Think about all the things that people do to show affection for one another, like:
- making a nice meal
- giving and receiving compliments
- giving presents
- holding hands
- cuddling and hugging
Does that sound familiar? Everyone does these things if they care about someone, whatever their sexuality.
People also might show that they love each other by:
- making a long-term commitment to one another, and
- bringing up a family together.
And the sex part might include:
- kissing
- touching, rubbing, licking and sucking in erotic and private places.
Everyone does these things as part of a sexual relationship.
And then there are the activities that complete a sexual relationship:
- mutual masturbation
- oral intercourse in its many forms: fellatio, cunnilingus and anilingus
- anal intercourse
- vaginal intercourse
And guess what? Heterosexual couples do all these things.
What about lesbian couples and gay men?
Well they do most of these things as well. The important thing to bear in mind is that there is nothing that gay men or lesbians do that heterosexual couples don't do.
For some parents who have gay sons, the idea of anal intercourse may seem particularly hard to accept.
There are a lot of misunderstandings about anal intercourse.
One is that anal intercourse is a uniquely gay activity. Yet only two thirds of gay male couples take part in anal intercourse, whilst as many as one third of heterosexual couples do. (This means that around 90% of couples who have engaged in anal intercourse are heterosexual couples).
It's also important to remember that not all men who engage in anal intercourse with men would actually identify themselves as gay. Straight men may engage in anal intercourse with other men where there is no alternative (e.g. in prisons).
A second misunderstanding is that anal intercourse is all that gay men do with one another. The first part of this section makes the point that we all have hundreds of ways of showing that we care about each other, including gay men.
We have to accept that not all sexual relationships are affectionate, loving ones, and it is true that some lesbian and gay sexual activity does not necessarily take place within a loving relationship. This is just as true of heterosexual relationships.
Media portrayals of lesbian and gay sexual activity are grossly distorted and often contribute to the pain and anxiety that parents feel when their son or daughter comes out to them. This is where contact with other parents can be helpful in allaying fears and misconceptions.
Many parents, particularly parents of gay sons, worry about HIV/AIDS. If you are concerned about this, try looking at the Avert website, and see our section on Keeping Busy, Healthy and Safe. Remember that all parents ought to be concerned about HIV/AIDS, as well as other sexually transmitted infections, and this is one reason why we are campaigning for improved sex and relationships education for all young people in our schools.
Occasionally there are links made in the media between male homosexuality and paedophilia. Assumptions like this need to be robustly challenged. Gay men are as appalled by child sexual abuse as the rest of the population. The proportion of gay men who are child abusers in the population as a whole is no greater than the proportion of gay men in the community at large. An exception to this, where the figures may be higher, are situations where men who sexually abuse young people have in the past been wrongly protected from the law.
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