In Internet years this is ancient already, but I wanted to make sure that the ten of you who haven’t seen this yet did. Truly moving, and possibly live-saving, it’s Dan Savage‘s You-Tube-based It Gets Better project. Savage wrote:

Billy Lucas was just 15 when he hanged himself in a barn on his grandmother’s property. He reportedly endured intense bullying at the hands of his classmates — classmates who called him a fag and told him to kill himself….I wish I could have talked to this kid for five minutes. I wish I could have told Billy that it gets better. I wish I could have told him that, however bad things were, however isolated and alone he was, it gets better.

But gay adults aren’t allowed to talk to these kids. Schools and churches don’t bring us in to talk to teenagers who are being bullied. Many of these kids have homophobic parents who believe that they can prevent their gay children from growing up to be gay — or from ever coming out — by depriving them of information, resources, and positive role models.

Why are we waiting for permission to talk to these kids? We have the ability to talk directly to them right now. We don’t have to wait for permission to let them know that it gets better. We can reach these kids.

And so we are. Watch (and upload your own?):

H/t Marjorie Ingall (w/whom BG shares mixed feelings about Dan Savage. But not in this case.)

Well, this pretty much says it all, adorably:

More anti-pro-“traditional marriage” goodness here.

H/t @NaunihalSingh.

We’ve said it before, we’ll say it again: straight men and women can be just friends. We know this, because they can even be Just Friends, the boy-girl production company behind this super-enterprise. (And because we are of the camp who liked Scully and Mulder best without the LIKElike.) But perhaps no one has said it so eloquently, or newsworthily, than Juliet Lapidos over at Slate (h/t @DahliaLithwick, @DJDistracted), BFF of Jeff, who believes that today, straight male-female platonicness is at once normal and revolutionary.  She writes:

We were sure that we would never become romantic partners, that our relationship would always be placidly sexless. This has so far borne out: Excluding the summer when we first met and shared an awkward, pubescent kiss on Independence Day—and another, even more awkward moment on a trampoline shortly thereafter—there’s been no romance. Jeff and I have been friends for more than 14 years, without interruption. In our mid-twenties, we lived together for more than three years, during which period we’d watch movies late into the night and then go our separate ways, much like when we were kids. I find all this, at the personal level, unremarkable and unsurprising; the skepticism of outsiders strikes me as funny and narrow-minded. Yet from a historical perspective, my blasé attitude is all wrong: We are remarkable, in a way, and our relationship is not only surprising but radical.

Yes, radical. Consider the social history here, the dorm-room demographics: (more…)

MSN.com, Match.com, HappenMagazine.com: they’re in a healthy and satisfying 3-way relationship. This column, which previously ran at Happen, is being promoted at Match on Yahoo this week, so we are putting it back on our front page for comment.

This week Lynn hears from Sweaty Steve, whose hyperhidrosis (unusual sweat output) has put a crimp in his dating life:

The last time I went on a date with someone, we never made eye contact with each other and hardly talked because I was busy trying to hide my hands and checking my pits every time I went to the bathroom.

Does Steve need to deal with his nervousness, his condition, or both? See what Lynn has to say, then leave your own comments or encouragement below!

About finding a boy on April 20, 1998…

Dear Breakup Girl,

What is the consensus about men dating single moms? I am an educated, attractive, fun to be with, early 20’s woman with a 7-month-old son. I broke up with his father about two months ago, but lost interest in the father about five to six months prior. I would like to meet someone, but am scared no one will want to date me because of my baby. Where would I meet a guy?

— Single Mom

Dear Single,

Yeah, it might be a little tricky. Everyone — male or female — who fantasizes about having all sorts of firsts with their soulmate might think, “No fair, s/he already got to do the kid thing with someone.”

Still, it can be done. I checked with my single mom friend Rachel — who, mind you, is getting remarried shortly! — and she says you definintely want to be discreet (but not cagey) at first. “I asked a guy to come into Toys R Us with me, and I never heard from him again,” she says. But she also pointed out that you do have a built-in screening process: it’s not that a guy for whom a kid is a deal-breaker is bad — but the ones who do stick around are, more than likely, way into you, and not freaked about the dad thing.

But where? By this point, Rachel’s 14-year-old daughter piped up. “Parent-teacher conferences!” Not a bad idea. But I bet you’ll find someone before your son is old enough to give advice.

Love,
Breakup Girl

It’s the National Sex Ed Week of Action! Now with PRIZES! (For the first reader who emails me with answers to the quiz below!) But first, a quick true or false:

• The United States has the highest teen pregnancy rate among the world’s developed nations.

• According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, at least one in four teen girls has a sexually transmitted infection.

• Half of sexually active young people in the U.S. will contract a sexually transmitted infection by age 25.

• Approximately 750,000 teenagers in the United States will become pregnant this year.

• The health care reform bill  included a renewal of $50 million per year funding of abstinence-only education for states until 2014.

• This Op-Ed by an Atlanta teen about the importance of comprehensive, accurate sex ed is awesome.

Answer key: TRUE, TRUE, TRUE, TRUE, TRUE, TRUE.

Which, now that we’re all riled up, brings us to the one with PRIZES! Planned Parenthood of NYC, BG’s local affiliate, is giving away a package of safe-sex goodies to the BG reader who emails me with the correct answers to all five of the following (at least peripherally) sex-ed related questions. Pencils ready?

1. In how many states is it still illegal for an unmarried heterosexual couple to live together?

2. What was the name of the first daytime television show to feature a same sex wedding?

3. What famous female advocate founded the first birth control clinic and later founded Planned Parenthood?

4. Japanese love pillows, which usually decorated with life-size animae characters are called what?

5. What species was the famous gay couple who raised an offspring named Tango together?

(And now, New Yorkers, join the campaign!)

What if irony weren‘t their Kryptonite? Caldwell Tanner dares imagine…

Life during wartime:

Obama Releases 500,000 Men From U.S. Strategic Bachelor Reserve

Andrew Garfield, the great red-and-blue hope for continuing the Spider-Man movie franchise, sings the Bed Intruder Song (!) on a press junket for Never Let Me Go.

via BuzzFeed

Strategizing on April 20, 1998…

Dear Breakup Girl,

My ex-boyfriend and I broke up about a couple of months ago. I still like him a lot, but he is in love with my best friend and some other girl. The thing with the two girls he likes is that they are complete phonies around guys (and they wear pretty tight clothes). If it is so wrong to change yourself around guys, then why does he like them? Also, how could I get him to like me (oh, and I already got the “be yourself” advice, so can you add something besides that)?

–Penelope

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