Juvenihil

This poem describes the opposite of me.

“The too much loved” by ASJ Tessimond

It has been written in your star
That fire shall kindle where you are:
That where you walk there shall be strife;
Ice melting; earth turned; sleep stirred; life.

You will graze hearts and blood will spurt,
You will be hurt because you hurt
Those whom you try not even to touch,
Whose eyes pursue your eyes too much.

You will bring peace but oftener still
Wars in your name against your will;
Yet you divider, waker of
Angers will suffer too much love.

And you will stir the whirlpool up,
And you will drink the unasked for cup,
And be of those much damned and blessed
Who never rest, who never rest.

In defense of weed

Peeve: Weed = Meth = teenage pregnancy, STDs, life as a vagabond.

Scare tactics. Anyone who has smoked pot will become a heroin addict, because didn’t you know that marijuana is the gateway drug? Also, being stoned means you have no control over yourself.

The high feels great, the side-effects are relatively minor… marijuana is simply too attractive for some to pass up. And because making a legitimate case against weed is difficult (just look at the conflicting scientific results that come up when you Google “marijuana harm studies”— we’ve all heard that it kills brain cells, but exactly how much?), groups like the Partnership for a Drug-Free America take an increasingly alarmist stance in their PSAs, creating horror stories that link getting high with stealing, shooting up, being slutty! Even the most plausible ads, like those that stress the “altered perception” that results from marijuana, are risible. So… why were we smoking this, again, if not to reach a different feeling from normality? Does this mean that consuming large quantities of alcohol impairs my judgment? Should I not drink, eat three pot brownies, and drive??

The majority of anti-marijuana campaigns insult everyone’s intelligence. In junior year I attended a mandatory assembly on National Meth Awareness Day (yes, it does exist), which covered all drugs in one go (lumping together all designated drugs, another thing I dislike). Somewhere in the PowerPoint presentation came a slide illustrated with The Cycle of Drug Use, in this case, weed. It proclaimed that smoking leads to poverty, which leads to dealing and prostitution, which leads to homelessness and ultimately more drug use. As stated above, I dislike the way these campaigns equate casual smoking with these serious problems, as well as how the campaigns judge the aforementioned prostitution and homelessness as demonic, dehumanized evils. I know some people in the projects who are proof that most of us are only one or two disastrous instances away from losing our homes… a parent walks away, a parent loses his job, grandma needs medical care but has no insurance… and many of the homeless in San Francisco are veterans who never received help with their mental illnesses, simple as that. Hard drug use is hardly synonymous with all the world’s problems, let alone recreational marijuana.

Smoking anything is bad for your lungs, and may increase your chances of getting lung cancer. If you smoke several joints a day for fifteen years, you might have a greater risk of getting a heart attack or having a stroke. And of course, if you blindly take anything and consume it, there’s a chance you’ll consume other things along with it. But though pot smoke may possibly be more toxic than tobacco smoke, people who smoke weed tend to inhale a lot less than cigarette smokers– one wouldn’t smoke twenty blunts a day, the equivalent of a pack– thus diminishing the total toxicity in weed smokers’ lungs. And weed is arguably the least addictive of drugs: mental addiction, yes; physical addiction, not likely. So the moral of this story is that anti-drug groups have to exert a lot of effort to market marijuana to teens as unattractive, and do so at the expense of logical, scientific, and journalistic integrity.

P.S. On that same Meth Day assembly, the speaker concluded that drinking alcohol is a valued tradition because the Romans drank wine, but that opium and marijuana are crass because they don’t have the same historical weight. Yeah… Eurocentrism, much?

By Kelsium (two thumbs up!)

hspfml:

I advocated for the education and natural rights of women in the eighteenth century. I wrote a history of the French revolution, novels, and even a children’s book, all of which were pretty well received. Then I died in horrific pain because some idiot doctor delivered my kid-who turned out to be a pretty cool author herself, though I wasn’t around to see it-without washing his fricken’ hands. THEN my husband wrote this book about my life that he thought was totally awesome, but pretty much trashed my reputation for the next HUNDRED AND FIFTY YEARS. FML.

