All this video was recorded yesterday... except the flashback. (That was originally blogged on February 17th.)
And here's the NYT article on "self-compassion" that I talk about in the car.
Showing posts with label teenagers. Show all posts
Showing posts with label teenagers. Show all posts
"Chicago is up in the house!"/"He's never nipped at anybody but he barks and growls"/"I wanna be your dog"...
... "Everyone left is from Chicago"/"It's the love-in of a lifetime"/"People are going to be really embarrassed some day to look back and realize that they had joined in on something that was really a mistake and they chose the wrong side and that they joined it with such fervor"/"Did you ever do that when you were young?"
All this video was recorded yesterday... except the flashback. (That was originally blogged on February 17th.)
And here's the NYT article on "self-compassion" that I talk about in the car.
All this video was recorded yesterday... except the flashback. (That was originally blogged on February 17th.)
And here's the NYT article on "self-compassion" that I talk about in the car.
"I am the mother of a 13-year-old boy, which is like living with the single-cell protozoa version of a husband."
"Here's what my son wants out of life: macaroni and cheese, a video game, and Kim Kardashian. Have you ever seen Kim Kardashian angry? I didn't think so. You've seen Kim Kardashian smile, wiggle, and make a sex tape. Female anger terrifies men. I know it seems unfair that you have to work around a man's fear and insecurity in order to get married -- but actually, it's perfect, since working around a man's fear and insecurity is big part of what you'll be doing as a wife."
From a weirdly hateful HuffPo piece called "Why You're Not Married," by TV writer Tracy McMillan, who "lives in Los Angeles with her 13-year-old son." You know, get a life, so you don't have to talk about your teenage son. Or just shut up. He's not your husband or anything like a husband, and if you think he is, just shut up.
From a weirdly hateful HuffPo piece called "Why You're Not Married," by TV writer Tracy McMillan, who "lives in Los Angeles with her 13-year-old son." You know, get a life, so you don't have to talk about your teenage son. Or just shut up. He's not your husband or anything like a husband, and if you think he is, just shut up.
Howard Stern excoriates Kathy Lee Gifford for tormenting an autistic boy.
Kathy Lee somehow managed to produce the most unbearably tasteless display I've ever seen on television, and Stern lets her have it. Language alert on the second link, but the first link is much more offensive.
[Second link was wrong before. Fixed.]
[Second link was wrong before. Fixed.]
"I received a phone call anonymously that my daughter was involved with a guy 40 years older than her."
"You said you couldn't stop him - so I did."
A statement to the police by the father of a 17-year-old girl who saw it as his "duty as a father" to wield a bread knife, strategically.
A statement to the police by the father of a 17-year-old girl who saw it as his "duty as a father" to wield a bread knife, strategically.
As Bristol Palin makes the DWTS finals, the anti-Palin forces say look over here: It's Willow Palin's "homophobic rant."
The 16-year-old Palin was hanging out on Facebook:
We might say that anyone who cares about gay people should strike those words from their vocabulary. But not everyone who hasn't already laundered their speech of those offensive words is "homophobic." (And not everyone who has, isn't.) You're "homophobic" if you actually feel antagonism toward gay people. There's absolutely zero indication that Willow has any negativity at all toward gay people. She's just pissed at Tre and talking like a teenager (or a "South Park" character). To tar her as homophobic is like saying if you call someone an "idiot," you hate persons with Down Syndrome.
So leave Willow alone, you creeps. And in saying "creeps," I mean no antagonism toward arthropods.
If we should be talking about the Palin kids at all today, we should be talking about Bristol. A complete underdog, Bristol Palin made it to the finals of "Dancing With the Stars." She had no experience as a performer, certainly not as a dancer, and it's incredible that she kept going at all, as the judges and others either tore her down or — when they saw the votes flowing in? — were modestly supportive. Week after week, she landed at the bottom of the judges' scores, but she made it up time and again as regular people called in enough votes to overcome the disadvantage the judges had imposed.
This week, the people bumped her ahead of the judges' darling Brandy:
Yeah, I said "pussy." Does that make me a misogynist?
