I recently spoke to a large group of high school students about sex and sexuality. A number of students had told the staff that they were either gay or bisexual. Many of the teachers didn’t know what advice to give them beyond, “That’s OK. I still accept you.”  Recently, Yahoo News posted a photo of a cake baked by a fifteen-year-old girl with the words “I’m gay” written in frosting. That’s how she announced to her parents that she is gay. Her last line to them was, “It gets batter.”

Unfortunately for our kids, understanding sexuality is a mess in our culture. The truth is, the development of one’s sexuality is a complicated, important, and serious one that takes time—much more time than we are willing to give it. According to my colleague, Dr. Armand Nicholi, a psychiatrist from Harvard and editor of  The Harvard Guide to Psychiatry

, a child’s sexuality isn’t fully developed until he or she is near twenty years old. The reason for this is that sexuality isn’t simply a matter of genetics, parental ideals, or the configuration of genitalia. It is a beautifully complex process, which is influenced by environment, personal experience, hormones, personality, family…