My Role Model Post

Here is part of my role model post for my health and wellness class discussion I mentioned. I found the American Psychological Association web-site to be very informative and positive when discussing sexual orientation and homosexuality.

• "The American Psychological Association (2004) reports that research show that individuals with positive attitudes toward gays, lesbians, and bisexuals (GLB) know one or more GLB as a co-worker or friend. Sharing one’s sexual orientation, known as “coming out”, is beneficial for one’s mental health and helps to higher self-esteem. Additionally, educating individuals within a community will likely diminish anti-gay prejudice. One may ask what the effects of anti-gay prejudice are. In a lifetime victimization study Balsam et al. (2005) they did a comparison study of LGB and heterosexuals in a primarily European American sample. They found that LGB individuals reported more occurrences of physical and psychological abuse by parents, more partner abuse in adulthood, more childhood sexual abuse, and more sexual assault in adulthood than heterosexual individuals.
  
  In the past few years it has been more challenging to get out into the community to promote health and wellness with being a new parent to two young ones, however I have found a way to get to the community from within the compounds of my home. This is through the wonderful world of blogging. In Saipan there is a social network of bloggers. In my blog, www.gayinsaipan.blogspot.com, I have addressed such issues as suicide for GLBT teens, “coming-out”, local events for GLBT support, GLBT health issues such as breast cancer and prostate cancer, disabilities and sexuality, GLBT equal rights issues, and more. In Saipan the GLBT community is mostly underground as 80-90% of the community is Catholic and the social atmosphere is similar to the militaries “don’t ask, don’t tell”. It is through my blog that I hope to share and bring awareness to the community about GLBT issues and promoting health and wellness. As our children get older, as a family unit and individually, I will become involved again in promoting health and wellness within our community from outside of our home."

Island Dyke

Reference:

Balsam, KF, Rothblum, ED & Beauchaine, TP. (2005). Victimization over the life span: a comparison of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and heterosexual siblings. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, Vol. 73, No. 3, pp. 477-87. Retrieved on February 28, 2008, from PubMed.

No author listed. (2004). Sexual Orientation and Homosexuality. American Psychological Association. Retrieved on February 28, 2008, from http://www.apahelpcenter.org/articles/article.php?id=31.

Health & Wellness

I am just finishing up with a six week course on health and wellness. I am down to the final discussion board post in which they ask how how am I serving as a role model in my community for promoting health and wellness. I am planning on sharing how in this blog I address issues about health and wellness that affect this local community as well as other communities as blogs are world wide access. It is not my only goal to raise community health and wellness issues but to also raise community awareness for GLBT issues.

One interesting aspect I would like to share from my class is five of the "Ten Warning Signs of Wellness:

• Episodic outbreaks of joyful, happy experiences
• A tendency to identify and communicate feelings
• The persistent presence of a support network
• Chronic positive expectations; the tendency to frame events in a constructive light
• An increased appetite for physical activity" (Insel & Roth, 2004, pp. 3)

And now for my 'Top Five Warning Signs of a Well GLBT Individual':

• Episodic bursts of jumping up and down to YMCA
• Non-stop talking about how one is sooooooo upset because so and so hurt their feelings, can you believe it?
• The presence of 'Queer as Folk' and 'The L-word' parties for GLBT network and support
• Flaming events under stage lights, beauty pagent positive expectations of being crowned
• An increased appetite for physical activity, baby!

Ok, I was just having a little fun. Come up with a better list. ;0)

Island Dyke

Reference:

Insel & Roth (2004). Core Concepts in Health. The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc., New York, NY, 10020.

Lesbo Connections in Saipan

The resources of lesbian networking in Saipan are limited. And although I love hanging out with my gay and straight friends I do need my intermittent fix of lesbian socializing. When we lived in San Diego we had our connection. It was a group of lesbians and bisexual women that met once a week for a social connection, we were called LINC (Lesbians in North County). Lately there has been a few new coming outs along with making some new connections which has helped improve our Saipan lesbian socializing. I wonder though how other lesbians on Saipan are fairing. Is there some other secret group that gathers?

Katie Peoples (2007, pp. 54) in Curve gives 10 recommended sites for lesbian social networking. These include: OurChart, MySpace, Linkedin, Imeem, GLEE, Olivia, Flickr, Facebook, Bebo, and FabFemme. She further states that "a recent Harris Interactive/Witeck-Combs survey showed that queer women use social networking sites much more than straight gals". Well if you live on a small island where the odds are severely limited I can definitely see why lesbians would be surfing these sites.

Reference:

Peoples, Katie (2007). Networking Lesbians Three women find the MySpace connection. Curve The best-selling lesbian magazine, Vol. 17, No. 10.

More on Gaydar

My friend the Rev sent me a link to an article on gaydar. Kaplan (2008) reports on a study done out of Tufts University in which they showed men and women faces of gay and straight men at various timed intervals between 33 milliseconds to 10 seconds. The result found that at a timed interval of 100 milliseconds the participants were correct 70% of the time. More time did not improve the identification correctly.

