When I was a child (like 6 or 7 years old), there used to be a Saturday afternoon TV show about Tarzan, with Ron Ely in a loincloth. I had no idea what it meant back then, but Ron Ely in a loincloth used to make me feel awfully funny between my (little boy) legs. I personally think your beliefs about sexual development and orientation are kind of ignorant and you might need to check up on the latest research. Just because your experience has been heterosexual doesn’t mean that’s the absolute default.
Experimenting for attention.
One problem with the ‘it was just a phase’ thinking is that most people are attracted to the opposite sex. Surveys tend to show that only 5% of the population has significant same-sex attraction, but lets double that percentage just to be safe. If you’re a woman looking to date, and pick a random pool of 20 people, on average you’re going to have 9 guys interested in you and 1 woman. Unless you actively filter for same-sex partners, the vast majority of your relationships are going to end up opposite sex by simple chance, and so that vast majority of your ‘settle down’ partners will be too. If 90% of the people who you thought were going through a phase end up shacking up with an opposite sex partner, that doesn’t mean it was ‘just a phase’, it’s what you’d expect from the numbers.
I can barely believe that a person in the 21st century thinks that kids shouldn’t date or even think sexual thoughts until they’re 18, and I suspect that attitude is why Rune’s kids aren’t telling him much about any alternate sexual identities.
Sometimes it’s just a phase. Sometimes it isn’t. Often, the only way to find out which it is is to wait.
But it’s a pity the OP isn’t around anymore.
I can offer no advice or opinion on this. I just wanted to say, damn you sound like a wonderful parent! 
When did you choose to feel an erection when you woke up? When did you choose to dream of “nekked wimin”? You said you chose. So that means you could have had an erection about naked men. You chose not to. If that’s a possibility, that means you are bisexual. If not, then you’re just being hypocritical by saying gay people can choose.
And don’t try to farm it off on Christianity or a belief in free will. I believe in both of those things. I also never chose to be straight. And I have friends who tried their absolute hardest to be straight but still wound up gay. Heck, one is my uncle, who was even married to a wife before he married my other gay uncle.
When I came out in 1963, my mother said it was “just a phase.” Now I’m 70, and my husband and I are both very happy that the phase isn’t over.
And watchwolf49: Sexual orientation is not a choice. Even if you’re 50/50 bisexual and can “go either way,” you can’t change the fact that you’re 50/50 bisexual. I knew I was gay at the age of 5. Yet after struggling with it for years, even being in therapy, nothing changed. You say you’re a Christian who believes in free will. Well, I’m an atheist who believes in free will, but that doesn’t mean I can choose to be heterosexual any more than I can choose to be a grasshopper.
When did you make that choice to be interested? The whole sexual orientation is a choice claim is nonsense. It is simply a way for people who condemn one orientation to make it a blame game they lay on others with a different orientation. Dragging in “free will” or even Christianity is nothing more than raising a dust cloud to obscure reality and sidetrack the discussion with irrelevant claims.
How in the world are they supposed to find a partner for a dance without having already considered their sexuality? Do you expect them to just date anyone, regardless of gender? Isn’t that the very experimentation you are freaking out about?
No one is discussing anyone locking down their sexuality. We’re discussing experimentation. We’re discussing teenagers trying on labels to see how they fit. It’s a normal part of forming an identity.
A thirteen year old is post pubescent, probably by a couple years at least. They’re going to have ideas about who they are and aren’t attracted to. You are not going to somehow mandate that they don’t. And they will have a gender identity well before puberty. Again, you can’t somehow control them and make it not happen.
Maybe your teens aren’t openly discussing this as much as we are in the U.S. But you can bet that they are playing around with finding out who they are attracted to–unless your culture dictates that there is only one correct sexual and gender identity.
And, just for clarification’s sake: all of the daughters you mentioned are above the age of sexual majority in Denmark. This is not the case in any state in the U.S. So don’t blast us for not caring about our “children.”
Are we talking personal attraction or sexual? I mean is she turned on by the other girls body or simply wants to be her BFF or whatever? It’s common to girls and women in general to have a female friend that they want to be their soulmate and express deep love for. Women can REALLY bond close with each other. In fact they say for even adult mature women losing their best friend is often harder on them than a divorce. But that doesnt mean they want sex.
