Begging for a break from the bullshit from Liberal Street Fighter
How pathetic are adults in this country? The wailing and gnashing of teeth over My Space, Facebook and other social networking places is long past old. This morning, on Weekend America, I was treated to a overheated discussion about the impact of these websites on summer camps. Yes, summer camps. Screening counselors to make sure they don’t have any “shameful” pictures on their personal sites before they’re hired (one counselor talked about how she took pictures of herself down where she was holding a beer, at a party, IN COLLEGE). Hell, supervisors talked/bragged about scanning through campers websites!!!, to keep the kiddies safe, of course, and to find out who they needed to keep an eye on.
Oh, forfend that children, teenagers, might ask some questions, explore their sexuality, take their first faltering steps toward being well-rounded adults who actually INHABIT their bodies, genitals included.
Wait, parents, teachers, camp counselors and ministers insist, IT’S DANGEROUS OUT THERE. Just watch Dateline, they cry. Those terrible internets are awash in predators. Of course, in order to protect the young and growing, they must be coddled and watched. No privacy can be allowed, since they might stumble into the path of some nut who will lure them to Israel. Of course, 9,999 times out of 10,000, they’re going to hook up with someone their own age, but why let some rational thought get in the way of some good hysteria? It’s better, safer, to just insist that they DON’T TOUCH, anybody, until they’re married or something.
Why are we so fucked up about sex?
How is it, exactly, that young human beings are supposed to grow into healthy and happy adults in a country that insists on this weird puritanism? Only a couple of generations ago people were already married and parents by the age where today we still treat them as fragile little dears who have to be sheltered from icky and messy life. Hell, some of the nuts in this country would prefer that girls risk eventual cancer than to allow us to do ANYTHING that might even HINT that they will have sex some day.
Whether we were hiding in the woods with the neighbor girl, or sneaking under the bleachers, or playing doctor in the basement, teenagers have explored their bodies on their own. How else to parents propose they’ll learn? Do they really think that abstinence is really going to work? Like it worked when THEIR parents insisted on it? Since we shroud REAL information about it behind shame and restrictions imposed by rightwing religious nuts, what do expect to happen? Do any adults remember the intrusive thoughts driven by hormones? I know that it’s fashionable to blame it on popular culture, like MTV or hip hop or movies or comic books or Elvis’ hips, but this drive is part of being human. Remember how the hell it felt?
Get over it. Your children are sexual beings. Teach them to respect themselves, and that includes teaching them NOT TO HATE THEIR BODIES. Where does all of this shame or paranoia get anyone? The natural course of hormone-driven maturation is going to push them to experiment, to touch and taste and sometimes hurt themselves. MySpace is the new backseat. Deal with it. Part of becoming a healthy adult is making some mistakes when you’re young. Maybe if we weren’t such hypocritical assholes about sexual health, if we actually trusted women (and lets face it, most of this hysteria is to protect GIRLS … no one is really all that worried about boys) to make their own decisions, own their choices about their bodies, children would make better choices themselves. After all, it is the kids who’re most swaddled in ignorance who’re most likely to make the worst choices. Trying to bank that fire is very likely to end up getting your kid burned.
So please, enough hysteria about MySpace and the rest of them. Oh, and no more breathless fearmongering stories about missing, violated and pretty white women. Enough with the fear and loathing over our animal natures, because it is by integrating them with the rest of our natures that we can hope to find happy, full lives.
Grow the hell up.
My last vacation was a cruise to the Caribbean and none of the little girls no matter whether they were 1 year old or 8 years old swam in anything other than a full bikini. We’re so fucked up even a 2 year old girl has to wear a top. I found it incredibly creepy that we are now fetishizing small girls and dressing them like they were grown ups. Like parents thought the bare chest of a 2 year old was a dirty thing. Now that’s a sick society.
3 months from now myspace will be forgotten and the next big thing will having taken its place, giving rise to the next wave of misplaced hysteria.