I am curious if I go back and take the gaydar test I posted previously and make an instant choice if I will improve my score. Here is the link if any one wants to try again. http://www.okcupid.com/gaydar

Ok I went and tried it out and I "suck". (50%) I tried answering instantly and see what I got, I did better taking my time and studying the photos as I had got an 80% then.

What do you think about the validity to such a study or what it's implications could mean?

Island Dyke

Reference:

Kaplan, Matt (2008) An Eye for Sexual Orientation. ScienceNOW Daily News. Retrieved on February 1, 2008 from http://sciencenow.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/2008/118/3?eaf.

WARNING: Boys on Saipan

Sorry to all my frequent viewers for being so delinquent in posting. My excuses are numerous and boring so I won't mention them, except for that one fantasy vacation on the set of the L-Word.

I have heard recently from a friend of a situation that is taking place in Saipan that is of utter most disgust. There is a young man of possible Pacific Islander descent that is stalking gay men on Saipan. This young man, after consentual sexual relations, has then told that he is under age and then demands a financial pay-off to keep his mouth shut. I have been told that this has happened to two gay men so far and that this young man is a stocker. He has gone to the extent of following his victims down and acting out aggressively in his demands.

Warning to all, check ID's before nooky nooky, and always wear your protection! And if you are having relations with a stranger, please make sure your friends know where you are going. Have fun and be safe.

Island Dyke

Activism in Saipan, Battling Gay Agenda?

So there I was last night surfing the net for interesting topics to discuss on this blog as the misses went to bed early as she was coming down with a bad cold. I stumbled across a Google search titled “Teens Battle Gay Agenda in Schools” and Saipan is listed. I followed the link to CBN.com, a Christian News site. In an article the author states that the Alliance Defense Fund assists students to initiate a “Day of Truth” (DOT) event in their schools. The DOT event is to present their Christian views on homosexuality to counter the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network’s (GLSEN) “Day of Silence”. At the end of the article the author states “the Day of Truth is also working internationally against the homosexual agenda, as Tokyo, Saipan and the United Kingdom are now involved in this event.” (Haverluck, 2007)

Wow, is the first thought I had. Then in more depth I questioned is there actually any GLBT clubs in ANY of the schools in Saipan? I searched for more information to see how Saipan is connected with the DOT or Alliance Defense Fund and could not find any connections however, that does not mean there isn’t the connection they state.

In my search I did find the “Family Research Council” site. They declare they are “Defending Family, Faith, and Freedom”. Hmmmm. I thought freedom is the ability to be whom one is. I really do not see how the GLBT community is asking heterosexuals to become like us, as if that could be truly possible. I do hear the GLBT community asking for EQUAL RIGHTS, which again brings up the word ‘freedom’! The scary thing is that on this site they list eight resources to assist preventing homosexual activism in your school. (No author listed, 2007)

To my bloggers who do not think that there are GLBT issues "now days", go take a look at the link resources and see.

Island Dyke


Reference:

Haverluck, M. (2007). Teens Battle Gay Agenda in Schools. US News on CBN News.com. Retrieved on December 20, 2007, from http://www.cbn.com/CBNnews/133034.aspx.

No author listed. (2007) Family Research Council. Retrieved on December 20, 2007 from https://www.frc.org/get.cfm?c=CONTACT_FRC&iss=HSED&step=2.

Marketing Saipan to Gay and Lesbian Travelers

According to the Hawaii Visitors & Convention Bureau, consumers nationwide online travel behaviors studies have shown that 79% of gays and lesbians will book their vacation hotel rooms online compared to 54% of straights booking online. The study also revealed that 71% of gay/lesbian travelers top choice for picking a vacation spot is the price compared to 64% of straights having that as their top choice. Additionally, 22% of gay/lesbian travelers say one of the most important factors to picking a vacation location is if they feel they will received "fair treatment of guests like me". (MEDIA, 5th)


So if close to 80% of gay/lesbian travelers will book their vacation online, what would it cost to market these vacation packages online? The second part of the topic is if you think Saipan will show fair treatment to gay/lesbian guests. In one of my first blogs I wrote about a gay travel critic and his wonderful stay at Saipan's Pacific Island Club. Also I have shared how I feel excepted by most everyone living here. Saipan also currently has at least one gay club and has had others in the past and I recently had a blogger request information on gay bars in Saipan as they were planning to travel here.


So here it is all you energetic, business savy marketers, and computer geeks (ok, computer savy) people; can someone go strum up some business at the hotels and bring the GLBT tourists here! We want rainbow money here! ;0)

Island Dyke

Reference:

MEDIA 5th WWW DOCUMENTS. Tourism Industry Update, May 2, 2006. Retrieved on December 19, 2007 from http://www.hvcb.org/media/documents/TIU06-09.pdf.