Is the Gay Community Really At Higher Risk for STDs

January 31, 2013 by Leave a Comment

One area that seems to cause a lot of debate within the gay community is along the subject of STDs. We really don’t want to admit that our community has STDs running rampant, even though this isn’t necessarily a criticism that can only be made amongst gay youth. Straight teens are just as much at risk for STDs as anyone else.

So what you need to do right now is strip out the politics, the health studies, and the media and think about how STDs think about your life. You want to ensure that you are taking care of your body, because it’s the only one that you have. You don’t want to get caught up in a web of lies that can take away your health.

First and foremost, if you are sexually active, you should be getting tested — period. Don’t think that just because you can’t see anything on your partner doesn’t mean that you can’t be passed something. The reality is that some STDs can take weeks, months, or even years before it manifests in a person. You have to ensure that you are staying safe. If you feel that you might be at greater risk for passing along an STD due to a direct contact with someone that has an active infection, you need to be honest with anyone else that comes along.

One of the worst breaches of trust that you can think of is when you have someone that has an STD but doesn’t tell anyone. This is actually how STDs spread like crazy. You wake up to find that so many people have a disease that they can give you, and that’s not anything to laugh about. Would you really want someone to treat you that way?

If we want to reach for equality, then it starts at home. We need to make sure that we’re treating each other with respect. Hiding an STD out of fear is understandable, but it’s still not acceptable. If you really want to ensure that everything is taken care of, then you definitely need to start thinking about getting checked regularly.

There are many planned parenthoods and sliding scale clinics that offer STD testing. You can also check out GLAAD’s resources on the matter — a quick Google search reveals all of these points and more.

The bottom line is that we can’t just pretend like STDs aren’t an issue. In fact, if we treat them faster, we may be able to prevent more people from getting exposed.

It’s equally important to make sure that you’re not only disclosing, but you’re practicing in risk aware sexual safety practices. Safe sex is a bit of a misnomer — you’re never fully safe, but you are at least risk aware of what’s going on. You are aware of what can go wrong. You are using protection.

For gay teens today, this means that you want to use condoms. You can also use dental dams for oral sex. If you are using sex toys in the bedroom, they need to be used with condoms as well. There are non-latex condoms if you have a latex sensitivity.

Be sure that you are really taking this seriously. It’s your body and it’s your life — live it the way you were meant to live it!

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Don’t Let Anyone Rush You Into Getting Sexual

January 26, 2013 by Leave a Comment

If you’re thinking about your love life right now, don’t worry — you’re not the only one. Unfortunately, many guides for gay teens are written with the assumption that you’re already sexually active. Even though this may be the case for many gay teens, the reality is that there are some that still are waiting for the right person. That’s not a religious ideal at all. You should wait for someone that really takes your breath away. Sex should mean something — and we can be sex positive and still agree that there is definitely a time and a place for sexual activity.

First and foremost, you want to be on the right emotional footing yourself before you go out and have sex. It’s easy to attach more emotion than someone else has about the matter, which tends to backfire badly. You don’t want to feel like you are being pressured into something that you’re not ready for. A lot of gay teens put an enormous amount of pressure on themselves. They expect that they should be more ready to have sex, as if they have something to prove. If you know that you aren’t going to get the emotional connection that you need, then it’s perfectly okay to avoid sex. Some people are more into casual sex, but they aren’t putting a lot emotion into it. They know that they aren’t getting to have a life with that person. It’s just a physical attraction thing and it’ll pass on.

If you are going to wait, make sure that you still have other parts of the relationship down pat. Spend time that doesn’t involve touching and kissing with your partner. Let them know that you care about them. And if you’re not ready, you should be open about that form the very beginning. Our society has a high level of expectation when it comes to sex. We see it so much in the media that we expect that everyone is just having it. That’s not necessarily the case, and it’s perfectly okay to admit that.

At first, you might feel like you’re the only gay teen that isn’t having sex. But that’s just not true. There are plenty of gay teens that really aren’t having sex with anyone and everyone. They would rather wait till they have a stable relationship. You are well within your right to demand that someone respect you as a person before you take your clothes off.

