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People tend to overestimate the influence of parents and to underestimate the role of peers, according to research. One other possible survival strategy for the very effeminate boys might be this: They are signaling to adults their sexual availability in return for protection from the rest of the tribe. It also takes them out of danger from other males preparing to compete for females. This competition kills lots of males in tribal societies. It is not unusual for such a boy to one day mate with a female, surreptitiously, thus conferring an evolutionary advantage to his genes. When I was in junior high, there was a chorus teacher in my school who got nailed for blowing boys. He never went to prison. Actually, I'm not even sure he was arrested but he did lose his job. He stayed in town, however, and had two or three rather effeminate kids living with him at any one time, kicked out of their own homes for being queer. And this wasn't at all unusual. Later, when I went away to school, I met some kids who had their own band and one of them was not very fem but pretty obviously gay and he lived with a middle-aged professional guy with his parent's approval. I knew many kids like this when I was young. It got replicated in every town in America. Yes, it was a very different time. |