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Monday, April 20, 2009

A great post on "sexting"

While doing my usual drink green-tea and catch up on blogs morning ritual, I came across a guest post over at Shakesville that I strongly recommend. It's about this new issue of teens "sexting," but the best part is it's written by a teenage feminist--the one perspective the media isn't considering. She also offers great insight in how we view sexuality. I recommend reading the whole post, but here's an excerpt which I found to be highly significant:

Young people are simultaneously not allowed to be sexual and pushed to conform to a hypersexualized, stereotypical idea of what it means to be desired. We're told that engaging in any sexual act sex is a dirty, dirrrty decision, despite the widely accepted fact that the vast majority of adults are doing it in some form or another. From there, we've got three basic paths to navigate—and I'll tell you right now that none of them end well:

a) If we don't have The Sex, we're prudes, geeks, goody-goodys. We're abnormal and utterly devoid of passion. We're the four-eyed nerd, not the bikini-sporting cheerleader. We're pathetic.

b) If we do but fail to use the right precautions—which is hardly surprising, given the ghastly prevalence of health curricula that 1) omit lessons on preventing pregnancy and STIs; 2) rely on blatantly sexist stereotypes and even flat-out lies about the purpose and efficacy of condoms and contraception; 3) fail to address the very real sexual health concerns of folks who are getting down with a partner of the same sex; and/or 4) skip right over the Sex chapter in the manual—we "should have known better."

c) If we do and use the right precautions WE GET SUSPENDED.

What the fuck?

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