However, you do want to make sure that you aren’t sending mixed messages. Sending photos that suggest nudity or even partial nudity can signal to some people that you might be ready for sex. If you’re just feeling out the waters here, that’s okay too. Remember that just because you’re not quite ready to have sex doesn’t mean that you aren’t a sexual human being. You’re probably already engaging in self-love, so why not expand it out when you’re ready? The point here is that it’s all about what you want and what you expect. The rest will come in good time!

As long as you are keeping your wits about you, there’s no reason why you can’t have a great time all of the time — whether you have sex or not!

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Design Your Dream Life Today

January 19, 2013 by Leave a Comment

Gay teens: your life is waiting for you! It’s hard to think that your life is ahead of you and filled with promise when there are so many people waiting in the wings to tear you down. That’s not something that you always want to face. You want to feel like you have the world ahead of you, but when everyone is telling you what a horrible person you are because you’re gay; it tends to take the wind out of your sails. You are much better than what people say you are, always remember that.

Now then, what can you do right now to get yourself back on track? You have to design your dream life. You want to push forward for the things that really matter to you. It’s better to think like this than feel like you’re utterly trapped with nowhere to go.

Many of us in our own inner circle went through humiliation after we came out of the closet. We didn’t want to feel like being gay was a bad thing. When you’re surrounded by people who are filled with hatred, it’s easy to feel isolated. So we bonded together and realized that it was time to either crumble to pieces or feel empowered that we could make it.

We had to think about the bigger picture. We had to think about all of the things that go into doing better and living better.

Designing your life can be as easy as picking up a piece of paper and a pen. You want to write down everything that you want to do with your life. Don’t think right now about what’s realistic and what’s not. It’s just time to dream again and feel like the entire world is right ahead of you. It’s important to feel like there’s nothing that can stop you from getting what you ultimately want to get. You have the power to have a great life as long as you can keep your focus up.

The best thing that you can do from here is to make sure that you think carefully on the type of path you have ahead of you.

Think about who you want in your life. What does your ideal gay partner look like? What are they into? What do they want from you? How do they feel about you? There’s something about writing this out that can really be relaxing. When you don’t let yourself rule out opportunities just because they aren’t here, you get to keep dreaming big.

Our opinion is that gay teens don’t dream big enough. They feel that their dreams aren’t going to come true because of their current situation. Could you move to a much more gay friendly city? Absolutely, you could.

You don’t even have to share this information with someone else. It can be part of your private world, and there’s nothing wrong with that. You don’t have to tell everyone what you’re really thinking. If you’re in a hostile situation, you don’t have to tell anyone. In fact, it can really mess up your chances in terms of getting out of the situation if people know what you’re ultimately trying to reach. They may try to make you feel bad emotionally or start problems for you. That’s something that you really want to avoid if you can help it.

Don’t feel like you have to always have everything worked out. Like we said before, it’s quite fine if you don’t really have all of the answers at the beginning. You can move forward slowly until you finally get where you want to go!

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Deliver Yourself Out of Unhappiness – Find the Courage to Find Joy!

January 14, 2013 by Leave a Comment

This is a topic that’s near and dear to our hearts: gay teen suicide. We all have read headlines showcasing young teens that have left this world far too soon. We’re outraged. We’re hurt. And we’re hopping mad.

But it starts before the suicide stage. We have to reach within ourselves as individuals before we really know how to heal anyone else. If you’re hurting right now, you might feel like it’s time to give up. When you feel surrounded by nothing but anger and fear from people that don’t take time to know you, it’s natural to feel discouraged. However, you have to make sure that you dip into the Self and heal what’s broken there.


You don’t have to settle for unhappiness if you don’t want to. It might sound like something that would really help you get through a hard life but that’s not the case at all. You need to make sure that you’re tapping into your own joy. You have to get out of your own way sometimes and let the joy come into your life.

Don’t walk around thinking that you have to do it on your own. In all of the suicide stories, there’s a distinct sense of isolation. Staying isolated is only going to give you time to think about everything that’s broken. Who wants that?

