Boys are from Mars. Girls are Straight from the Pit of Hell.

http://ornamentalpeanut.com/php/ Our family consists of two dads and two sons, or what I’m fond of calling an eight-testicle household. (If you’re getting grossed out, you might as well stop reading now ‘cause it’s probably only gonna get worse from here.)

So aside from the occasional nanny, there has been precious little influence of the female variety in our house. We leave the seat up at will with blessed impunity. We drink straight out of the milk container. (Okay, I drink straight out of the milk container.) Soiled socks litter the landscape of our suburban home. And even if our boys wanted to dress up in feminine attire, which would be perfectly fine by us, (they don’t), there isn’t so much as a smear of lipstick (not even matte finish), or even a sensible black pump anywhere to be found. (We do have friends who have dabbled in drag in the past, and keep their ensembles in trunks for their children to pore through, but, dammit, we just never had the foresight to cross-dress for our sons’ benefit.)

So I have no idea if this is why my sons hate girls, or if it’s just that they’re, you know, boys. Have we permanently damaged our children the way Anita Bryant predicted decades ago? (I know that my parents certainly did their damndest to damage me. But wait. They were heterosexual.)

According to my youngest, apparently girls are one of two things. Gross. Or non-existent. (It’s now the end of the school year, and he still can’t remember the names of the girls in his class. He’s that committed to this anti-she campaign.) Occasionally, girls are also Eww, Yuck, Blech, P.U., and No.

Moreover, it seems the only thing worse than being a girl is touching a girl. The younger boy has already informed us of his well-conceived plan to “be gay like Daddy and Papi so I don’t have to marry a girl.” And any hint of lip action is completely off the table. If my husband and I happen to be watching a movie (one that’s not animated, musical, computer generated, or features wisecracking dogs), he will stop in the doorway before entering to inquire, “Is there blood or kissing?” If the answer is yes, he’s outta there.

(If he ever found out that his guinea pig, Thunder, is a girl, he would probably do that thing celebrity kids do and sue us. So please keep that under your hat, okay?)

Our elder son is now 12, so the conversation around females has transformed from gagging to going silent and scarlet. Mortification squared. And so needless to say, we ask him about his romantic status as frequently as possible. There’s nothing as entertaining as a squirming 12-year-old. (Does that make us bad parents? If it doesn’t, I’m sure we can find something that does.)

But as fine upstanding homodads, we never presume. We don’t inquire about girlfriends, but about crushes. We always use non-gendered pronouns. Or the clumsy but inclusive “he or she.” (It’s impossible to pronounce s/he. I’ve tried it.)

Yet despite all that, my point is this: these boys are so totally wigged out by anything to do with girls, we’re dead certain they’re straight.

photo credit: Robert S. Donovan via photopin cc