Maybe your daughters don’t think it’s a big enough deal to generate “much talk”, or maybe they just know better than to tell you about it? Because statistics seem to show that teens who are sexually active with same-sex partners are a small but non-negligible minority in Denmark:
And that’s mostly from a 1999 survey; presumably same-sex sexual activity has become more generally accepted in Denmark as elsewhere over the past 15+ years.
Orientation is not a behavior.
Orientation is who do you like. I can’t make myself like Elle MacPherson, but I can’t make myself like Robert Redford either (I like dark haired, wide guys): other people happen to like one of the above, and others both.
Hello ElleLong!
I’m curious what your similar situation is exactly. Has your daughter told you something similar or what? Your son? Basically, how are you in a similar situation?
The OP is long gone but if you want to share more about your situation it should be obvious there is no shortage of folk here who will eagerly offer advice while not being too judgemental.
Actually, no you probably didn’t. Handedness does not appear to be a choice in general (and it’s easier to objectively observe this than with orientation, because it manifests early in development, and physically)
Welcome to the Dope, and congratulations on mentioning that it is an old thread.
How do you feel about your child?
I know a family where the daughter is 13ish, dressing like a boy and using a boy’s name. Here in Taiwan gender issues aren’t as open, and the mother doesn’t like it a bit. I try to gently suggest that it’s not the end of the world, but the mother doesn’t see it that was.
Your statements, besides being disputable, are unrelated to the issue of whether or not one can discern early on one’s sexual proclivities.
As I wrote above, my sexual orientation at 13 was still quite undetermined. But on the other hand, I was actively seeking and sexually aroused by depictions of my main kink at the ripe age of… 7 (it so happens that I could recently establish this specific age), when I didn’t even know there was such a thing as sexuality. I was frequently fantasying about it by 13, when I didn’t know there was such a thing as a kink, and had a fully fleged interest in it at 17, when I was yet to have romantically kissed anybody, let alone had any kind of sex.
If it’s true for a mere kink, how more likely it is to be true for a sexual orientation? I’m not saying it’s always true, I even argued against this idea in my previous post. I know homosexual attraction can be existing but not firmly established, can be a “phase”, can evolve one way or the other, that such an identity can be endorsed for the “cool” factor (and that would be 35 years ago, when homosexuality wasn’t nearly as acceptabe as it is know), and even knew a case of what I can only call “closeted heterosexual”.
Still I don’t have the slighest doubt that such an attraction can be firmly established at a very early age and given that young people nowadays are much more aware of homosexuality and that it’s widely more accepted especially in their generation, that 13 yo could be perfectly able to accurately define themselves as homosexuals.
Which doesn’t mean, again, that you can take as gospel the word of every 13yo stating so.
Minnesota. I’m a member of a Unitarian church, so non-binary gender and sexuality are something kids are exposed to in a non-judgemental way from a young age. My daughter has been a member of her school’s GSA, so a lot of her friends have ties there as well. And she’s a theatre kid, where there has traditionally been more acceptance. I suspect one of her good friends is in for a hard ride, she likes girls, she knows she likes girls, I’m betting she will end up only liking girls - and her parents are very conservative. Two more id as bi I suspect because its interesting. Both date boys though. Then again, my daughter had a male date to Winter formal - but just as friends.
Now, my son is a year older, a straight jock who avoids church - His friends are outwardly gender and sexuality binary - and all present as heteronormative.
And Sven, it wasn’t that uncommon when I was in high school and college - and I’m a decade older than you. I have a number of girlfriends who dated other girls in high school or college - almost all ended up married to men.
We believe in Free Will, then we must also believe in personal responsibility. There are those who believe we are “hard-wired” yet also believe we are personally responsible. My stated opinion here is one of tolerance, acceptance and inclusion of the transgendered. Am I to be intolerated, unaccepted and excluded because I’m a Christian?
We’re both of an age where we’ve seen the hatred towards the transgendered. I’ve always stood against that hate because we are free to choose and we must respect each others choices. If you have a difference reason to stand against that hatred, you have my complete support. Hatred is the enemy here, love is our friend … choose wisely …
My daughter came out to me about ten years ago when she was a young teenager. I was supportive, another family member was iffy about it, and most of the family is purposely kept in the dark because they are likely to react poorly.
Now my daughter is in her twenties and to the best of my knowledge has never had a romantic relationship of any kind. I think she has problems getting along with people in general. So I’m still waiting to see how it all turns out…
Why are you now talking about gender identity? I thought we were discussing sexual orientation.
By the way, when did you choose to be straight?