If you need a change of scenery, you might really want to think about moving to an area that’s much more gay friendly. No, it’s not a bad thing to escape your problems. There are just times where you need to break out of what people think you should do. You can’t live your whole life being afraid to get things done. Sometimes you just need to step out of your comfort zone. Why stay somewhere that you’re going to get mocked and made a fool of? If you can’t move now, then it’s time to save up until you can.

We know that it can take a while to be whole again, but it’s definitely worth looking into. How bad do you really want it, when you think about it? Fight hard today!

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Caught a Partner Cheating – Find Relief Today

November 4, 2012 by Leave a Comment

There’s a lot of overlap between the gay and straight community. We can be honest about that — if you’re thinking about the way you’re being treated in a relationship, you can bet your entire stack of dreamy teen idols that someone else is feeling the same way. Far too often, we think of ourselves as completely separate, and the issues that affect the straight community don’t affect us at all. But is that really the case? The reality here is that what happens in relationships hurts whether you’re gay or straight.

So if you wake up and find that your partner is cheating on you, you shouldn’t feel like you have to suffer in silence. Unfortunately a lot of gay teens think that they have to suffer in silence because everyone has been so critical of them. They feel that there’s just no way out, but that’s not the case at all. If you really want to make sure that you’re focusing on everything that’s important, you owe it to yourself to find healing for such a tough situation.

Getting help from gay-friendly friends and family is the name of the game. You want to run towards supportive people, not away from them. If you shut yourself off from the world, you’re going to be trapped with your thoughts. We can’t speak for everyone, but we know that when we’re left with way too much free time to think things through, we start imagining the worst.

It’s very typical to blame yourself and think that you will not have any type of options when it comes time to move on. You want to dwell in all of the hurt feelings, but that’s not something that really makes sense in your situation. It’s better to really think about everything that’s waiting for you, not the things that are holding you back.


Don’t feel like you were cheated on because you’re gay. Infidelity is something that actually happens to people from all backgrounds. That doesn’t mean that it hurts less, but you should take a little bit of comfort in knowing that you aren’t the only person in the world that has been cheated upon.

If you really want our advice, we think that you shouldn’t move backwards. Far too often, when your partner is caught they will want to try to tell you that it only happened once and it will never happen again. However, it’s been our experience that by the time you discover what’s really going on; they practically have a second relationship on the side. That may be too much for you, and there’s no one in the world that can force you to accept something that is outside your comfort zone. You have every right to a monogamous, loving relationship.

Talking it out with your ex is something that comes only after you’ve had some space away from the conflict at hand. Don’t try to talk to them late at night when you’re thinking about going to bed. Don’t talk to them when you’re drunk and you just want to numb the pain away. Don’t talk to them when you’re unhappy about everything else. Try to come to them on as neutral of ground as you can. Don’t sleep with them just because they ask for a second chance. It’s very easy to assume sex means love, but there are plenty of people that can sleep with you without having any type of bond to you. Is that fair? No, not really but it is what it is. You have to make sure that you’re protecting yourself as much as possible.

It hurts, gay teens. It’s a pain that just keeps hurting and eventually, time takes away the active sting. Yet you never really forget. While it’s true that you can stay with the person, you’re always going to wonder if they’ll keep their word or not. Once trust is broken, and it can feel like a lifetime passes before it’s restored.

As always, take care of you first and the rest will follow!

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Why the Gay Community Still Needs Its Heroes

November 2, 2012 by Leave a Comment

The gay community is growing and changing, as all communities do. The personal is political when you’re gay, and there’s never a day that you get to just sit back and be nonpolitical. After all, your very identity is tied to a political issue that is growing deeper and deeper. While many show support for gays, there are many that oppose even the right of gays to live anywhere that they chose, fearing that they will be a danger to their children. That’s definitely not a great way to strike up a conversation, now is it?

You want to always make sure that you’re thinking about your agenda, not just the political one. That actually brings us to our next subject — why the gay community needs its heroes.