There is nothing bad about adolescence raging hormones until a sick adult enters the picture. An adult, male or female, who exploits, preys on, abuses, molests, tricks, pays etc., to get in on the action because of that adult’s addiction, messed up view, control, power, perversion or whatever and thinks he/she is entitled to their ‘freedom’ to do these things to children is the cause of all this furor.
When the sick adults are stopped so will the fear of the concerned parents of children lessen.
Quit blaming those who know the dangers and long lasting pain of sexual abuse/exploitation (at any age) and their attempts to protect the children.
The sick sex exploitation game is what is out of control in our reality/show addicted society. If a child is not educated about sex early it will probably be too late once they become an adult with mis-guided sexual views and become part of the next generation of sex predators.
sure, but first, I think the threat has been blown WAY out of proportion to the actual reality. Most children who’re molested are molested by someone they know.
Second, demonstrating so much fear and lack of trust in their good sense will leave them unprepared when they are out completely on their own. A big part of finding the right partners is confidence in yourself and your own maturity. Someone who’s been raised to fear everyone is only going to be fearful. Everyone I’ve known like that ended up more likely to be taken advantage of b/c the bad ones can sense the fear. They hunt for it. Not giving children the freedom and privacy to explore their own limitations and choices leaves them with fewer tools when they’re grown.
I understand that parents worry for their children, but increasingly they act like the father who won’t let go of the back of the bike once junior has his balance. I think all of the acting out we hear children doing, the “Girls Gone Wild” phenom, is a direct consequence of repressed childhoods.
I agree with some of what you say regarding fear, but The reality is, is that the statistics on the unfortunate number of women and children who have experienced this type of abuse/exploitation is far higher than normal-whatever that may be- childhood experiences. Then add alcohol and drug abuse which make for uninhibitions, bad courage and experimenting with taboo-type behavior and this problem is out of control. I know many, myself included, who would never had done or allowed some things to be done or happen to them if one was sober, of clear mind and educated about the ramifications.
You combine all that and there is very little protection without some heavy handed measures at this point in time.
Sex education, alcohol and drug education and education on one’s personal responsibilities (the golden rule) with a heavy dose of reality of the consequences of bad behavior is sorely needed NOW!
Quit blaming those who know the dangers and long lasting pain of sexual abuse/exploitation (at any age) and their attempts to protect the children.
I’m not blaming them (I should really say us) for wanting to be cautious.
But there’s a point at which protection becomes excessive control. And there’s a difference between trying to teach them to be careful and getting them to be afraid of everything, just as there’s a difference between taking logical precautions with sick adults and depriving them of basic rights.
We have recently developed a local law here that prevents any registered sex offender from entering a public library. Now, I can understand librarians having lots of information, and keeping a close eye particularly on the children’s/young adult sections. But to deprive people, any people, of their ability to go quietly check out a book, or do research, or read the newspaper for free — that’s just fucking wrong, IMO.
We won’t ever get close to solving this problem until we do a much better job with mental health care in this country, IMO. In the meantime, we can’t let “protecting the children” turn into “preventing the children from learning to navigate the world in which they live”. I’m not saying we should toss ’em into the deep end, but I am saying that I have problems with ramming fear into their heads.
Most of these things are not done by strangers. People’s parents, siblings, uncles, so forth are statistically more dangerous to them than anybody else, but we don’t like to talk about that as a country — it’s so much easier to focus on the mystery stranger out there.
Eh, copper coinage.
very well put.
Perhaps if we could manage to be honest with each other – even with the children, we’d all figure out how to deal with the delights and the horrors of life. My parents worked very hard at protecting me from the truth, but they also gave me the freedom to discover it on my own.
More proof that almost any kind of censorship leads eventually to ignorant, illogical behavior period! It does not matter if it’s in the arena of social behavior and children, or in government overuse of classified material. It always hurts the larger social mindset to censor. How else have a few religions survived all these thousands of years!