Willow's target, a person named Tre who goes to school with the Palin kids, wrote a status update on the night of the show's premiere, which read "Sarah Palin's Alaska is failing so hard right now."Do decent people read a 16-year-old girl's Facebook page? But we've read it, so let's at least be decent enough to be fair to teenagers. It's common and casual speech to use the words "gay" and "faggot" like that. It upsets upright people, and it would better if the kids didn't do it — or so it seems, as we look down on the young from our lofty adulthood.
Willow quipped back, "Haha your so gay. I have no idea who you are, But what I've seen pictures of, your disgusting ... My sister had a kid and is still hot," referring to her 20-year-old sibling, Bristol.
She later added, "Tre stfu. You such a f*ggot," and "I'm sticking up for my family," TMZ reported.
Bristol then came to her family's defense, writing to Tre, "You're running your mouth just to talk sh*t."
We might say that anyone who cares about gay people should strike those words from their vocabulary. But not everyone who hasn't already laundered their speech of those offensive words is "homophobic." (And not everyone who has, isn't.) You're "homophobic" if you actually feel antagonism toward gay people. There's absolutely zero indication that Willow has any negativity at all toward gay people. She's just pissed at Tre and talking like a teenager (or a "South Park" character). To tar her as homophobic is like saying if you call someone an "idiot," you hate persons with Down Syndrome.
So leave Willow alone, you creeps. And in saying "creeps," I mean no antagonism toward arthropods.
If we should be talking about the Palin kids at all today, we should be talking about Bristol. A complete underdog, Bristol Palin made it to the finals of "Dancing With the Stars." She had no experience as a performer, certainly not as a dancer, and it's incredible that she kept going at all, as the judges and others either tore her down or — when they saw the votes flowing in? — were modestly supportive. Week after week, she landed at the bottom of the judges' scores, but she made it up time and again as regular people called in enough votes to overcome the disadvantage the judges had imposed.
This week, the people bumped her ahead of the judges' darling Brandy:
Last night, Bristol Palin made the finals of Dancing with the Stars, and I think nobody was more shocked than Brandy, who got eliminated. Brandy was so shocked she didn’t even congratulate Bristol! Brandy really wanted that spot; in face earlier in the show, they had shown us a video tape of her saying how much she wants it, and that she “humbly” thinks she deserves it. Most people would agree with her, but Bristol beat her out anyway.Maybe she will! Congratulations to the shy, unassuming teenager who didn't particularly ask to be thrust into the spotlight 2 years ago, who went through an accidental pregnancy in front of millions of people (many of whom didn't mind insulting her in any manner they found amusing), who didn't hide herself away in shame, and who tried, again, in front of all of us, to dance. How many of the people who snipe at her, are too big of a pussy to dance anywhere, including on crowded dance floor at a local club?
So whatever the reason: Tea Party Conspiracy, Brandy’s arrogance, Bristol getting all the teen votes, Bristol working her “butt off,” or Mark Ballas’ incredibly good teaching…the question remains: Can Bristol win DWTS season 11?
Yeah, I said "pussy." Does that make me a misogynist?
"For a teenage boy who is fasting during Ramadan on a hot August afternoon, temptations abound. Ice cream. Water. Basketball."
The NYT has an upbeat article about NY teens who observe Ramadan.
"I think it's appropriate to give my kids whatever I want to give my kids" — including a $360,000 car.
Sean "Diddy" Combs's son turns 16 and gets a Maybach.
"I feel the way I raise my children, I don't have to explain to you or anyone else, 'cause nobody knows the way I raise my children. So nobody knows the lessons that I've taught my children to understand, if they are mentally ready for that."Asked whether he's teaching the teenager the wrong lesson:
"It wasn't even about a lesson; it's what I wanted to do... I could do whatever I want to do and you can't question me about it."Yeah, it's none of our business. So... why do we even know about it?
"Jessica Watson became the youngest person to sail around the globe solo, nonstop and unassisted..."
