“More than anything else, we felt responsibility to those kids and to our younger selves who didn’t see themselves reflected anywhere… We’ve all been watching stories about heterosexuals forever… As a gay kid you are always having to translate. You are always having to pretend like you are one of the other characters. You’re not seeing your life accurately reflected…I would say its very easy to balk at or sensationalize the headline, but its hard to deny the truth or the integrity of the whole story… We are here to tell the true stories of what it is to grow up and these are true stories of what it is to grow up as a young, potentially gay person. It’s the truth and that’s all.”— The Fosters co-creator Peter Paige to The Wrap, defending the choice to show a same-sex kiss between two 13-year-old characters.
You can watch the scene in question below:
Cam
This fake controversy is idiotic. They had kids get their first kiss on The Brady Bunch, and Leave it to Beaver. So lets not pretend this is anything other than the typical anti-gay right wing bigots who scream about ANYTHING gay.
They are probably the same people screaming about the Will Smith movie saying that the relationship is shocking, pretending it is about sex scenes when really it’s just because it’s inter-racial.
Paul Nadolski
If the kiss was heterosexual, we all know this would have been a non-issue.
Low Country Boy
Personally, I just don’t want to see CHILDREN kissing at all! Just saying. If you had kids, maybe you’d change your tune. Let the hate and vitriol begin.
MarionPaige
I disagree. This is clearly a sick example of adults slapping some stupid adult situation onto kids. I’m just grateful that the actors used is all of the f-keup situations on tv are White. Hopefully, Black kids will grow up thinking all this crap is something crazy White people do.
Arcamenel
@Paul Nadolski: The Connor character has literally had a full on make out session with a girl on the show and there was no uproar over that.
SteveDenver
I haven’t watched the series — until now — but I did see compilations of the story arc between the boys. This wasn’t a rash decision, but carefully approached. Huge kudos to the young actors.
Hermes
@Low Country Boy: We have children, thanks, three of them. A boy older than those two and two girls younger. I also remember being that age. I think the tendency of many people – and I do include you – to demonize sex while in many cases (I don’t know about yours) glorifying violence to their children is what is sickening. Loving one another, which can include kissing, cuddling and yes, even sex is a BEAUTIFUL thing – and I think to find a kiss disturbing at 13 – which means in puberty, between two persons – indicates deep dysfunction and an inability to fully engage the reality that was in your own life and that is in most people’s. Our son had his first “special friend” at about that age – and I do not expect a different reality for our two daughters as they age. I will not buy into the loathsome belief that there is something wrong with being human, particularly when those being human are our children.
Regards,
Hermes
Hermes
@MarionPaige: Marion, at 13 I had sex, and I have never regretted it, not for one moment. At 16 all but 3 boys out of the over 30 in my class had experienced sex with at least one partner — whether they were gay or straight. The whole idea that somehow sex is this adult … horror of some nature… is far more unnatural and sick than some people recognizing that after puberty people, particularly boys, are human and sexual. Affection, love, cuddling, kissing, holding, hugging, and yes sex – whether straight or gay, are natural normal healthy parts of human relationships. The desire for them and the need for them starts about the time that puberty permits them – so 13 makes a lot of sense — reflected of course in the various ancient people’s whose adulthood rituals were pretty consistently at about 12 or 13 — a surviving example being the bar mitvah in Judaism. Until the scant last few centuries it also meant that the boys were able to marry, hold debt… be an adult. Now because education is so much more important and lives are much longer, such rituals are either trivialized or are only ceremonial. However, the physical desires and needs that go with those ages do not change because we (or at least some of us) think they should. I see nothing “corrupt” about the scene presented, I think it was beautiful and tastefully done – and let me note, we have three children and we do not presume that we can, nor do we want to dehumanize them. I do hope though that we can teach them to be in control and to not fear themselves – that their needs or wants are not dirty or evil – and that they can be innocent and human at the same time. Innocence is not somehow being sexless, its being open and caring to all people.
