According to a 2002 study of Massachusetts and Vermont teens, only 5 percent to 6 percent of teens had same-sex partners. In the new study, 9.3 percent of teens said they did.
“Clearly there’s a high rate of same-sex partners among teens, and we need to recognize any vulnerabilities that may be associated with these behaviors,” said Dr. Susan Black, an assistant commissioner at the NYC Health Department. Black, who was not involved with the study, was referring to a lower rate of condom use and unwanted sex among teens with same-sex partners seen in the study.
The new research, published in the journal Pediatrics, looked at more than 17,000 teens in New York City. It found that teens who had sex with only their own gender or with both genders were more likely to engage in risky sexual behaviors, putting themselves at greater risk for sexually transmitted diseases (STDs).
According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, half of the 18 million new cases of STDs that occur each year happen among people aged 15 to 24.
Such risky behaviors included not using a condom during sex and having forced sex. More than half of bisexual boys didn’t use a condom, compared to a fifth of heterosexual boys. The difference was not quite as large for bisexual and heterosexual girls, but it was similar: About half of bisexual girls didn’t use a condom, compared to 30 percent of heterosexual girls.
About a third of bisexual teens had forced sex at some point in their lives, much higher than the 6 percent of heterosexual boys and 16 percent of heterosexual girls who had that experience.
Elizabeth Saewyc, a researcher at the University of British Columbia, told Reuters Health that these teens may engage in riskier behavior because sex education programs don’t always acknowledge gay, lesbian, and bisexual relationships.
“Some teens I’ve seen tell me that they completely check out of sex ed because they feel what they were learning didn’t apply to them,” said Saewyc, who was not involved in the new study.
She suggested that educators need to acknowledge gay, lesbian, and bisexual relationships more often in sex education curriculums so that teens are more likely to listen and will feel more comfortable discussing any issues.
Though the author of the new study report that the rate of same-sex partners is higher than previous studies, Saewyc pointed that this rate is actually similar to what she has seen in her own work and other studies.
In the 2008 British Columbia Adolescent Health Survey, for teens who were sexually active, 8 percent of males and 10 percent of females reported having had a same-sex partner. In a study looking at the 2001 Minnesota Student Survey, 9.4 percent of teens reported having had partners of the same or both sexes.
Dr. Preeti Pathela, lead author of the new study, said the results may have been different this time around because some states do not measure same-sex encounters.
Still, Pathela said, it’s clear that some teens are more vulnerable to risky behavior and STDs than others. In discussing sexual relationships and potential risks, she said it is important that parents, educators, and researchers focus on behaviors and not just on sexual identity.
“How teens identify themselves doesn’t always correlate with actual behaviors,” said Pathela, a research scientist in the New York Department of Public Health and Mental Hygiene. “Behavior is a better measure of what’s actually happening because teens are changing rapidly.”
from Reuters
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Sesame Street

Bert and Ernie are not gay. In their 31 years on “Sesame Street,” they’ve never marched in a Pride parade or plastered a rainbow sticker on Oscar the Grouch’s trash can. Sesame Workshop has always contended that they’re just friends who happen to live together and sleep side by side in well-tailored pajamas.
And yet, because of a comment on “Sesame Street’s” Twitter account, some are claiming that Bert is officially out of the closet.
On June 11, the mono-browed Muppet tweeted about the premiere of the recent “A-Team” remake. ( “Sesame Street” plans to air a parody of the movie in November.) “Ever notice how similar my hair is to Mr. T’s?” Bert asked, name-checking the original “A-Team” star. “The only difference is mine is a little more ‘mo,’ a little less ‘hawk.’”
Reading “mo” as slang for homosexual, gay bloggers rejoiced. To some, it seemed as if “Sesame Street” was aiming sly in-jokes directly at them, right under the noses  of unsuspecting straight viewers. Ed Kennedy of the gay pop culture site AfterElton.com noted that the tweet came during a week when many cities were hosting Gay Pride celebrations. “The people at Sesame Street are way too clever for their own good,” he wrote.
