Pedobear is everywhere!
Pedobear is everywhere!
So, Pedobear is no longer just an Internet meme and 4chan mascot. Now even the police are warning people about Pedobear, foolishly thinking that actual pedophiles would so conveniently identify themselves with an obvious label such as a Pedobear T-shirt or a car window decal. A guy dressed up in a Pedobear costume was even forced to leave the San Diego Comic Con this year as he passed out candy to kids. People, it's a JOKE. I have a 2 year old daughter now, and I am not offended by a silly Internet joke. Pedobear makes fun of pedophiles. It is incredible how a bunch of dorks on an anonymous Internet message board can wield so much power over everyone, including manipulating Oprah into saying stupid memes based off an episode of Dragonball Z! It's nothing but a LOL-fest! Oprah, you've been had! The Truth is, the vast majority of Americans are completely stupid. If you need any evidence, is there any other reason as to the popularity of so-called "reality" TV like American Idol, Keeping Up With The Kardashians, and other moronic programming? (Although wouldn't it be great if they made some Star Trek show called Keeping Up With The Kardassians?) Therefore we can conclude that the majority of parents in America are completely stupid as well. People post idiot pictures of their children on their Facebook pages and videos of them on Youtube. It's only natural that eventually some guys on the Net will make fun of these pictures, especially if the parents are dumb enough to take a picture of their child doing something fairly lewd. Just do a Google Image search for Pedobear and you'll see what I mean. Blame it on parents who've let their daughter turn herself into a skank, not somebody who's found the picture and is making fun of it. I bet that the vast majority of those who have made Pedobear pictures are not actual pedophiles.
Anybody who takes Pedobear seriously may as well believe that Domo-kun is out to do God's dirty work by murdering kittens. I'm sure this should strike fear into the hearts of any token "Crazy Cat Lady" out there. Everyone has known at least one of these deranged women in their lifetime. They keep like 20 cats in their house because they have some sort of disturbing lack of trust in others or something. They're often reclusive and paranoid. "Those darn Soviets are always tryin' ta kill mah kittehs!"
America's toxic society is the real culprit
People are so freaked out about pedophiles, yet not enough people seem to be concerned with how our society and our media are training girls to become seductive and overtly sexual. The image put forth of what is supposedly sexy is damaging to girls. Marketing has successfully instilled a sense of insecurity in females about their bodies and it exploits that insecurity for financial gain. Thus, a false ideal of feminine sexuality and an unrealistic standard of beauty has been created that is extremely detrimental to the well-being of young girls. This is an actual conversation I had with somebody who was raving about the abysmal Transformers 2 movie that came out last summer:
Me: So I heard the boy dies and goes to Robot Heaven. Was he accidentally praying to Robot Jesus his whole life and didn't know any better?
D-bag: Shut up! I liked the movie. Although I wouldn't have watched it if Megan Fox wasn't in it.
Me: Megan Fox is not pretty. She's a total slut.
D-bag: She's totally hot, dude! What kind of girls do you like?
Me: The human kind. Megan Fox is just a wannabe Angelina Jolie.
D-bag: Lemme guess. Next you'll say that Angelina Jolie isn't hot either.
Me: Oh sure, Angelina Jolie is hot. If you're into ANDROIDS FROM THE FUTURE!
D-bag: You're so dumb, Greg.
Me: Don't come complaining to me once the robots have assimilated everyone.
Let me tell you what I think is not sexy. Obesity is not sexy, but anorexia is not sexy either. Huge breasts are not sexy. Tattoos look sleazy. Body piercings look absurd, and people who get their ears gauged look ridiculous. Low-rise pants are not flattering. The notion that all females should have a hairless body is sickening. Red lipstick only makes women look like they have clown lips. The concept of women coloring their eyelids purple is bizarre. I feel sorry for any woman who feels the need to wear high heels and put up with wearing those shoes. Acting like a stupid airhead is not sexy. Behaving like a slut only demonstrates a woman's ability to conform to the misogynistic fantasies of chauvinist men. Behaving like a lesbian to get attention is immature and disingenuous, and I'm sure that actual lesbians would find this behavior insulting and offensive. Yet young American girls have been sold into mental slavery by embracing these disgusting "ideals." The pressures building up on little girls these days is increasing at a sickening rate.