"... when she cruised into Sydney Harbour in her pink, 34-foot (10-meter) yacht to a rock star welcome of thousands. She successfully maneuvered her boat through raging storms, 40-foot (12-meter) waves and seven knockdowns during the 23,000 nautical mile journey that critics thought she wouldn't survive. After standing on land for the first time in 210 days, the teen said she's eager to learn how to drive a car, to eat fresh fruit and salad after months of packaged meals, get a full night's sleep instead of catnaps and shake off her sea legs with a long walk on the beach."
Jessica is 16.
Jessica is 16.
"I'm mad that they wore their stuff, but we were just mad the we were asked to change our stuff, but they could still wear their stuff."
"Yeah, I would have took my stuff off if they had to take their stuff off too."
It's a big controversy about... stuff.
No, it's a controversy about some high school kids wearing American flag shirts on Cinco de Mayo. Watch the video at the link. You can see that the kids who were into Cinco de Mayo felt "disrespected" by the display of the American flag on what they thought of as their day. It felt like a response... a debate. And I understand how all those kids felt. But the flag shirts were, of course, speech, and the school cannot go down the road of viewpoint discrimination, even if the school officials have some well-intended idea about making members of the minority group feel comfortable.
What the school needs is a neutral ban on T-shirts with symbols or writing. Require real shirts, with no writing or picture. Or go with uniforms. But if you let some kids speak via shirts, you have to let others respond via shirt.
Speech by shirt is a type of debate, but it's hardly the best kind of debate. It's quite close to the signaling that gang members do, which has no place in school. There is an appropriate worry about violence. There should be order in schools, and there can be strict rules limiting what students wear. Instead, teach students to express themselves with words. Help them develop their ideas beyond the rudimentary level of calling the flag stuff.
I remember when the use of the flag in clothing was all about disrespect. It was the kind of hippie shit that enraged WWII veterans. That was back when you weren't allowed to wear any sort of T-shirt to school. And now these young schoolboys are being used by right-wingers to make various political points. I would prefer to teach all the students to dress better and to speak better — not to say "I would have took my stuff" — and to have vigorous, substantive debates about politics.
And I like the way these schoolboys put on real shirts, shirts with collars, to do their TV interview. It is up to us adults to reach out to them and to help them. They are not our pawns. They mean well, I believe, and they are trying. It is time for all the adults in their world to help them and their antagonists to become the kind of adults who will make our country a better place.
It's a big controversy about... stuff.
No, it's a controversy about some high school kids wearing American flag shirts on Cinco de Mayo. Watch the video at the link. You can see that the kids who were into Cinco de Mayo felt "disrespected" by the display of the American flag on what they thought of as their day. It felt like a response... a debate. And I understand how all those kids felt. But the flag shirts were, of course, speech, and the school cannot go down the road of viewpoint discrimination, even if the school officials have some well-intended idea about making members of the minority group feel comfortable.
What the school needs is a neutral ban on T-shirts with symbols or writing. Require real shirts, with no writing or picture. Or go with uniforms. But if you let some kids speak via shirts, you have to let others respond via shirt.
Speech by shirt is a type of debate, but it's hardly the best kind of debate. It's quite close to the signaling that gang members do, which has no place in school. There is an appropriate worry about violence. There should be order in schools, and there can be strict rules limiting what students wear. Instead, teach students to express themselves with words. Help them develop their ideas beyond the rudimentary level of calling the flag stuff.
I remember when the use of the flag in clothing was all about disrespect. It was the kind of hippie shit that enraged WWII veterans. That was back when you weren't allowed to wear any sort of T-shirt to school. And now these young schoolboys are being used by right-wingers to make various political points. I would prefer to teach all the students to dress better and to speak better — not to say "I would have took my stuff" — and to have vigorous, substantive debates about politics.
And I like the way these schoolboys put on real shirts, shirts with collars, to do their TV interview. It is up to us adults to reach out to them and to help them. They are not our pawns. They mean well, I believe, and they are trying. It is time for all the adults in their world to help them and their antagonists to become the kind of adults who will make our country a better place.
Who could have imagined that one day the Supreme Court would take a case called Schwarzenegger...