Regards,
hermes
MarionPaige
Just keep the focus on White, Please. Make it always clear that these are thing White People do.
jjose712
@MarionPaige: That’s one of the most ridiculous thing i red here (and the comments here are full of ridiculous things)
If you want to pretend that kids are chaste till 18, good for you, but you are delusional.
Of course there are people who are virgins till 18 or even later and that’s perfectly ok, but let’s not pretend that a kiss between two 13 year old is something outrageous because it’s not. People (straight and gay) not only kiss by 13, some even go way further.
And stop bringing race here. Race is an important matter to drag it in every debate.
After months of complains and complains about Selma being treated unfair by Hollywood at the oscars the movie opened in my country with less than stellar reviews (not even remotely near the top contenders to oscars this year). So maybe the oscar snub wasn’t based on race like so many articles suggest but in the quality of the film
Taskebab
Oh dear…when I was 13 I was kissing people and having sex…you must all hate me…
@MarionPaige: I have a girl friend who’s black and she got pregnant at 13…trust me, it’s not just a white thing
polarisfashion
I remember the first season of Rosanne that had two heterosexual kids making out in the dark on the couch. The parents walked in and they quickly stopped but it was obvious what they were doing. I don’t remember any controversy over that. Hell there was way more controversy over the way Roseanne sang the national anthem!
MarionPaige
just read about a psychological “study” that traced some people associating certain numbers with certain colors to a Fisher-Price toy of colored number magnets. We can only wonder what effect the whole “Born Gay” / Gay For Profit propaganda will have had on a generation of children. Please, KEEP GAY AS WHITE AS POSSIBLE!
Billy Budd
I am totally PRO children kissing children. It is good, healthy, fun.
Daniel-Reader
At age 13, they’d be 7th or 8th graders. In 4th, 5th, and 6th grade we’d give valentine’s to other kids. In 7th, 8th, and on up, the schools would have romantic dances every year. So these two 7th or 8th graders kissed? Big deal. Anyone who wasn’t completely wierd was already having crushes, first dates, and summer loves by then. Being gay or bi doesn’t change that. Human is human. Love is love. This seems more like anti-gay folks not wanting to be reminded that gay/bi people are born and that the anti-gay organizations make their money harming kids who are gay/bi and that makes those organizations cruel and evil for harming kids.
Avery Alvarez
It’s actually a huge step for visibility for GLBT youth.
As for people who are so “concerned” about this, take your “concern” to “Concerned women for America”, or “1 million moms”, or any other professional concern troll group.
They sure do love concern trolling, especially when it’s for the “children”.
After all, “won’t some PLEASE think of the children!”
Xzamilio
“If you had kids…”
Anyone who starts their argument with that, automatically thinks they have the upper hand. They don’t. I personally don’t want to see a lot of things on television, but they need to be seen and they need to have a voice. And for people to take what this represents and turn it into some kind of “To Catch A Predator” thing is not only dismissive, but flat out ignorant. It’s about damn time these LGBT youth see themselves being on TV and letting them know they do exist, even in Hickville, Alabama or some swamp in the bayou.
Alan down in Florida
If God hadn’t intended 13 year olds to be sexually active he wouldn’t have designed their bodies to go through puberty at 10-11 years old. The fact they can have sex at that age is pretty much proof that that is what God intends.
Kieran
I don’t recall any controversy or outrage in the 1970s when 12 year old Bobby had his first kiss on the Brady Bunch. Of course that kiss was with a girl. You think institutionalized homophobia might have something to do with some people getting upset?
jd2222248
I don’t care heterosexual or homosexual both kids are too young to be kissing in the bedroom with the door closed.
sweetkisserboy
In my opinion i think it’s OK for young love to be able to express it’s self in nay form
Low Country Boy
@Xzamilio: So sayeth the 20-something that has never had to endure the trials and tribulations of the older gay men and lesbians. Oh, well!