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It's super easy to condemn China for binding girls' feet in the past, but if you think of it, our society is somewhat guilty of the same for the unnatural look of high heel shoes. It's not as severe and crippling as the binding of feet, but the same idea is there. It's convenient for narrow-minded Americans to feel justified in pointing fingers at countries like Thailand because of the child prostitution there, or at Japan because of the whole loli-con ("Lolita Complex") fetish that we see today becoming more prevalent in anime, manga, and whatnot. In their nationlistic, biased minds, they don't stop to realize that while both of these issues are bad, American society as a whole is sexualizing our daughters. And not only that, but our society and media are encouraging these girls to sexualize themselves. This is sick and wrong, and it's only getting worse. Pedobear is harmless. It's much more harmful to make T-shirts for girls that say "spoiled rotten," "little princess," or "I may be little but I am not easy." Or those pants that say "JUICY" written across the ass. Pedophilia is horrible and the way they sexualize children is despicable, but let's face it: American society is far more guilty of sexualizing little girls than the small percentage of people who are pedos. Talking with some mothers at work last year, there was one woman whose two teenage daughters have begged her to allow them to get tattoos. When I was in high school, this was completely unheard of. Another woman has a 6 year old daughter who believes that she is fat. Her little girl is a completely normal first grader. To be frankly honest, this woman is very attractive and slender, and she catches the eyes of many guys as she walks by. I'd say there's a good chance that her daughter is bound to be beautiful as well. Her theory on the matter is that her daughter has friends who have fat moms. These fat moms are always complaining about how fat they are, so their own daughters start mimicking them, and now her own daughter is mimicking her friends. America is the fattest nation in the world next to Mexico from what I have studied, but that is another rant for another time. I never knew how big of a fan I was of Denis Leary until a coworker suggested I read his book Why We Suck last December. I never knew how much I agree with his philosophy until I read this book. Of course he is politically liberal while I certainly am not (nor will I ever be because I do not believe that merely throwing money at our problems is ever going to help anything), although his complaints about so-called conservatives are rather justified. But the truth is, parenting should not be a politically-polarized issue. We should all be in the proper mindset of what is best for our children. His book offers plenty of great parenting advice and practical views on sexuality. If I may quote from Dr. Leary, "You wanna be a rebel nowadays? DON'T get a tattoo. Or a nose ring. Or a pierced anything. Everyone will wonder: what the fuck is up with that guy? He actually has nothing painted on or attached to his body except his limbs and his real skin. What a freak. Plus --- for girls? You know what that insane snaky flower or some bullshit Chinese symbol or set angel wings above your ass or pussy makes you look like? A stripper." He writes the truth. |
Despite the advancement of women in the United States, American society's perceptions of ideal femininity has been counterproductive to this ideal and it continues to degrade. The standard of femininity has been pushed closer and closer to that of prostitutes and strippers. Not only that, but the ideals of beauty as put forth in magazine photos are completely unrealistic of women as they are completely doctored photographs, just as Dove's Campaign for Beaty demonstrates. But mothers are buying into the lies. Now we have mothers making their prepubescent daughters getting disgusting Brazilian wax jobs they don't even need, and companies are making thongs and bathing suits with padded cups for pre-adolescents. We've even seen news stories of high heel shoes for 3 month old baby girls on the Web. Barbie toys help indoctrinate girls into using make-up, brainwashing them that they aren't pretty unless they use the crap, thereby ensuring revenue to the cosmetics industry by selling girls toxic chemicals to apply to their faces for a lifetime. Teen idols like Miley Cyrus, daughter of the yokel singer Billy Ray Cyrus and star of Disney's pinhead Hannah Montana TV show, did a pole dance at a music awards show and somebody thought it would've been a good idea. (I bet she'll be the next in the long line of girls from Disney who turn out to whore themselves out.) Bratz dolls always have that ubiquitous little bitchy "I hate my mommy" type of face, the dolls look and dress like hoochie mamas, and the toy line has featured baby dolls wearing thongs. Back in the 80s when I grew up, only strippers and the like would wear thongs. Not teenage girls, and certainly not little girls!
American society places expectations on young girls that they must be adult and yet hairless, skinny yet busty... is there any wonder why girls today suffer from such abysmal self-esteems? When their bodies do not adhere to these twisted ideals, they begin to hate themselves. When their breasts do not develop when they think they ought to, they become self-conscious. When they start growing pubic hair, so many of them have been convinced that they need to shave it and get rid of it to appeal to this warped, pedophilic notion of what a young woman's body ought to look like: Boobs, yes; hair, no. Especially when their natural hairline may not conform to today's fashion for tiny panties or skimpy bathing suits. A 14 year old girl should be preoccupied with having fun with her friends, not being preoccupied with how she should get rid of her pubic hair. Prior to the 90s, 14 year old girls never had to worry about such things. Society perpetuates the notion that body hair on females is disgusting, even though it is completely natural. These girls are not being told that stuff like being flat-chested and/or having pubic hair is considered sexy by quite a lot of guys. It's only those jerks with the biggest mouths that make the most noise about the subject, and who quite often phrase their opinions in rather mysoginistic ways. These days, teenage girls are getting breast implants when girls their age didn't think of it just a few decades ago, and they aren't being counseled that a heck of a lot of guys (if not most) do not like the looks of fake implants.
