accept my sexual side in the 1960's. I think/know I would have no problem accepting my sexuality as a young teen today.

 

Perhaps there will be no such thing as teens worrying about "coming out" or being considered an "issue" in 20 years?

 

I had no concept of gay relationships / this love 40/45 years ago being accepted by my family or friends I knew:

 

http://boyskisslove.com

 

http://boyskisslove.com/tagged/coming_out_stories

 

I love the age I'm at, but miss the ability to truly grow in a partnership many years sooner. Learning/attempting now.

 

Other member thoughts?

 

Doug

 

PS: This forum has certainly assisted me. Thanks to all here who contribute your own views/experiences....

[+ purplekow]

There will be places where acceptance will be found more readily, as there is today. Twenty years is a long time in a lifetime, but in acceptance, it is not. If you had raised the question, in 100 years will there be no such thing as coming out, i think you might have a better chance. Still, gay children, raised by non-accepting heterosexual couples are likely to face internal questioning as the role model for them will be different than they are.

 

There was a funny episode of modern family in which Lily the Vietnamese adopted daughter, at age 5 or so, tells Gloria, her step-grandmother and Columbian bombshell, on their girl's day out, that she is gay. It unfolds that Lily believes she is gay because her friends' parents are Italian and the friend is Italian.

[Diverdan]

I don't know about 20 years, either, but I do hope and pray that as each year passes, that this will become less an issue and that all men and women will be able to love, marry and raise children what ever their innate sexual orientation might be. I do have every confidence that the US is and will change in the next five, ten, twenty and 100 years. I won't probably be alive in another 20 years, but I am so heartened by what has happened in the last ten. Even some of my VERY ultraconservative relatives are starting to change, in part as a result of one of their favorite nephews sharing that he is gay, has a boy friend and they are about to get married. That took a few months to accept, but I am happy to report that he is still one of their favorite nephews, and the boyfriend now visits and is accepted. I never thought that would happen, and this nephew and I have talked about it a lot.

 

Thanks for this post, Doug...

DD

[+ Charlie]

Legal acceptance will come more quickly than universal social acceptance in America. (And even legal acceptance will not come in my lifetime in much of the world.) As long as gay children are born into families in geographic areas or ethnic/religious communities where being gay is frowned on, "coming out" will be a fraught process. A kid in a white upper-middle-class liberal family in San Francisco probably won't have any problem telling his family that he wants to take another boy to the high school prom, but a kid from a conservative Catholic family in small town North Dakota will probably still stay carefully closeted twenty years from now.

[oceansunshine]

One thought, just as some public/sports figures, Youtube, and the internet in general (including this message board) has helped me "come out" (although in the start of the 3rd 3rd of my life), this ability to be educated and have other "mentors" will and has assisted teens both now and in the future to have the courage to come-out and/or accept friends family who are gay as being "normal" too. Just my humble hope/opinion.

 

Doug

[Lookin]

Honestly! One by one, all my pleasures, peccadillos, and perversions are getting mainstreamed. If I stand pat, I'm heading straight for humdrum.

 

Wonder what I'll need to do to stay on the fringes of society? http://www.boytoy.com/forums/public/style_emoticons/default/rolleyes.gif

 

http://www.roygigolo.com/mediacarte/img/blog/pecora.jpg

[Samai139]

Although the USA has seen drastic change in the social and in many cases, legal, treatment of gay men and women in the last twenty years, it will probably take more than three times that long for gayness to be accepted as just another human trait. Looking back at the last 60 years (early 1950's) the USA has gone through transformations which would have seemed outrageous to most---from cigarette smoking going from the "thing" to do, to being unacceptable nearly everywhere; from unwed motherhood being a major social and family disaster to hardly causing a ripple today; from African-Americans being second-class citizens to the majority of Americans electing a man of African descent being elected President.

Yes, things can change dramatically iin 60 years, and perhaps gays will be just another stripe in the diversity that is America by then, but events have a way of surprising us. Many have come out of the "closet" and to today's teen-agers, being IN the closet is as old-fashioned as dial phones, but values change and where we will be in 60 years is as unpredictable as it has always been.

[+ honcho]

Wonder what I'll need to do to stay on the fringes of society?

http://www.boytoy.com/forums/public/style_emoticons/default/rolleyes.gif

 

 

http://www.roygigolo.com/mediacarte/img/blog/pecora.jpg

 

Ya know, As I was driving in to work, it being that time of year, I heard "For we like sheep" from Handel's Messiah . . .

[TruHart1]

Ya know, As I was driving in to work, it being that time of year, I heard "For we like sheep" from Handel's Messiah . . .

 

Sorry to be the nit-picker but it's "ALL we like sheep" which is actually more inclusive. LOL! (I've sung in a local Messiah chorus for over 25 years!)

 

TruHart1