What grown-ups do
I am sensitive to Jon Faust's concern [Mailstrom , September 14] about what he should say when his 2-year-old asks what the two men are doing in that photo in the Castro shop window – I have two nephews of similar age. Here's what he should say: "Those men are showing their love for each other and their love of all men. It's what some grown-ups do."
Cyrus Ginwala
Oakland, California
Know the neighborhood
The Castro is a family neighborhood and welcoming to anyone and everyone. Mr. Faust, if you have a 2-year-old child, you must have known well before that child was born that the Castro has a very open atmosphere and very varied array of both people and businesses, including many bars and some shops that sell sexually explicit merchandise. If you are so concerned by the negative impact on your child of such an atmosphere, then I suggest you move to one that is much more homogenized – say, Washington D.C. I will help you pack.
What is next? You're asking that people should dress appropriately for your children? Your belief that if someone is not using the appropriate language within earshot of your child, that the speaker should be reprimanded? Is that not censorship that you suggest? This is analogous to the attempts by the FCC to regulate television. I say if you do not like the channel, change it! If you don't like the 'hood, move!
The shops in the Castro are a micro-economy within the much-larger economic picture; however it still works on the same principle: Supply and demand. If there were no need (demand) for these shops by which you are offended – and, I might add, how their employees and owners make their living and feed their families – then they would not be in business. I for one welcome these merchants and applaud them for not giving in to the conservative, finger-pointing people that think everything should look like they want it to.
If the children of America would grow up with knowing things about human sexuality early on – much like Europe and other countries – we would have far fewer hang-ups, body issues, sexuality issues, and overall less discrimination and, dare I say, sex crimes. We in America are taught that the human body and sexuality are dirty and only of concern to adults. I say that we should take the mystery and intrigue out of it. Then it will not be an issue.
Please, as a gay man, do not advocate limiting our rights even more than they have been over the past five and a half years. Leave that to Congress and the Bush administration.
William Hemenger
San Francisco
Kissing makes it feel better
Regarding Jon Faust's letter regarding the effect of bare buttocks and thrusting penises on the children in the Castro: he writes that he wants to be able to tell his 2-year-old son the truth. If that is so, then the next time the tyke asks, "Daddy, what's that?" then the proper reply should be, "Oh, that man is kissing the other man's booboo to make it feel better."
Arthur G. Lopez
San Francisco
See a shrink
In his letter to the editor, Jon Faust declares that the time has come to get with the program and "clean up our minds and clean up the Castro." The first step in doing so would be for Mr. Faust to haul his pompous ass and woefully-inflated ego into the office of a brutally honest therapist.
For better or worse, the Castro is both a residential and commercial district. If images of gay erotica in store windows are so threatening to his family, Mr. Faust should pack their bags and move them to a gated community where the only way his child's mind could be corrupted is if his father drives him to a terrifying suburban strip mall (or the enterprising toddler stumbles upon his father's hidden collection of gay porn).
As Mr. Faust gazes upon his reflection and asks "Mirror, mirror on the wall, who is the straightest-acting gay man of them all?" perhaps he really does believe that his shit doesn't stink. Unfortunately, the rhinestone tiara of would-be legitimacy that he so desperately believes to have acquired through his newfound parenthood does nothing to quell his glaring internalized homophobia.
To assume that your precious 2-year-old is the only sentient being who explores the neighborhood is the height of narcissism. If Mr. Faust is so eager to tell his child the truth, he could start by teaching the little boy a lesson in math: Basically, there are far more adults spending their time and money in the Castro than there are in his pathetically uptight family unit.
"What about the children?" he asks. "This is a family neighborhood, isn't it?" The numbers don't lie.
George Heymont
San Francisco