... and Schwarzenegger would be arguing for preventing young people from viewing graphic depictions of violence? That day has come.
Don't worry kids. If you can't get your hands on those video games, you can sit quietly on the sofa and watch an old Schwarzenegger movie.
It's a game... between life and death...
Don't worry kids. If you can't get your hands on those video games, you can sit quietly on the sofa and watch an old Schwarzenegger movie.
It's a game... between life and death...
Did you know they made a Broadway show out of the Green Day album "American Idiot"?
And it got a great review in the NYT? Excerpt:
It's an odd business to be obsessing about George Bush when he's keeping such a low profile these days. He's hoping to fade into history, perhaps, but some people really miss him — miss him in the sense that they want him there in center stage to hate on, like back in the good bad old days. And now here he is, center stage, on Broadway, where they do punk rock. If there is a "malaise of [each] particular era," then I guess that says something about the one we're in.
ADDED: Sonicfrog blogs:
Who’s the American idiot being referred to? Well, as that curtain slowly rose, we heard the familiar voice of George W. Bush break through a haze of television chatter: “Either you are with us, or with the terrorists.” That kind of talk could bring out the heedless rebel in any kid, particularly one who is already feeling itchy at the lack of prospects in his dreary suburban burg.Malaise... <giggle>... see previous post.
But while “American Idiot” is nominally a portrait of youthful malaise of a particular era — the album dates from 2004, the midpoint of the Bush years, and the show is set in “the recent past” — its depiction of the crisis of post-adolescence is essentially timeless.
It's an odd business to be obsessing about George Bush when he's keeping such a low profile these days. He's hoping to fade into history, perhaps, but some people really miss him — miss him in the sense that they want him there in center stage to hate on, like back in the good bad old days. And now here he is, center stage, on Broadway, where they do punk rock. If there is a "malaise of [each] particular era," then I guess that says something about the one we're in.
ADDED: Sonicfrog blogs:
Ah, yes. The ggod ol’ days. Back when it was OK to hate the President. Of course, bashing Bush was not exactly edgy or breaking new ground by the time “American Idiot” came out – Dixie Chicks, Keith Olberman, and Rosie “fire has never melted steel” O’Donnell had already blazed that trail. What make the Green Day album notable was not the music – I doubt many could name a single song from the album, or hum one of the tunes – but the fact that the anti-Bush sentiment was marketed so prominently as a feature of the album.
A 15-year-old girl kills herself, and 9 of her classmates are arrested on various charges... but what did they do?
Of course, it's terrible when a young person commits suicide. And a suicide may have chosen self-murder because of the bad relationships in her environment. But if we don't favor arresting people who are very mean to people who don't commit suicide, why would we favor these arrests when someone does commit suicide?
Assume you are a teenager contemplating suicide. If you knew the 9 kids at school who were meanest to you would get criminally prosecuted if you killed yourself, would you be more likely to kill yourself or less? I don't know enough about the psychology of suicide to answer my own question, but my intuitive sense is that self-murderers — or some self-murderers — intend to deal a severe blow to the people they leave behind. And knowing your enemies will be prosecuted might spur you on.
Anyway, here's the article about the Phoebe Prince, who hanged herself, prompting the authorities to arrest 9 of her classmates. See if you can figure out how the shock and sorrow of the young girl's death got processed into criminal charges against 9 teenagers and whether this reaction is helpful or just.
And "appeared to be extreme"? Were the "legal experts" told more details than appear in this article? Because knocking books out of someone's hands and throwing a canned drink don't sound extreme. And then there's the story of a teen love affair that ended and left some heated feelings. It can't be that.
I'd say we need to be careful how much power we give to those who contemplate suicide. Do we think it will work out better if such a person thinks her enemies will be prosecuted? It's especially bad if nothing is done about bullying until there's a suicide. There is the suicidal person feeling alone, beleaguered, and helpless. She's considering ending it all, and the prospect of escaping all pain and consequence is vividly enhanced by the hope that her antagonists will suffer the ravages of criminal prosecution.
