I've been spending the afternoon in bed, lazily catching up on my favorite TV shows. What a life! But color me surprised to find ABC's Ugly Betty seriously indulging what has now been a multi-episode storyline concerning little Justin's need for gay mentorship -- and finding that guidance in the form of the show's flamboyant Marc. On the most recent episode, Marc gives Justin some guidance about bullying: "Get ahead of the joke." Meaning, if the bullies think you're in on the joke and unaffected, they'll quit making fun of you (okay, we know it's not so easy -- but it can often work!). This is a classic storyline that you see time and time again, but I don't think I've ever seen it in the form of sissy-to-sissy mentorship like on Ugly Betty. I'm really loving this storyline, for obvious reasons -- gay / intergenerational mentorship like that featured here is precisely how I managed to survive and thrive in high school.

Unfortunately, I think this is precisely the kind of intergenerational support structure that is almost totally absent from gay youth organizations. The fear -- of course! -- is that older gay men will prey on youth / sexually abuse them / etc. It's the kind of gross assumption that shows how stereotypical remnants of gays-as-pedophiles still lurk in the shadows of discourse today. Alas, funders get freaked out at the possibility of older gay men sitting in the same room as teenagers, and rarely are willing to put their money to support that kind of thing.

Curiously, I think Ugly Betty circumvents these kinds of fears by not just making it gay mentorship, but sissy mentorship. Marc's character is just about as close to asexual as you can get, dissipating any potential for fears over intergenerational sexual tension. But this obviously is not to criticize the show. Rather, I think it's fabulous to see sissy-to-sissy mentorship. So, thanks, writers of UB!