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You are here: Home > Forum > A Place of Safety > General Talk > No surprises here; but, there should have been.
No surprises here; but, there should have been.  [message #67484] Mon, 25 February 2013 17:59 Go to next message
The Gay Deceiver is currently offline  The Gay Deceiver

Really getting into it
Location: Canada
Registered: December 2003
Messages: 869




I'm baffled.

Study: 75% of US bullied LGBT gym class students feel unable to tell a teacher


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This is a phenomenon I don't quite understand; I do understand bullying; I don't understand the bullying in gym class.

All my life, certainly all through middle-, high- and parochial-school, (this being the 1960's) my being ACTIVELY gay was well understood and although not often overtly acknowledged, certainly accepted as a given. Whilst I was singled out often for my being a nerd, for my being somewhat effeminate (not because of my perceived or acknowledged sexuality) but, rather because of the many fashion industry events I participated which exempted me from school attendance far too frequently for the tastes of my contemporaries, and likely arose more out of jealousy than anything else; the abundance of monies generated by these were also a worrying point.

Yes, I witnessed bullying behaviours for one's being obese, being unkempt, for where one lived and what not; but, I can't ever recall significant bullying because of one's sexuality. I'm supposing I must have been more fortunate than today's youth.

Oh I do fondly remember Glenn, a then recent Glasgow emigrant, and the equally foul-mouthed, and recently emigrated, Londonderry Geoff and Birmingham Mick, all soccer buddies taunting me with "Get on the bar" or something equally silly when I had done something they didn't like; but, they, each and everyone of them, learned only to do that once, or risk being shamed into hauling it out right then and there and my actually going down on them in front of the collected audience.

That I would in subsequent years at one time or another share a bed with a greater majority of them, without the others being the wiser, I came to understand had became a fringe benefit. The same held true for many of the players on the hockey and football teams. I was a busy, busy, and very active, lad until I met Jon.

I can say this though I never had any fear during gym, not that I was any good at most of the drills and such; nor, had I any fear using the change-rooms and the showers afterwards; nor, did I ever hear a disparaging word about one fellah or another's genitalia or immaturity or whatnot; or their circumcision status, or not. This just was not done. It was an unspoken rule. The change-rooms and showers were off-limits. We were all equals, regardless.

When did such behaviours as discussed in the aforementioned article become the norm?

Warren C. E. Austin
The Gay Deceiver
Toronto, Canada

[Updated on: Mon, 25 February 2013 22:37]

Re: No surprises here; but, there should have been.  [message #67498 is a reply to message #67484] Mon, 25 February 2013 23:38 Go to previous messageGo to next message
timmy

Has no life at all
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13739



I can say with clarity that I was never bullied in, nor did I bully in, nor did I see bullying in any of the gym classes in schools I attended form age 7 to 18. We were nasty or nice to each other in ways no different form the normal school day. The gym class was exactly the same. But we didn;t single kids out because we had no desire to be singled out ourselves. So it just never happened. Nor in the showers, nor the changing rooms.



Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
Re: No surprises here; but, there should have been.  [message #67504 is a reply to message #67498] Tue, 26 February 2013 05:01 Go to previous message
Smokr is currently offline  Smokr

Likes it here
Location: the burning former USofA
Registered: July 2010
Messages: 399



Showers and the locker room were not fair game at my school in my day. While some low-key teasing or jokes were common, they were nothing compared to outside the gym. You talked to your friends, but even the bullies didn't do anything in the locker room or showers. In gym during class was entirely another story, and things went on daily, constantly, even more than in regular classes or the hallways.
The only thing I remember from the locker room or showers was when one boy pushed another up against his locker while he was putting on his briefs after showers, and the boy that pushed him was still completely naked, grabbed his (under-developed, twelve-year-old looking) privates, waved them at the kid, and asked him if that was what he wanted. He called him a fag and cock-sucker, and laughed like it was the best joke ever. And the victim wasn't gay, didn't act gay, he was just smaller than the bully, who himself was absent of any signs of puberty, still. The victim was smaller, but was undergoing the early stages, first hairs, increase in size of his parts, etc., he was just going to be small and short, unlike the bully, who while completely hairless and with childish privates, was still taller and bigger than the victim. Yes, I noticed that about them both at the time.
A very memorable event, as nearly everyone told the bully to back off and quit acting like a fag himself.
That was the only event in the gym locker room or showers in my memory. Little else happened that I can recall other than jokes, pranks, brief comments, or other harmless adolescent stupidity. But, no one, at any time, made any comments about size, development, or anything to do with some other boy's privates. Doing so would have put the speaker in the 'fag house' so to speak. You didn't talk about other boys parts, most especially not in the showers or the locker rows.
And when some poor fellow 'rose above the rest', it was laughed at quietly but not spoken of in any way. To even admit noticing someone had blown up in the shower or locker room meant you were looking, and that made you even gayer than the guy who popped the boner.
It might be laughed at later, in some other class, but never, ever, EVER in the showers or locker room. E-V-E-R! Laughter and red faces would accompany the event, but never mention of it.

[Updated on: Tue, 26 February 2013 05:08]




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