(The mother of one of our earlier FMLs!)

The new Jezebel

I and many others have some problems with the new Jezebel, which hasn’t been very receptive to criticism. Jezebel said that “the system has been implemented across all of the Gawker sites,” and therefore isn’t really subject to change as per readers’ comments. But I don’t care if all the Gawker sites are updating, if the entire internet is behind the change— the new system is simply too buggy for many of us to deal with, and should have been tested and fixed more before its debut. My beef:

1. I’ve had problems viewing posts with Firefox, Safari, and Opera on a new Macbook with 10.5.5. It’d be one thing if my computer was ten years old, but it’s ridiculous that my brand-new computer can’t view my favorite website when it has never had problems viewing anything else. I can’t imagine how badly people with older computers must be faring. It’s 2009; don’t cross-browser compatibility standards and the W3’s mean anything?
2. More than half of my comments haven’t shown up.
3. The gray comments are hard to read, and as “unfeatured” comments are hidden by default, is it really necessary to use color to differentiate the two? In response to numerous people’s complaints about the gray, Jezebel basically responded, “Tough”— as they are responding more and more.

There are a few more things I don’t like about the new system (such as how the weekend social posts now close, so that the comments aren’t viewable— why?), but mostly, I wonder why the comment discrimination is necessary. Jezebel has stated that it’s never tried to be a democracy, to which I reply, okay… but as all users must audition to comment, it already has a good filtering system without tiers; I’ve never read a discussion and thought, “Now, that comment should be hidden.” I’ve always thought that the audition system worked well, and if any trolls by chance showed up, they were banned in a timely manner. If the website is worried about losing its high quality of discussion, it should simply have a stricter audition process— admit fewer people, subject us to re-evaluation— or stop allowing commenting. After all, that’d be the easiest way to ensure quality control, right?

Jezebel has been probably my favorite website since I came across it a year ago. It’s always updated, always interesting, and it gave me faith in humanity when in high school none of my friends read or considered Hollywood a sexist place. I know Jezebel has taught a generation about feminism and I hope the system improves soon, because with all the problems I’ve been having simply viewing the articles, I won’t be coming back if things don’t get fixed in the near future.

Drunken defense of abortion (thank you, spellcheck)

I don’t take abortion lightly. I firmly believe that couples should utilize multiple methods of birth control to avoid pregnancy as much as humanly possible while having sex. And I agree with the basic sentiment that two people should not have sex if not prepared to deal with the potential consequences. However, with today’s wide assortment of birth control, I think it’s unrealistic and unfair to berate couples with “Well, you had sex, so you can’t complain when you get pregnant.” I know a woman who got pregnant while on the pill and using condoms, and I think it’s unfair to call her and her partner irresponsible when they took multiple precautions every time. Yes, couples should be prepared to face pregnancy, but they shouldn’t be forced to have children if they aren’t ready. Rather, they should be able to evaluate their options of termination, adoption, etc.

Maybe you feel that a pair of fourteen-year olds who had unprotected sex don’t “deserve” to have an abortion, an “easy way out” of an unwanted pregnancy. After all, they weren’t responsible enough to have safe sex, so shouldn’t they live with the consequences? I don’t think so. I think it’s incredibly stupid of them to have unprotected sex, and they’re damn lucky that the option of termination now exists without the aid of coat hangers, but it would be even more stupid to let two such young people carry the responsibility of raising a child when they’re not yet responsible enough to care for themselves. Taking on the pregnancy would deprive the two of normal lives: the woman would have to drop out of high school at least temporarily, after starting to show, and if studies are correct, she would be unlikely to return soon. With the baby, the woman might be able to finish her schooling, but it would be incredibly difficult. If she couldn’t take the time to get a college degree (at least not right away) her work opportunities would be few and not exactly lucrative, depriving both her and the baby. And if the father was responsible enough to stay involved, he too would likely have to neglect his studies in order to work to support his new family— and how many establishments hire minors with no work experience? While I think that the man should be ready to at least financially support his baby, unwanted pregnancies often force young couples together who otherwise would quickly move on, thus depriving the mothers and fathers of normal relationships.

