Sexting Is Just the Beginning

Sexting Is Just the Beginning

The teen fad of texting–if it is just a fad–has been proven to be deadly.

As I’ve written before, “Let’s face it, as any parent or teacher knows, teenagers can be a delight, and they can be horror. It all comes with the territory, the maturation process, as teens test the limits, push the envelopes, and drive parents to drink and distraction.” In their natural lack of discretion, young people have all too often exceeded those limits and brought embarrassing and sometimes much worse unintended consequences on themselves.

One of the earliest testimonials to the deadliness of teenagers posting nude or partially nude photos of themselves on the internet was the 2008 case of pretty, vivacious Jessica Logan of Cincinnati, Ohio. At the tender age of 18, Jessica hanged herself in her bedroom after a boyfriend circulated a single compromising and revealing picture she had sent for his eyes only. She was branded “a slut, porn queen, whore” by other girls and humiliated to her death.

Regardless of the blatant hypocrisy of Jessica’s former friends who may very well also have sexted and of her ethically-challenged former beau, estimates of a few years ago were that anywhere from 22% to 50% of teens have inappropriate pictures on their cell phones, that 39% of teens have sexted, and that 48% admit to receiving sexts.

“Inappropriate,” of course, is in the eyes of the beholder and many teen beholders are unable to distinguish the difference between what is licentious and what’s appropriate often to their dismay, and instances of prosecution as puveyors of child porn.

See previous articles on sexting on this website, including “Teen Texting, Sexting, and Suicide,” http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=924

ParentDish.com in an article titled, “Sexting and Your Kids,” updated the sexting picture with new information on the consequences of sexting based on surveys from CosmoGirl, which teens read, and the National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy, which they don’t.

According to that update, . . .
(Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=3721)

Co-ed Dorms and Other Fun College Experiences

Co-ed Dorms and Other Fun College Experiences

How would you like to shower with that hot freshman who just moved into your dorm?

That’s not just a random voyeuristic fantasy question but rather a serious query faced by many college kids today in a milieu that has brought new meaning to the old hippie mantra, “If it feels good, do it!”

Back in the olden days–like a few generations ago–colleges and universities were expected to act in loco parentis, serving as parental surrogates and enforcing what was then considered the norms of societal views on interpersonal relationships and often took that responsibility to the extreme. Instead of simply mandating that doors be left open when boys visited girls’ rooms, suitors were stopped at front entrances to girls’ dormitories by gestapo-trained guards who sternly sent them on their merry, horny ways, curfews were strictly enforced, and behavior was rigidly dictated.

On the distaff side, females would no sooner approach a male dorm than they would pick up a phone and call a guy.

Times have changed, which may be the understatement of the twenty first century when applied to our institutions of somewhat higher learning where most real learning takes place not in classrooms but behind closed dorm doors, where calculus and theoretical geophysics take a back seat behind personal anatomical exploration and applied sexuality.

The relatively new phenomenon and serious ramifications for females of the human species of “hooking up”–a collegiate euphemism for sharing one’s intimate wealth with either “friends with benefits” or with guys girls met that night at a keg or frat party, or a frat, keg party–has already been discussed in this space.

(See “Hooking Up,” Parts One and Two, http://tiny.cc/8vev2, in which it is shown that girls are by far the principal victims of the new and rampant promiscuity. Males never have to stride ”the tart walk.” If anything, they regard hooking up, and the occasional orgy, as the greatest advancements in collegiality since the invention of The Pill.)

The companion phenomenon to hooking up, co-ed dormitories, are another worst dream of many parents who naively send their young Janies off to college to get an education and grow into full adulthood and will make parental heads spin. Their young Janies may have much less lofty visions than education and maturation. They may have visions of quarterbacks dancing in their heads . . .
(Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=3268)

Raquel Welch, National Prude?

Raquel Welch, National Prude?

To those under 40, the name Raquel Welch must conjure up visions of ancient sexpots like Brigitte Bardot and Marilyn Monroe just as in my time we thought of Greta Garbo and Jean Harlow as temptresses of another age.

Raquel, though, is very much alive and kicking as she approaches 70 and though she’s long past her prime as a sex goddess, she has words of wisdom for America’s youth in A.D. 2010.

People, even sex symbols, tend to grow more conservative and even prudish as they age. For us commoners the tried and true adage that a liberal is a conservative who hasn’t been mugged yet is usually applicable. As for the prudish label, that varies.

Raquel would never have been termed a prude during her performing career but despite four husbands–typical in Hollywood but a fact which now shames her–and despite her buxomy acting roles and Playboy centerfold–she also has never had equally typical Hollywood scandals associated with her name. . .
(Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=1675)

Hooking Up Part One

. . . One notable hazard on that road today is the practice of hookups, a contemporary alternative to dating which itself was fraught with dangers although hookups make those threats to physical safety seem miniscule.

And, despite decades of women’s lib propaganda and graphic sex classes on contracting what used to be called a “social disease”–a misnomer if there ever was one–members of the female gender tend to bear the emotional and physical brunt, no pun intended, of today’s sexually transmitted diseases (STD’s).

Hooking up, simplified, is the modern practice of avoiding relationships and emotional entanglements by having “recreational,” casual sex. It also serves to relieve the stress of all those books to read and papers to write, and parties to attend, by coupling with someone. In some cases, it simply serves to pass the time and stave off boredom.

That someone could be a “friend with benefits,” a euphemism for a good buddy with whom you copulate as a favor, as a reward, or simply as a way of extending friendship to an ultimate extreme.

Or, it could be someone you just met at a keg party who becomes irresistible as a consequence of a high blood alcohol level and a reduced sense of virtuosity.

Or, it could be an absolute stranger . . .
(Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=1637)

HOOKING UP

HOOKING UP ISN’T HARD TO DO, OR CAMPUS SEX

Now that college freshmen are home for winter/holiday (no longer Christmas) break, toting his/her wash and maybe some of that “freshman fifteen” excess poundage, it may be time for another of what we used to call a sitdown.

That was our word for heart-to-hearts when the kids were in high school and in their early college years and we felt a need to impart more of our extensive, mature knowledge, mostly gained from years of making our own stupid mistakes.

Sitdowns, of course, were aimed at imparting sage parental advice on the pitfalls, temptations, and vicissitudes of growing up and moving on down that landmined road of life, delivered in solemn tones, and usually received with poorly-concealed and barely-audible groans.

One notable hazard on that road today is the practice of hookups, a contemporary alternative to dating which itself was fraught with dangers although hookups make those threats to physical safety seem miniscule.

And, despite decades of women’s lib propaganda and graphic sex classes on contracting what used to be called a “social disease”–a misnomer if there ever was one–members of the female gender tend to bear the emotional and physical brunt, no pun intended, of today’s sexually transmitted diseases (STD’s).

Hooking up, simplified, is the modern practice of avoiding relationships and emotional entanglements by having sex. It also serves to relieve the stress of all those books to read and papers to write, and parties to attend, by coupling with someone. In some cases, it simply serves to pass the time and stave off boredom.

That someone could be a “friend with benefits,” a euphemism for a good buddy with whom you copulate as a favor, as a reward, or simply as a way of extending friendship to an ultimate extreme.

Or, it could be someone you just met at a keg party...
(Read the rest of this article at http://genelalor.com/.)