Young, happy, label-free.

Gay teens are a complex bunch, says Cornell University professor Ritch C. Savin-Williams, author of the new book The New Gay Teenager (Harvard University Press, $24.95)

Why did you write this book?

Everything that I was reading in terms of research and the media was not adequately representing what's going on among today's generation. It's so much of a revolution that it's sort of passed us by in terms of our recognition of it. Quite frankly, my goal was to try to present youth who have same-sex attractions in a very different way than what we have out there, which is that whole suicidal script.

What surprised you?

What I found was that the way in which the women were resisting and rejecting our sexual identity labels was fascinating to me. They've integrated their sexuality into who they are. They don't want to be a "lesbian poet"; they want to be "a poet who loves women."

Then I discovered that the guys were not that much different. They too were beginning to understand: "Don't try to put me in a box; don't try to categorize me."

What happened in the culture to make this happen?

The overwhelming cultural visibility of same-sex attractions is one part. The second part is the incredible diversity of expressions or depictions. When you watch MTV and what's going on in youth culture, you just find these very attractive, very with-it young people with same-sex attractions. It seems like it's the homophobic ones who are out of the mainstream. If we allowed same-sex marriage to be determined by high school kids, we'd have same-sex marriage.