I have dealt with MySpace for like a year now. It’s neat, super cool at a certain stage of teenagerism……my daughter learned a lot of html, she also learned how obnoxious anonymous posts can be and hurtful they can be and how cowardly the anonymous are also when her mother pointed that out too. She learned that predators patrol such things when one of her friends was grossly propositioned by a man in his fifties. Then her friend’s brother recorded a hiphop song to “My Milkshake brings all the boys to the yard” but the lyrics are all about disgusting nasty dirty old men, and they put the song on her MySpace space so that it plays the whole time you are visiting. It was hilarious! My daughter learned a lot, but I did monitor things because when fighting broke out among the kids some of the anonymous posting really brought her down during a time when most of us have/had precious little self esteem!
I got a real education in how all this works a couple of weeks ago when we had a family reunion at a retreat center in Colorado. A couple of my teenage nieces (16 and 18 years old) connected with two Eagle Scouts who were also there at the center. They got read the riot act by my wingnut brother (father of one of the girls) when the boys walked them from the conference center to their cabin – at night no less!!! He went on about how you “can’t trust anyone” and I guess that includes Eagle Scouts. As if walking home in a foursome was placing them in mortal danger. What a load of crock. But mostly I felt sorry for his daughter. She knows nothing but obedience to the almighty father.
I wonder how much he’s projecting his own behavior from when he was a boy.
I always feel so bad for girls with fathers like that.
You may be right Madman about where his fear comes from. But I think what he fears is a powerful independent thinking daughter who is in charge of her own body. And in this case it just breaks my heart because its my own niece he’s doing this to.
But then again this same niece has one of those “chastity rings” she was showing off to me that her dad gave her. So I can’t quite figure out who he’s afraid of – her or the Eagle Scouts. I’m sure its all mingled in together.
But I think what he fears is a powerful independent thinking daughter who is in charge of her own body.
The catch 22 here is that this is not what he fears! What he fears is a daughter who gets knocked up outside of marraige, and he does not really understand how to realistically prevent it from happening given his repressed learning curve. Therefore, he tries the abstinence route with overbearing oversight to enforce, which is exactly the formula to get knocked up.
The reality is ife he gave is daughter the true facts and knowledge about life and protection, he could prevent his greatest fears. In other words, if he enabled his daughter as an “independent thinking daughter who is in charge of her own body”, he could actually achieve his objective! WHAT A DAMM SHAME THIS IGNORANCE TREADMILL!
Having been raised with this form of fundamentalist wingnuttery, I can say that the ultimate fear comes from a belief that we are all, at our core, sinful. Therefore, if we develop independent thinking outside of the control of God/Father, we will do very bad things.
And from there, I agree with you NG, comes many of the dangers and the ignorant treadmill of which you speak.
oh, the damage done by the fucked up belief in “sin”.
ring father/daughter thing just grosses the hell out of him.
A beer? At a party? In COLLEGE?
Nooooo!!!!!!!! What is this world coming to?
she said that she had come to understand that she had a responsibilty “as a role model” … and that she didn’t want to “model” bad behavior for her campers.
Ah, so self-rightous, and at such a young age.
Our weird relationship with alcohol in this culture is a whole ‘nuther can of worms. Because, you know, drinking a couple of beers, when you’re of age and probably being perfectly responsible, is baaaad.
Not too surprisingly, IMO, our sometimes puritanical view of alcohol doesn’t seem to have knocked out our huge problem with alcoholism.
My take on your piece is that we, as a society, are “f*cked up. Kids will be kids – teach them to respect themselves and others – and give them some space to learn and grow.
I can’t disagree with that. However, imo, many parents are battling the entertainment and advertisement industries which gives a whole different message than “respect yourself and others.” For example, the humor in tv shows and movies is often slicing, but said with a smile. And kids mimic what they have been shown – have a problem with my “joke?” “Get over it.”
Kids are bombarded with messages to get them to buy (pressure their parents to buy). And they are so vulnerable, some more than others. The need to belong is intense. Some kids dumb down, others blend in by seeking whatever is most current – be it clothes, music, hair, behavior, etc. Some do this because they are already “different” in some way. And kids, too, want to be “successful.” So what does “success” look like in ‘merica?Why being rich and famous! What better way to sell than to put one’s products on “stars” in a movie, the epitome of “success?”
