Whatever is within reach, really,” he shared. Heck, I’ll use dirty laundry if it’s there. “Let’s see, there’s good old wadded-up toilet paper, towels, even shirts. Like machine gun fire, my eldest son listed his favorite masturbation props. I was in for a surprise with their answers. Naturally, I first turned to my husband and sons to learn more. More: Labiaplasty, vodka tampons and more scary teen “trends your kids are sick of hearing about Learning about socks, and laughing my ass off watching the Bridesmaids scene where a mom describes cracking her son’s comforter, made me curious about what other means boys employ to get their (pun intended) socks off. All it took was one time grabbing a sock that was hard as a rock and I was done. I swear I won’t even touch his laundry anymore. “Socks?” I had never heard of boys sexualizing slippers. “I don’t know about condoms,” my friend Tammy said, “but I found out my son Charlie was using socks.” Oh, well, OK,” was all I managed to say.Ī week later, while out for drinks with my girlfriends, who also had teen boys, I asked if that was normal. His hesitation should have been my first clue. More: This teenage girl just got fired for speaking up about inequalityĮven as my own sons grew, I didn’t understand just how resourceful boys could be, until I questioned my then-12-year-old about why he had a giant box of condoms in his bedroom. Like, so good I would make sure to climb that pole every morning and every lunch.” But one day when I climbed something weird happened. “People need to understand that words have weight and are really powerful and can profoundly damage someone beyond repair.”Ī 2019 survey from the Trevor Project, an LGBTQ youth suicide prevention nonprofit group, found that youth who have at least one accepting adult in their life were 40 percent less likely to report a suicide attempt in the past year.“At first,” he explained, “I just climbed because I liked to see how fast I could get to the top. “Whether they’re said or whether they’re typed, words can be devastating, or they can be lifesaving,” he said. Miller said he also hopes all parents teach their children that words are powerful. Almost half of students also reported experiencing electronic harassment in 2019 via text messages or postings on Facebook, also known as cyberbullying. Nearly 70 percent of students have reported experiencing verbal harassment at school based on their sexual orientation, and more than half said they experienced this type of harassment based on their gender expression (57 percent) or gender identity (54 percent), according to GLSEN, which advocates for LGBTQ students. “Furthermore, it is our responsibility as professionals to provide a safe and caring setting for every student.” “Our district’s commitment is to ensure we have a positive and inclusive school experience in which all students can thrive academically within an affirming school community,” part of the district’s statement read. The La Grande School District has not responded to a request for comment regarding that incident, but in response to the movie’s upcoming release, the district issued an in-depth statement about the resources it offers to students who are in crisis and LGBTQ students seeking support, such as counseling.
“I hope that the message this movie sends will make us all more vigilant, and inclined to safeguard the well-being of young people who deserve the opportunity to thrive.” 'I know that you're with me on this walk'īell told Salon in 2013 that he and Jadin went to the school about the bullying, but he said that the school didn’t suspend one of the main bullies until three weeks after Jadin’s death, and only after the student started bullying someone else. “But that misses the important message,” she said in the statement.