Friday, 1 October 2010

Teenage Gay Suicides: A "Sexy" Story?


Almost all of the UK papers gave over considerable space yesterday or today to the suicide of 18 year-old US student, Tyler Clementi - apparently after being outed by a flatmate secretly filming him having sex with a man and then putting the film on the internet.
The Daily Mail: 'He was spying on me': Student who killed himself after secret gay sex film made desperate cry for help on day of his death.'
The Independent: 'Student jumps to his death after roommate posts sex tape online'.
The Guardian: 'US student Tyler Clementi jumps to his death over sex video.'
The Daily Telegraph: 'Student jumps to death after being filmed having sex with man.'
The Times: 'Student Dead After Friends Broadcast Sex Video.'
The Sun: ''Taped Sex' Teen Jumps To Death'.
Daily Star: 'Degeneres 'Devastated' Over Suicide Teenager.'
It was the fourth reported sucide of an American teenager in September because of homophobic bullying.
There was also Billy Lucas, 15, Seth Walsh, 13, and Asher Brown, 13.
None of these other three boys' suicides were reported in the British press, though their youth arguably makes them all the more tragic stories.
Fagburn wonders if journalists being able to put something about a "secret gay sex tape" in a headline makes a teenage suicide a sexier story?

EDIT: A Fifth gay American teenager, Raymond Chase, 19, took his own life on September 29th.

5 comments:

  1. A piece on Queerty on how different reporting has been in the US media.

    http://www.queerty.com/congratulations-media-youre-actually-ignoring-anti-gay-experts-in-reporting-bullying-suicides-20101001/

    ReplyDelete
  2. Not sure if it will be of any interest, but they're talking about this on World Have Your Say on the World Service at 5pm tonight. You can read about it here.

    ReplyDelete
  3. It's a symptom of the voyeurism that seems to drive so much of gay politics. I blogged about this too.

    ReplyDelete
  4. The Daily Mail publishes today an article
    'U.S. gay community reeling from 'epidemic' of suicides among teenagers taunted over sexuality.

    I hope Jan Moir reads it.

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1316782/US-gay-community-reeling-epidemic-suicides-teenagers.html

    ReplyDelete
  5. The "flat mate" who outed his room MATE should be burnt. Tyler is dead but the scum that killed him still remains free to do more damage.

    ReplyDelete