And the internet and MySpace – why it feels like being “famous!” And how far will some kids go in their effort to be recognized? What will they put out there on the internet? And what kind of information will be collected and by whom? And who might use that information in some way not beneficial to the participants?
Some parents get their kids into religious organizations in an attempt to keep them “safe.” Others organize their kids into all kinds of “activities,” i.e., sports, trying to do the same thing. It is difficult in this increasingly toxic society to even recognize what is dangerous and how to counter it.
So why don’t the tv shows and movies model “safe sex” practices? Why are actions like buying condoms and birth control pills not a part of the “action” in any movie or tv show that includes sex, be it on screen or off? And in the programs with more explicit sex, why isn’t condom use a part of the “action?”
Could it be religious organizations would go ballistic? Maybe even boycott? Could it be the commercial sponsors could care less about social “responsibility” and have no desire in wasting time or money dealing with those who would be “offended?”
Where I am having some difficulty with “censoring” and “free speech” is that it is corporations that end up being protected – even when what they offer to our children is “poison.” Knowing kids will be kids, isn’t our job as a society to keep their environment healthy? Or is the message to parents, “you had ’em, now you deal with ’em?”
but on this:
Knowing kids will be kids, isn’t our job as a society to keep their environment healthy?
There’s really no way to do that, in any real sense of the word. The world is a dangerous, messy place. Part of growing up, IMO, is learning to negotiate that, to take risks with full knowledge, and to draw boundaries out of respect for ourselves and others. Where those things fall is always going to depend on the individual.
Now, I think people do clearly have to protect their children, particularly depending on age — but I think that at some point, people also have to be willing to lengthen the hell out of that leash, and let kids start to figure out in the safest ways possible, with support from their elders, that the world isn’t theirs, and it’s not going to protect them. They need to learn to take care of themselves.
The kids that I interact with at school who are the most prone to making really, really stupid decisions are the ones who lived incredibly sheltered lives up until they suddenly one day moved off to college. They have absolutely no idea how to handle the world.
Knowing kids will be kids, isn’t our job as a society to keep their environment healthy?
There’s really no way to do that, in any real sense of the word.
But we have tried to do this. Leaded paint was to be removed from apartments and dwellings cause it could harm infants and small children. The innoculations we have to give to infants and children we expect to be tested for safety and regulated.
Why limit concerns about environmental conditions as they relate to our children’s physical well-being? Why focus mental health efforts just on individuals and families? Why not look at the media’s contribution and work toward demanding changes in the media industries?
Heck, what am I thinking? Reality is “Clean Skies” from this administration and deteriorating air quality. Sigh.
the world is no more toxic now than it’s always been, it’s just different in the form of the temptations offered.
Sometimes the only way to learn is to get burned. Healthy adults would recognize that, and offer non-judgemental help when the child comes back wounded. We all learned how to treat people from interacting with people, perhaps even treating them poorly ourselves, only to have to confront the nagging feeling that wrong had been done. It’s part of maturing, and blocking off the possibility to get hurt blocks off the possibility to learn.
I always told my kids when they were growing up that it was ok to make mistakes, but not the fatal ones. Gets a bit tricky sometimes however to see those fatal ones, but you only get to miss one! Sort of like terrorists!!
The effects of the media are powerful, but incidious and difficult to isolate. I do not have the link, for which I apologize, but I read about a Pacific island culture that only recently has received tv programs. This culture not only accepted but celebrated plumpness. Within two years of having tv available there were a significant number of girls with eating disorders.
In Mean Girls Grown Up, author Cheryl Dellasega, quotes from another article which found:
Also within that article,
Now I don’t want to join in this summer season’s, “What can hurt your child and what you can do about it.” And I can agree that the ones most likely to harm us are the ones closest to us.
What gets me riled up are personal freedoms and rights being accorded to corporate entities who use these freedoms and rights in anyway that will increase their bottom line – no matter who or what they are harming.
That, too, is something we (society) seem to be absorbing from corporate behavior – all rights, no responsibilities.
May be the problem is there aren’t enough grown-ups in this country.