The Intimate Relationships of Sexual Minority Youth
by Diamond, L & Savin-Williams, R.C.
reply by Shu Shi

“…many youths have considerable difficulty discerning whether the feeling and fantasies they experience for same-sex partners (whether real or imagined) are ‘real’ sexual desires” (p. 402). – by Diamond & Savin-Williams

Adolescents are eager for creating intimacy with peers. They may be confused about the sexual and affectional feelings, and maybe especially confused about the question “which type of feeling is better evidence of their sexual orientation?” The authors Diamond and Savin-Williams revealed that through the interview of adolescents, they found adolescents are short of resources to access to health educators and don’t have knowledgeable adults around them to confide in their secrets (p402). However, for some adolescents living in rural areas or minority-ethnic communities, even if health educators were available, most struggling adolescents would not go to them for help. People living in the acquaintance society usually don’t have awareness to protect other people’s privacy. As Diamond and Savin-Williams claimed in the earlier part of this chapter (p.397-p.399), in some relative conservative communities, parents, authoritative figures and even teachers consider the sexual nonconformity as a moral violation, so instead of seeking help to figure out their confused sexual orientation, adolescents tend to lock their real sexual orientation and affectional feelings away in their heart. As teachers, we have received enough training to become the effective knowledge deliverers, but we still need to be armed with scientific knowledge to help out our students to objectively look at the minority sexual issues.