Young people discovering their sexuality must know they walk with a strong tradition and that they are not alone. They have a right to information without being pressured.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
There is so much potential out there in young people and they aren't getting the right information or being encouraged in the right ways. This is our duty as a society.
We've fallen down on our responsibility to our children by somehow creating this world where they're surrounded by images of sexuality; and yet, we as adults struggle to talk to kids honestly about sex, the rules of dignity and consent.
Sexuality is one of the ways that we become enlightened, actually, because it leads us to self-knowledge.
Every teenager deals in his or her own sexuality and has to face it and figure out how it can coincide with the rest of their lives in a healthy manner. And try to navigate it in our modern society, which is wrought with stigma and taboo and repression, and sort of as a result, these inner monsters that some teenagers really struggle with.
Sexuality is a private matter; some believe that broadcasting it destroys the very things that make it sacred.
The fact is that young people are going to have sex whether you like it or not.
The reason for privacy is not so that people will not know you go to the bathroom. It's to allow certain things to go on that you don't want other people to know about, when all is said and done. But the things I don't want other people to know about are not my sex life.
For gay people, we learned about our lives in secrecy and a lot of fear.
I think there's a lot of pressure on young people to really be the thing that everyone is telling them that they are, opposed to discovering it for themselves.
I don't think anyone's sexuality needs to be a public issue other than to give others the confidence to love themselves wholeheartedly and to be their true, authentic self without any shame.