Assume you are a teenager contemplating suicide. If you knew the 9 kids at school who were meanest to you would get criminally prosecuted if you killed yourself, would you be more likely to kill yourself or less? I don't know enough about the psychology of suicide to answer my own question, but my intuitive sense is that self-murderers — or some self-murderers — intend to deal a severe blow to the people they leave behind. And knowing your enemies will be prosecuted might spur you on.
Anyway, here's the article about the Phoebe Prince, who hanged herself, prompting the authorities to arrest 9 of her classmates. See if you can figure out how the shock and sorrow of the young girl's death got processed into criminal charges against 9 teenagers and whether this reaction is helpful or just.
[T]wo boys and four girls, ages 16 to 18, face a different mix of felony charges that include statutory rape, violation of civil rights with bodily injury...Private citizens can commit civil rights violations?
... harassment, stalking and disturbing a school assembly.A felony charge of disturbing a school assembly?
Three younger girls have been charged in juvenile court, Elizabeth D. Scheibel, the Northwestern district attorney, said...
... Ms. Scheibel said that Ms. Prince’s suicide came after nearly three months of severe taunting and physical threats by a cluster of fellow students.I'm still trying to understand what the crimes were. Everything anyone did in relation to a suicide looks awful in retrospect, but the dead person's act of self-murder should not transform non-crimes into crimes. Prosecuting people who were horribly mean should not be a community's way to deal with the grief and outrage felt after a suicide. To what extent are the adults in the community scapegoating the kids to avoid their own feelings of guilt? If there are no crimes to use against the school officials, maybe that's a reason not to unload the weight of the law against the kids.
“The investigation revealed relentless activities directed toward Phoebe to make it impossible for her to stay at school,” Ms. Scheibel said. The conduct of those charged, she said, “far exceeded the limits of normal teenage relationship-related quarrels.”
It was particularly alarming, the district attorney said, that some teachers, administrators and other staff members at the school were aware of the harassment but did not stop it. “The actions or inactions of some adults at the school were troublesome,” Ms. Scheibel said, but did not violate any laws.
Ms. Prince’s family had recently moved to the United States from a small town in Ireland, and she entered South Hadley last fall. The taunting started when she had a brief relationship with a popular senior boy; some students reportedly called her an “Irish slut,” knocked books out of her hands and sent her threatening text messages, day after day....
On Jan. 14, the investigation found, students abused her in the school library, the lunchroom and the hallways and threw a canned drink at her as she walked home....
Some of the students plotted against Ms. Prince on the Internet, using social networking sites, but the main abuse was at school, the prosecutor said."Plotted" to do what?
“The actions of these students were primarily conducted on school grounds during school hours and while school was in session,” Ms. Scheibel said.So, teenagers willingly having sex with each other, and prosecutors do nothing about it. But if someone commits suicide — an inflamed heart breaks — then the sex partners of the dead person are rounded up and prosecuted for statutory rape. Is that fair?
Ms. Scheibel declined to provide details about the charges of statutory rape against two boys, but experts said those charges could mean that the boys had sex with Ms. Prince when she was under age.
Legal experts said they were not aware of other cases in which students faced serious criminal charges for harassing a fellow student, but added that the circumstances in this case appeared to be extreme and that juvenile charges were usually kept private.
And "appeared to be extreme"? Were the "legal experts" told more details than appear in this article? Because knocking books out of someone's hands and throwing a canned drink don't sound extreme. And then there's the story of a teen love affair that ended and left some heated feelings. It can't be that.
I'd say we need to be careful how much power we give to those who contemplate suicide. Do we think it will work out better if such a person thinks her enemies will be prosecuted? It's especially bad if nothing is done about bullying until there's a suicide. There is the suicidal person feeling alone, beleaguered, and helpless. She's considering ending it all, and the prospect of escaping all pain and consequence is vividly enhanced by the hope that her antagonists will suffer the ravages of criminal prosecution.
The teen heart throb's heart throbs its last...
... at age 38. Corey Haim, as he was in the 80s:
In later years, his problems were reality show fodder. Here's a 2-minute scene (NSFW) from "The Two Coreys":
"I should just put you in the ground, kid."