It would be easy to say that the battle of gay rights has been won in many ways, since gay marriage does exist in many places. However, is that all we were fighting for? Absolutely not. It’s important to also have health care coverage for one’s domestic partner, as well as being able to adopt as a gay couple.


There’s also the very important issue of being able to get the same survivor’s benefits. When someone is married to you and they die, the rights of ownership are pretty clear because many things would be transferred to the spouse. Gays don’t have that right automatically.

It’s not just about contracts – it’s about the rights that everyone else has that we don’t.

We still need our heroes of the gay community raising the alarm, pointing out intolerance and actually making it clear that we aren’t just going to be quiet. If they want to take money from us to benefit society, why shouldn’t we have equal rights? We’re still expected to go to work, pay our taxes, do the right thing, and just shut up about intolerance. It just doesn’t work that way, because we’re not going to allow it so.

Sure, there are opponents of gay rights that wish we would just shut up, and they are more than willing to declare the battle over. They’ve thrown a few crumbs our way, right? Well, that’s not the way it’s going to be, thankfully.

As a gay teen, you’re going to have to deal with the fact that your life, whether you like it or not, is political. Its’ time to get informed — you can do it!

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Give Yourself Credit For Coming Out!

October 22, 2012 by Leave a Comment

One of the toughest things that you can do is come out — that is, explain to everyone around you that you’re gay, and that’s what makes you happy. Of course, in the era of Ellen being open and most of Hollywood being pretty gay, some feel that coming out is “no big deal anymore”.

That couldn’t be far from the case. We bet that some of you reading this right here, right now have never come out at all. That’s not something that we want you to feel like should be there. We want you to feel comfortable enough to come out to all of your friends and family, but life is what it’s going to be. Just because your immediate family are supportive doesn’t mean all of your friends will be. For some strange reason, a lot of straight people suddenly think that their newly-out friends are going to be hitting on them. Just as straight people don’t automatically hit on every straight person that catches their eye; gay people have the same level of discretion.


The best thing that you can do is try to give yourself a little credit for actually coming out. It’s a hard decision, and it’s not one that’s always celebrated. The more that you can do with the people around you that matter, the more impact that you have on the world.

Some feel that coming out isn’t necessary because there’s nothing to prove. While we can see their perspective, we also think that if gay is going to be an identity, why would you want to hide in the dark? A lot of people don’t apologize for being the way they are — why should you apologize for being gay? It’s not something that you woke up and chose. Why would anyone wake up and choose to be part of a group that people actively hate and wish death upon? Most people would try to avoid that if they could but it is what it is. We personally feel that nobody should ever hide in the closet, so to speak, in fear of what others will think. We should be free to love our friends and families, go to work, and have real lives. That’s not gay rights — that’s human rights.

You can’t change the Chik Fil A debate, and you can’t convince Fred Phelps that there’s nothing wrong with gay people. You can, however, be the gay person that you can fall in love with, because loving yourself first is the only thing that matters.

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Are We Still Hitting Our Goals As a Gay Community?

October 17, 2012 by Leave a Comment

One of the hardest things to do in the gay community is to actually think like a community. And that’s the good part of being a gay community, but it’s also an area where it’s easy to get concerned. You see, we have to look at goals as individuals, and we also have to look at goals as a community. Even if we stopped looking at ourselves as a community, outside groups would still lump us together.

So the question remains: are we hitting our goals as the gay community at large? That’s a tough question, but we think that the answer is a bit of a mixed bag.

You see, the community is so large now that we are definitely getting attention. There are plenty of gay TV shows, gay movies, gay books, and even gay TV show hosts. It’s a lot of exposure for the community but that doesn’t mean that the fight is over.

One Million Moms is still on the debate scene, as well as Westboro Baptist Church — not that anyone really takes them seriously. It’s something that you deal with as part of being gay.


We think it’s safe to say that we’ve made an impact, and we’ve hit some goals. But this is where a lot of people declare the battle over.

The battle isn’t over until all same-sex couples get the same rights as heterosexual couples. It’s not over until gays can adopt in all 50 states. It’s not over until gays can proudly and openly serve in the armed forces, regardless of branch and without fear of missing out on benefits or promotions, or losing the respect of their peers.