Billy Budd
I had circle-jerk offs with my friends when I was 12. Kids DO these things.
Xzamilio
@Low Country Boy: And neither have you!! You’re not even 50 yet… who do you think you are, trying to wrap yourself in the blanket of persecution as if you have the right to wear it some badge of honor? You try being an openly gay black atheist man in Texas and raised in a backwards ass town in Mississippi by a fundie Jehovah’s Witness grandma, and then come see me about “trials and tribulations.” Man, you could suck the fattest part of my dictation.
And fuck the rest of you who think your age gives you the right to sneer at those younger than you and to dismiss them because your “struggle” was harder. Do you really think those young kids in ultra-religious communities have it easier now? Piss off with your self-righteousness.
Cam
Give me a f*cking break.
Watch a Brady Bunch rerun, Bobby has a first kiss. So all of you trying to pretend that this is an adult situation, nice try. Way to parrot the right wing bigot point of view. Because you know NOBODY ever kissed on shows like “Saved by the Bell: or “90210”……..Oh wait, that’s right, those kissed kissed ALL THE TIME and nobody pretended to be outraged.
But nice try trolls.
jwtraveler
Obscenity is in the eye of the beholder. In my eye there A LOT of things in the world far more obscene than an innocent kiss between 2 kids, regardless of their age.
Bauhaus
I wonder how it would have been growing-up and watching programs with scenes like this on television? Surely, this will have a positive influence on today’s LGBT youth. It’s also a powerful message for parents with gay children.
ApolloDionysus
If you think sexualizing 13 year old kids in any way is ok, you are probably a pedophile
Lvng1Tor
@Hermes: You Rock @Low Country Boy: I’m 43 and agree with @Xzamilio:
Cam
@ApolloDionysus: said…. “If you think sexualizing 13 year old kids in any way is ok, you are probably a pedophile”
________________________
You’ve been trolling several posts. Let me ask you a questions.
Why was it ok for there to be kisses on “Saved by the Bell”, “Leave it to Beaver”, “The Brady Bunch”, “Sabrina the Teenaged Witch”, etc… And there was no problem.
Oh wait, that’s right, anything gay is dirty do you, and anything straight is fine.
Ok, thanks bigot.
Cee
There wasn’t anything bad about the kiss. My first kiss was 3rd grade with a boy. Then 5th grade with a girl. I didn’t really know what I was doing and it didn’t go any further than that both times. Adults like to sexualize everything because of their own insecurities or sexual perversions, but kids are usually not thinking about sex when they have their first kiss. All I saw in the clip was an innocent kiss. The kid wanted to show the other kid that he likes him and didn’t want him to feel bad or confused like he was feeling. So the kiss just solidified his feelings for him. It’s not like they’re gonna take off their clothes and get down to business lol A kiss is just a kiss.
Cee
I’ll do you one even better. I just watched an episode of Roseanne the other day. Darlene was on the couch with a boy making out. Then Roseanne and Jackie walked in on them and they were on top of each other kissing. So not only were they kissing but they were in a prone position on a couch. Darlene later told Becky she made out with the boy and got felt up. She was only 14 and that show was filmed in the 80s. It’s 2015 and two boys have an innocent kiss in a bed room sitting up, not laying down, not feeling each other up and people are outraged? Where’s the outrage for the scene on Roseanne? I know it’s an old show, but I bet you there wasn’t an outrage even in the 80s about that scene. Bet you nobody cared.
DarkZephyr
@Xzamilio: PREACH IT!! I love when you take stupidity down several notches!
Daggerman
…what on earth!! I’m honestly in complete bemusement, whoever said this kiss was obscene, needs to get out in the world more and stop acting such a delicate fucking moron!…
Cam
@Xzamilio:
Aaaaaaaaaannnnnnnndddddd Boom! (Xzamilio drops mic and walks off stage)