In later years, his problems were reality show fodder. Here's a 2-minute scene (NSFW) from "The Two Coreys":
"I should just put you in the ground, kid."
J.D. Salinger has died.
Link.
ADDED: "He was 91"... so a long detailed obituary was ready to go. You can read it at that link. Who here was not entranced by "Catcher in the Rye" at some point in their lives?
MORE: A big question is, now that he's dead: Are there unpublished manuscripts that we'll get to see? Will we learn more about his retreat from the world?
Well, there will be no more goddam stupid conversation with anybody anymore for him, but I've got to say I hope he held up some kind of one-sided end of a conversation with us for the past quarter century and we'll get some more readings.
ADDED: "He was 91"... so a long detailed obituary was ready to go. You can read it at that link. Who here was not entranced by "Catcher in the Rye" at some point in their lives?
“Catcher” was published in 1951, and its very first sentence, distantly echoing Mark Twain, struck a brash new note in American literature: “If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you’ll probably want to know is where I was born and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don’t feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth.”...And yes, yes, there are all those murderers who have that book in their back pocket. So don't get too entranced by it. Move on, read other things. But don't be a goddam phony.
With its cynical, slangy vernacular voice (Holden’s two favorite expressions are “phony” and “goddam”), its sympathetic understanding of adolescence and its fierce if alienated sense of morality and distrust of the adult world, the novel struck a nerve in cold war America and quickly attained cult status, especially among the young. Reading “Catcher” used to be an essential rite of passage, almost as important as getting your learner’s permit.
MORE: A big question is, now that he's dead: Are there unpublished manuscripts that we'll get to see? Will we learn more about his retreat from the world?
In 1953 Mr. Salinger, who had been living on East 57th Street in Manhattan, fled the literary world altogether and moved to a 90-acre compound on a wooded hillside in Cornish, N.H. He seemed to be fulfilling Holden’s desire to build himself “a little cabin somewhere with the dough I made and live there for the rest of my life,” away from “any goddam stupid conversation with anybody.”Or do we you really want to hear about it anymore, now that all these years have passed, years of a hermit life almost as long as my whole life? (And I'm pretty old.)
Well, there will be no more goddam stupid conversation with anybody anymore for him, but I've got to say I hope he held up some kind of one-sided end of a conversation with us for the past quarter century and we'll get some more readings.
But was he writing? The question obsessed Salingerologists, and in the absence of any real evidence, theories multiplied. He hadn’t written a word for years. Or like the character in Stephen King’s novel “The Shining,” he wrote the same sentence over and over again. Or like Gogol at the end of his life, he wrote prolifically but then burned it all up. Ms. Maynard said she believed there were at least two novels locked away in a safe, although she had never seen them. Quote TK from Salinger’s agent about surviving manuscripts, if any, and plans for them.Ha ha. That last sentence is now edited out of the NYT obit at the link. Come on, TK!
Mr. Salinger was controlling and sexually manipulative, [Joyce] Maynard wrote, and a health nut obsessed with homeopathic medicine and with his diet (frozen peas for breakfast, undercooked lamb burger for diner). [Margaret] Salinger said that her father was pathologically self-centered and abusive toward her mother, and to the homeopathy and food fads she added a long list of other exotic enthusiasms: Zen Buddhism, Vedanta Hinduism, Christian Science, Scientology and acupuncture. Mr. Salinger drank his own urine, she wrote, and sat for hours in an orgone box.Ugh! Maybe I don't want to read anything more.
"John told me about why he left Hollywood just a few years earlier. He was terrified of the impact it was having on his sons..."
"... he was scared it was going to cause them to lose perspective on what was important and what happiness meant. And he told me a sad story about how, a big reason behind his decision to give it all up was that 'they' (Hollywood) had 'killed' his friend, John Candy, by greedily working him too hard."
Alison Byrne Fields was a high school student when she started writing to John Hughes. We were talking about Hughes's death, and Reader_Iam pointed us to Fields's blog post.
Alison Byrne Fields was a high school student when she started writing to John Hughes. We were talking about Hughes's death, and Reader_Iam pointed us to Fields's blog post.