Now some people are wondering: Is “Sesame Street” brought to you by the letters G-A-Y?
In its own subtle, perhaps unintentional way, the show’s latest season feels more LGBT-friendly than ever. Lesbian comedian Wanda Sykes appeared on the show in October, following in the tradition of openly gay guest stars such as Neil Patrick Harris, who played ( cough, cough) “the shoe fairy” a few seasons back. A parody of “True Blood” — the HBO vampire drama that features several gay characters and draws many gay fans — aired in September. Recently, the Black Eyed Peas frontman will.i.am appeared on the show to sing “What I Am,” a song about accepting who you really are, prompting much online debate about its underlying message. “Did Will.i.am just sing the next gay pride anthem on Sesame Street?” one commenter on AfterElton.com asked.
Ellen Lewis, Sesame Workshop’s vice president of Corporate Communications, said that “Sesame Street” is not consciously trying to appeal to gay viewers. “We’ve always reached out to a variety of actors and athletes and celebrities to appear on the show, and our programming has always appealed to adults as much as children,” she says. “Honestly, the idea that anyone would interpret [this season] that way never crossed our minds.”
Pop star Katy Perry, the straight singer who’s reached gay icon status with hits like “I Kissed a Girl” and “UR So Gay,” was also scheduled to appear on “Sesame Street” this season. But when parents saw a YouTube clip of her playing dress-up with Elmo, they complained about her low-cut costume. Perry’s skit has since been axed, but Michael Jensen, editor in chief at AfterElton.com, believes that’s a good thing. “The fact that more people have objected to Katy Perry’s cleavage than they have to the ‘True Blood’ spoof shows how far we’ve come in this gay rights movement,” he said.
For Jarrett Barrios, president of the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD), “Sesame Street” is simply reflecting its changing audience. “As more and more loving and committed gay and lesbian couples begin families, it’s important that their children see representations of their families on their favorite shows,” he says. “‘Sesame Street’ has a long history of teaching children about diversity and acceptance, and I don’t expect that our community will be left out of that education.”
Indeed, same-sex parents have become more visible both on and off screen. For the first time in history, the 2010 census includes data from same-sex marriages, unions and partnerships. There are currently 1 million lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender parents raising about 2 million children in the U.S., according to figures analyzed by UCLA’s Williams Institute.
(more…)

NEW HAMPSHIRE – Stop the presses! New Hampshire’s largest newspaper is under fire for refusing to publish marriage notices for same-sex couples — even though the state is one of five in the U.S. that recognizes gay marriage.
The famously conservative Union Leader of Manchester rejected a wedding announcement called in by Greg Gould and Aurelio Tine earlier this month ahead of their nuptials Saturday in Portsmouth.
Publisher Joe McQuaid told The Associated Press that the privately owned paper isn’t anti-gay but staunchly believes marriage should be reserved for a man and a woman.
“This newspaper has never published wedding or engagement announcements from homosexual couples,” McQuaid said in a statement to New Hampshire’s WMUR. “It would be hypocritical of us to do so, given our belief that marriage is and needs to remain a social and civil structure between men and women and our opposition to the recent state law legalizing gay marriage.”
The Union Leader has opposed the state’s legalization of gay marriage previously in editorials.
“I was really disappointed because the Union Leader is a big voice in the state of New Hampshire, and they seem to be so out of touch,” Gould told WMUR.
The snub has become an election issue. Democratic Senate candidate Paul Hodes sent a letter to McQuaid demanding the newspaper respect the state law. “The Union Leader’s disgraceful policy of exclusion harkens to a different time in this country when people were denied opportunity because of their race, religion and ethnic origin,” Hodes wrote.
A spokesman for his Republican opponent, Kelly Ayotte, told the AP that government officials shouldn’t be meddling in the freedom of the press.
from The New York Daily News