The baby deserves the best life; the baby deserves to be a long-awaited blessing, not the unwanted aftermath of an uninformed decision. I know that I want to wait at least nine years before having children, even though I am sexually active now, because I want to be in a relatively stable relationship before I attempt to raise children. More importantly, I know that I have a lot to learn before I can successfully raise a child. Probably no one is completely prepared for a baby. Budgeting will be a struggle for most couples, whether in high school or post-grad, and parenthood will bring surprises to everyone (my parents panicked when I, at five, had a 104 degree fever that caused me to hallucinate and lose my hair, which grew back gray. They weren’t prepared for it, and to this day, the doctors have no idea what the hair-loss was about). But to deprive young couples of the opportunity to become as prepared as can be would be a mistake. Young couples don’t know that babies shouldn’t watch tv, about Sudden Infant Death Syndrome; they don’t think about harmful plastics charading as bottles and toys. To force relatively unprepared couples to have children before their rightful time is unfair to the baby, who has done nothing to deserve being deprived. As for the argument that fetuses don’t deserve to be aborted, I think everyone knows by now that any fetus young enough to be aborted bears little resemblance to a baby.

As for the idea of teens now using abortions as a form of birth control, I doubt this is widely true. Anyone who has been through the experience of aborting a child, whether the woman or the supporting man, knows how difficult the process can be, both emotionally and physically. It’s simply not something one is cavalier about. My first friend to terminate a pregnancy knew from the beginning that it was what she wanted to do, and remained detached from the situation until going to the clinic, but had a breakdown before the procedure. Being fifteen and knowing that there is no way one can take care of another human being is completely overwhelming and terrifiying. If nothing else, the ordeal of procuring several hundred dollars, and often shrouding the situation in secrecy, is incredibly taxing.

Other generations weren’t as lucky as us; just think of all the couples who had to drop everything to raise children they didn’t want. Thanks to modern birth control and the ability to terminate if needed, more men and woman are free to enjoy life’s many opportunities that perhaps would not exist if they were saddled with raising children too soon.

Warning:

I didn’t really pay attention to my friends’ advice, but I should have: now that I’m on the pill, I can’t consume half the alcohol I used to.

On the plus side, now that I’m a light-weight, I no longer have to buy so many handles…

Marge Piercy, “One reason I like opera”

Marge Piercy single-handedly taught me about feminism. This poem is in her amazing collection Colors Passing Through Us.

In movies, you can tell the heroine
because she is blonder and thinner
than her sidekick.  The villainess
is darkest.  If a woman is fat,
she is a joke and will probably die.

In movies, the blondest are the best
and in bleaching lies not only purity
but victory.  If two people are both
extra pretty, they will end up
in the final clinch. 

Only the flawless in face and body
win.  That is why I treat
movies as less interesting
than comic books.  The camera
is stupid.  It sucks surfaces.

Let’s go to the opera instead.
The heroine is fifty and weighs
as much as a ‘65 Chevvie with fins.
She could crack your jaw in her fist.
She can hit high C lying down.

The tenor the women scream for
wolfs an eight course meal daily.
He resembles a bull on hind legs.
His thighs are the size of beer kegs.
His chest is a redwood with hair.

Their voices twine, golden serpents.
Their voices rise like the best
fireworks and hang and hang
then drift slowly down descending
in brilliant and still fiery sparks.

The hippopotamus baritone (the villain)
has a voice that could give you
an orgasm right in your seat.
His voice smokes with passion.
He is hot as lava.  He erupts nightly.

The contralto is, however, svelte.
She is supposed to be the soprano’s
other, but is ten years younger,
beautiful and black.  Nobody cares.
She sings you into her womb where you rock.

What you see is work like digging a ditch,
hard physical labor.  What you hear
is magic as tricky as knife throwing.
What you see is strength like any
great athlete’s; what you hear

is skill rendered precisely as the best
Swiss watchmaker.  The body is
resonance.  The body is the cello case.
The body just is.  The voice loud
as hunger remagnetizes your bones.