Students who hug too much.
Should they be stopped?
A measure of how rapidly the ritual is spreading is that some students complain of peer pressure to hug to fit in. And schools from Hillsdale, N.J., to Bend, Ore., wary in a litigious era about sexual harassment or improper touching — or citing hallway clogging and late arrivals to class — have banned hugging or imposed a three-second rule....Needless hugging? Don't we need a hug?
“If somebody were to not hug someone, to never hug anybody, people might be just a little wary of them and think they are weird or peculiar,” said Gabrielle Brown, a freshman at Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School in Manhattan.
Comforting as the hug may be, principals across the country have clamped down. “Touching and physical contact is very dangerous territory,” said Noreen Hajinlian, the principal of George G. White School, a junior high school in Hillsdale, N.J., who banned hugging two years ago. “It was needless hugging — they are in the hallways before they go to class. It wasn’t a greeting. It was happening all day.”
Do sexually "degrading" song lyrics lure teenagers into bad sex?
I'm trying to read this somewhat abysmal article that Drudge is linking.
Anyway, if you have young kids, protect them from graphic song lyrics. That is your job. But don't lose your mind and start calling things degrading unless they really are. All sorts of song lyrics, including some of the most beautiful old standards, depict a relationship in which one person — usually the singer — is overwhelmed by and enslaved to his or her lover. It's ridiculous to get bent out of shape over that.
In an unusual piece of research, investigators at the University of Pittsburgh graded the sexual aggressiveness of lyrics, using songs by popular artists on the US Billboard chart. The lyrics were graded from the least to the most sexually degrading. They then asked 711 students aged 15 to 16 at three local high schools about their music preferences and their sexual behaviour.First, there is something strange about using the term "degrading" instead of the usual "graphic." I should think that people who listen to graphic lyrics are already interested in having sex and are not merely learning that sex is somehow mandatory and perfunctory. If you are inclined toward sex, graphic lyrics aren't degrading. And it's not right to classify any dominant sexual male as degrading the woman. That says more about the classifier than the lyricist!
Overall, 31 percent of the teens had had intercourse. But the rate was only 20.6 percent among those who had been least exposed to sexually degrading lyrics but 44.6 percent among those highly exposed to the most degrading lyrics.
The study's lead author, Brian Primack, said music by itself was not the direct spark for sex but helped mould perception and was thus "likely to be a factor" in sexual development. "These lyrics frequently portray aggressive males subduing submissive females, which may lead adolescents to incorporate this 'script' for sexual experience into their world view"...
"Non-degrading" lyrics described sex in a non-specific way and as a mutually consensual act, while "degrading" lyrics described sexual acts as a purely physical, graphic and dominant act.
Nearly a quarter of a century ago, lyrics by Prince on his album "Purple Rain" prompted wives of senior politicians in Washington, led by Tipper Gore, to set up the Parents Music Resource Center.Oh, for the love of God, leave Prince alone. Now, of course, his lyrics were very sexy, and he did influence many of us women to want — and even have — more sex. But the song that upset Tipper so much was "Darling Nikki." Read the lyrics. Nikki was not an innocent, subordinate female degraded by a dominating Prince. Nikki was the dominant one, and if anybody was overcome or degraded, it was Prince. It was the dominant female that freaked out Tipper.
Anyway, if you have young kids, protect them from graphic song lyrics. That is your job. But don't lose your mind and start calling things degrading unless they really are. All sorts of song lyrics, including some of the most beautiful old standards, depict a relationship in which one person — usually the singer — is overwhelmed by and enslaved to his or her lover. It's ridiculous to get bent out of shape over that.
If it turns out teenagers aren't having that much sex, does some credit go teaching about abstinence?
The NYT reports that most high school kids these days are virgins.
Now, the only mention of abstinence education was in the context of preventing pregnancy. And there — hey, I'm impressed that the NYT hot-linked to the Washington Post — we've seen a slight upturn in teen pregnancies after years of decline. Do we know enough about the cause-and-effect to say that abstinence education "clearly does not help" with this? I don't know, but it would seem to me that if teenagers are keeping abstinent, one reason might be that adults are successfully presenting abstinence to them in a positive light and teaching them the social skills to avoid sexual activity when they prefer abstinence.
