Naughty by nurture

How to bring your kids up gay

by JOHN CUSTODIO

Have you noticed how everyone these days wants gay kids? I don't mean they desire them sexually, like they want to live out some Bel Ami porn fantasy. No, I mean they would like their own children to turn out gay, and they're willing to do whatever's necessary to prevent a heterosexual outcome.

Around this time of year, especially, well-meaning parents, entertaining the loftiest aspirations to queer fabulousness for their children, subject their hapless offspring to all manner of heterophobic upbraiding. "Johnny, if you don't clean your room, I won't take you to Gay Pride this year," they chide. "Why can't you be more like that Carter on Queer Eye for the Straight Guy?" Or, "Debbie, if I've said it once, I've said it a thousand times: ‘News Item: Girls are supposed to make passes at girls in gym classes.' There'll be no going to the mall for you, young lady. You'll stay in your room and watch Personal Best."

Who can blame these parents? We all want what's best for our children, don't we? Given a choice, which one of us wouldn't want sons who know the difference between chiffon and organza? Or daughters who can distinguish a jigsaw from a reciprocating saw?

Parents under pressure

Some parents, in a desperate bid to avoid having boys with mullets or girls with obscenely long fingernails, turn to science - to no avail. I know I'm in the minority here, and you can call me conservative, but I believe these attempts to tamper with nature are very, very misguided, and that parents should think it over long and hard before going down that road, for that way lies heartache and lifelong pain.

Why? Because despite all of the progress made in other areas of genetics research, we're still no closer to determining the most favourable balance of hormones, the optimal foetal endocrine environment, or the correct hypothalamus size for guaranteeing that a child will be born with an exquisite sense of irony. Opt for one of these methods and you are courting disaster, my friends, because the most that biological interventions will ever accomplish is same-sex desire, and queerness is so much more than that. It has to be nurtured, because a man who sucks cock but wears polyester is even more tragic than a straight man who loves show tunes.

Nevertheless, children shouldn't be berated into being queer; that's just counterproductive. Not only will your kids resent you, they're likely to go straight just to spite you. No, what's called for here is a subtler approach. What Oscar Wilde said of war could easily be said of heterosexuality: as long as it is regarded as wicked, it will always have its fascination. When it is looked upon as vulgar, it will cease to be popular.

Opposites detract

"But what does that mean in practice?" I can hear you asking. "How do you nurture queerness in children?" Ay, there's the rub. I'll confess it's not easy, and success is never assured, but here are three simple things every parent can do to help stem the tide of the heterosexual epidemic for generations to come:

1. There is a period in every child's life when the opposite sex disgusts them. Capitalize on it. Point out to your daughters how much a flaccid penis resembles the shrivelled neck of your Thanksgiving turkey. Trigger your sons' castration anxieties by showing them pictures of gaping vaginas.

2. Homosocial environments encourage homosexual outcome, so go ahead and send your kids to that boarding school you were thinking about, and in the summer, consider sending your daughter to one of those all-girl tennis camps.

3. Take every opportunity to render straight sex banal. Fortunately, you will be helped in this endeavour by the mass media, but go ahead and push it. Fill your house with books, magazines, videos, and pictures of the tawdriest examples of heterosexuality in action, but don't comment on it. Let the ugly truth speak for itself.

Do all of these things and your children - even if they do turn out heterosexual - will learn, I mean really learn, what Dorothy Parker meant when she said, with characteristically brilliant pithiness, "Heterosexuality isn't normal; it's just common." n

Divers/cité's Community Day, an afternoon of fun and education for the whole family, begins at 11am, Saturday, July 31, at the festival site. Celebrate the full spectrum of sexuality at the gay pride parade, starting from Guy and René-Lévesque starting at noon, Sunday, Aug. 1