There’s a lot more ground to cover — until there aren’t gay teens that are committing suicide due to the pressure around them to be straight, we just aren’t finished yet.

Now, this isn’t a totally depressing post. There’s a lot to be proud of. There are many straight people that are supportive of the LBGT community, and that’s something worth applauding. However, for every straight person that supports us, it feels like there are three more that are going to Chik Fil A to protest gay rights and how traditional family values are the best way to go.

It’s a hard world to live in, but since it’s the only one we have, we have to do what we can, where we can…while we can. Hang in there!

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Does the Chik Fil A Flap Really Still Matter to the Gay Community

September 29, 2012 by Leave a Comment

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’ve probably heard about the Chik Fil A controversy. This is where the CEO of Chik Fil A, Dan Cathy, made a statement that he supported the biblical view of traditional marriage.

Cathy backtracked and reclarified himself, but the controversy match had already been struck, plunging the nation into a deep dialogue about gay rights, traditional marriage, and everything in between.

The publicity part has died down quite a bit, but does that mean anything? Absolutely not. It just means that we need to step back and really look at the world around us.


You see, just when you thought that people were tolerant because of Glee, Modern Family, and Ellen, you find that yes, people are more than happy to support a company that is giving money to groups that actively campaign and lobby against gay marriage and other rights being afforded to gay people.

This is still a big deal, gay teens. A huge deal. Even if you’re far, far away from getting married, you have to see it as a big deal. These people are actively considering your rights as a sin against the world itself, and they have no qualms about voting to make sure that you don’t have the same rights as them.

Maybe when you don’t have anyone trying to take things from you, you can declare the battle “finished”. But just because the reporters aren’t reporting about it doesn’t mean that the fight is over.

Chik Fil A took a beating for a time, but the news machine marches on and the company is peeking around to see if it still has supporters. There are plenty of people that boycotted Chik Fil A, but what about the ones that didn’t? What about the ones that still think that Cathy is actually in the right here?

More food for thought. For now, all you can do is educate the people around you. This isn’t just about free speech — it’s about a company that is giving money to people trying to take away your rights. That’s all there is to it.

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Can You Really Dream Of Being Married Someday

September 12, 2012 by Leave a Comment

Gay marriage is a pretty hot topic, especially outside of the gay community. It is seen as still something forbidden to gays, as it has its roots in religious marriage. Is that really the case, though?

The history of marriage is something that goes far beyond recorded history. Societies all over the world have some form of marriage — even to the point where polygyny is practiced. Marriage has been traditionally about regulating access to women within a tribe or social structure. To keep infighting to a minimum, women are “married off” or given to a man as a prize for skills that are beneficial to the tribe. The need to have a woman who can bear children has also been a hot button issue.


Quite frankly, is this what we want marriage boiled down to again? Traditions based on limited female power and stifling roles?

There are other countries that do indeed grant legal rights to same-sex couples. Argentina, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Iceland, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, South Africa, and Sweden.

One argument given is that gay marriage threatens traditional marriage. Those 11 countries aren’t nations without their own religious grounds and beliefs, you know. If anyone thinks religion has no influence in Spain to this day, they’re not looking hard enough.

It’s not just about terminology — but the words we use do indeed hold power. If civil unions were made equal, that would be one thing. But why should one group enjoy numerous benefits to being “married”, while another group has to settle for a civil union that doesn’t have nearly as many benefits?

The world is changing, as it has through even religious history. For those that are leaning on their religion as grounds to be against gay marriage, is marriage still the same for your religious group as it was in ancient times? Chances are good that it’s not at all.

The number of countries that are even putting civil unions on the books is growing and growing — Andorra, Austria, Brazil, Colombia, Czech Republic, Ecuador, Finland, France, Germany, Greenland, Hungary, Ireland, the Isle of Man, Jersey, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, New Zealand, Slovenia, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, Uruguay. That’s a lot of countries!

Many residents of the United States claim that they are truly proud to be an American. Are gays suddenly not Americans? What happened to United We Stand?

Food for thought.

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