I must say that, reading Warner's column, I had this image in my head — it may be just my Myth of the Stereotypical New York Times Reader — of an upper middle class, middle aged woman reading the column and enjoying tingles of resonance with her own life: Yes, I'm so busy, I'm frazzled, I'm stressed, and frantic....
I spend less and less of my news reading in the pages of the NYT over the years, and one reason is that I feel that more and more the paper is written for that reader. Ironically, I am an upper middle class, middle aged woman, but I'm not her... especially if she's the kind of person who wants the newspaper written to resonate with her exquisite emotions.
Today, fewer than half of all high school students have had sex: 47.8 percent as of 2007, according to the National Youth Risk Behavior Survey, down from 54.1 percent in 1991.Judith Warner — the NYT's women-and-children columnist — processes the information:
A less recent report suggests that teenagers are also waiting longer to have sex than they did in the past. A 2002 report from the Department of Health and Human Services found that 30 percent of 15- to 17-year-old girls had experienced sex, down from 38 percent in 1995. During the same period, the percentage of sexually experienced boys in that age group dropped to 31 percent from 43 percent.
The rates also went down among younger teenagers. In 1995, about 20 percent said they had had sex before age 15, but by 2002 those numbers had dropped to 13 percent of girls and 15 percent of boys....
As for that supposed epidemic of oral sex, especially among younger teenagers: national statistics on the behavior have only recently been collected, and they are not as alarming as some reports would have you believe. About 16 percent of teenagers say they have had oral sex but haven’t yet had intercourse....
[T]he overblown focus on messed-up kids affords parents the possibility of avoiding looking inward and taking responsibility for the highly complex problems of everyday life....I think that was mainly about why adults believe myths about kids and then how adults are pretty screwed up. But the news was good: Kids aren't having so much sex. Shouldn't we give ourselves credit for teaching them well, and shouldn't we give the teenagers credit for conducting themselves well? How did this turn into another occasion for hand-wringing? Is that a liberal disease? If there isn't one problem, quick, see another problem, because programs will be needed to solve them?
Certain kinds of children have certain kinds of vulnerabilities that make them particularly susceptible to the toxic elements of our culture. This is true of those who do or don’t fall victim to stress and anxiety, and it’s true of those who do or don’t engage in too-early, too-risky sex. Certain kinds of policies can help children. (Abstinence-only sexual education clearly does not help in combating teen pregnancy.) Certain kinds of parenting can help or hurt, too.
Having a family life that’s so atomized and disconnected that children have the physical and emotional space to upload nude pictures of themselves onto the Internet, and lack the self-esteem and self-respect to know better is obviously undesirable. Being a stressed and frantic, frazzled and depressed parent is harmful, too....
[W]e – the adults in this society – are “a mess.” I think it’s time to stop projecting our dysfunction onto our children.
Now, the only mention of abstinence education was in the context of preventing pregnancy. And there — hey, I'm impressed that the NYT hot-linked to the Washington Post — we've seen a slight upturn in teen pregnancies after years of decline. Do we know enough about the cause-and-effect to say that abstinence education "clearly does not help" with this? I don't know, but it would seem to me that if teenagers are keeping abstinent, one reason might be that adults are successfully presenting abstinence to them in a positive light and teaching them the social skills to avoid sexual activity when they prefer abstinence.
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I must say that, reading Warner's column, I had this image in my head — it may be just my Myth of the Stereotypical New York Times Reader — of an upper middle class, middle aged woman reading the column and enjoying tingles of resonance with her own life: Yes, I'm so busy, I'm frazzled, I'm stressed, and frantic....
I spend less and less of my news reading in the pages of the NYT over the years, and one reason is that I feel that more and more the paper is written for that reader. Ironically, I am an upper middle class, middle aged woman, but I'm not her... especially if she's the kind of person who wants the newspaper written to resonate with her exquisite emotions.
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