Sexting post from March

My latest peeve: newspapers that like to create sensationalism about deemed “dangerous behavior” for teens.

Sexting.

My reasons for not sexting are twofold: 1) I only got my first cell phone last summer; therefore I’m somewhat behind on all things texting, and 2) since getting a phone, I haven’t met anyone compelling enough to sext. However, I wouldn’t say I’m completely disinclined to sexting; I have in the past sent some dirty notes and emails to boyfriends. And this brings me to my first point of defense for sexting: that young adults have and always will express to each other some amount of interest in sex, which isn’t some sort of deadly epidemic to be contained.

By the time I had my first long-term boyfriend, email had nearly replaced the phone as my friends’ primary medium of communication— Facebook was soon to come— and while I stuck to the occasional raunchy email, some of my friends typed dirty via instant messenger. Before this, it was paper: notes in class (often still used; extra points if it’s in a language the teacher can’t understand) and letters. Read Love in the Time of Cholera and you’ll see the naturalness of young adults expressing desire on paper. For this reason I take offense at the all too common sentiment that teenagers should not be sexual beings, period. Lately, the newspapers that have covered sexting as well as the famously judgmental Tyra Banks have eschewed and belittled the sexuality of young adults, painting to various levels of subtlety all sexually active 16-year-old girls as nothing other than sluts. Sadly, I have read nothing condemning boys to the same scrutiny; it seems that establishing young women as sad victims of a downward spiral of so-called dangerous activity gains more readers than presenting a balanced story. While it may be true that today’s youth is more sexually open than that of fifty years ago— our ads and tv shows are certainly getting steamier— teenage sex is not a new phenomenon, and should not be reflexively denounced.

I think the strongest argument against sexting is that anything digital can gain global exposure (e.g. girl sends naked pic to boy; boy sends to all his friends). I certainly wouldn’t want any compromising photos of me or messages sent by me to circulate the internet; that’s why I don’t plan on sexting with anyone too new for me to trust.

But if we’re talking about internet scandal, licentious pictures and texts are hardly the only fodder for gossip. Born in ‘91, I grew up with the internet, with my first email address at ten and my first instant messaging screen name at eleven. Though I rarely anymore email friends, now preferring (degenerating?) to use the phone, I’ve sent emails to several people about my intimate feelings: confessions, problems with friends and boyfriends, etc. If any one of my friends wanted to embarrass me on the internet, they could easily forward several years worth of my musings about a hot teacher or a regrettable hookup to virtually the entire school. While my Facebook page is private (only those I “friend” may view), anyone with a camera could upload a picture of me smoking or drinking to a public form, jeopardizing my college acceptances and my future jobs. Thankfully I have not yet been embarrassed by the internet, but I have been upset by off-line gossip nearly as harmful as forwarded sext messages. Ex-boyfriends have betrayed confidences, friends have unwittingly told secrets, mercifully few strangers have passed on gossip. Anyone should be careful when it comes to sexting and who to trust, but this ultimately comes down to cautious use of all kinds of both digital and non-digital communication. For essentially, all relationships involve a certain level of vulnerability, and it is impossible to completely protect oneself from vilification.

Additionally, most of the stories I’ve seen portray young men as the cruel forwarders of private pictures, failing to note that women are as capable of such malice. I know I have taken advantage of things told in confidence: when an ex of mine spread the untrue rumor that I cheated with multiple partners, I mercilessly retaliated with a very true story about a foreign object and the boy’s painfully tight orifice.

I’m glad that some newspapers, such as my very own San Francisco Chronicle, are dismissing the sexting sensationalism. I love this quote from Marty Klein:

Sexting is the latest way adults are getting panicky about teen sexuality and for mainstream culture to get panicky about technology. And when you mix the two together, there’s always a lot of anxiety and misunderstanding.

I hope other publications choose to more carefully examine sexting, rather than to mindlessly reproduce stories without any substantial content. Or better yet, they could turn their focus toward legitimate news.