But now we have everso prevalent TEH INTARNETS, whereas only a very few people accessed it 20 years ago. While we can enjoy this technology to better our lives, explore our hobbies, connect with each other, and educate ourselves in a seemingly infinite number of topics, pornography is now just a click away. With all the advancements of society it has produced, it is also trashing our society and warping the minds of many. When I was growing up, the only way to access pornography was through potentially embarrassing situations, like having to ask for the magazine behind the counter, or having to go to an adult bookstore. If you were under 18 at the time, the most popular way was to find a stash of porn mags that belonged to a dad or a friend's dad. I never experienced any sort of porn until I was 18, and I was visiting an older friend who was living with his father at the time. His father had a stack of Penthouse magazines in the bathroom in plain sight. I peeked, and I was offended by the sight of the women with no pubic hair. Now many guys these days have the opposite reaction towards women with pubic hair. These kids who've grown up with the only barrier between them and porn is a click away saying "Yes, I am 18 years old or older" (as if the kid will be honest and turn back at that point if they'd already gotten that far), and they've grown up thinking that women are hairless. So due to this Internet pornography explosion of the 90's, a new generation has sprung up that has attacked the last sanctity of a woman's body hair: her bush. This used to be a symbol of beauty and sexual maturity, and now it's looked at with contempt and disgust by many. Read up on the Net as to why men insist on a woman being hairless and you will read feeble, inane excuses like "women shouldn't have body hair" or "it gets stuck in my teeth," even though these are completely idiotic and untrue. They may also enjoy mentioning that Middle Eastern women are commanded to shave and have done so for a very long time. Well, quite a lot of them are also commanded to cover their heads up in sheets and ride in the back of the truck, too. I don't think using the standards set forth by mysoginistic Islamic philosophy is a good argument to justify practically mandating that women be hairless. Heck, Muslim countries are guilty of female genital mutilations and killing women for wearing nice clothing too, so Islam is hardly the bastion to promote any healthy attitude towards the female body. So anyhow, a new generation has come of age expecting women to be completely hairless, or at the most have that ridiculous "vertical Hitler moustache" look. Pornography does not depict real women as they should be and has damaged the minds of countless people. To make it worse, sometimes efforts to fight child pornography has gone off in bizarre tangents, such as Australia banning pornography featuring women with small breasts. Normally, I wouldn't care because 1. I don't live in Australia, and 2. I don't like porn anyway. But this is damaging to the concept of women even further by insinuating that a woman is underage because she has small breasts, so it promotes the stupid ideal that women must have large breasts to be considered sexually mature. This ought to be completely insulting to women as well as men like myself who happen to prefer the look of small-breasted women. After all, as the saying goes, "when a flat-chested women hugs you, she holds you closer to her heart."
Once those terrible corsets of the 19th century were no longer forced onto women, women weren't free from harmful fashions for long. Nearly a hundred years ago, some brilliant marketers figured out that they could sell razors to women if they could convince women that their underarm and leg hair hair is unsightly and that they needed to shave it like the prostitutes did at the time. Our notion of a woman's body has degraded ever since then, and now within the past 20 years (thanks to the Internet pornography explosion), girls in school are now ridiculed if they decide to let their pubic hair grow naturally. Now nothing is sacred for a woman's body anymore. When you think of it, there is no real rational argument for a woman to shave, other than the fact that many guys say that they find a woman who doesn't shave to be disgusting, and that they think those women should be ashamed of themselves and cover up. There's the "it's just not good hygiene" lame excuse, except that if it was truly unhygienic, then why don't all men shave their pits too? Lastly, they say unrealistic stuff like "women should have no hair on their body except for their head" or "we human species have 'evolved'" and other such moronic tripe. Look, we aren't a bunch of slippery, hairless dolphins. Whether or not you believe in evolution, we are mammals just like apes. But shaving will not cause us to evolve into a hairless species. Not "evolve" as in the actual process of changing our physiology in a way that is not artificial. It will only "evolve" us into a bunch of insecure idiots in denial of their human bodies. When finding such opinions on the Net, three pertinent attitudes are obvious in the posts from the men and women who promote hairlessness: disgust, shame, and misogyny. And yet they claim to be "liberated" and "free." They only exhibit their own insecurities and mental problems when they attempt to marginalize men and women who prefer women to be totally natural.
Look, I'm not anti-shaving at all, but what I find upsetting is that girls aren't being told that shaving is completely optional and they aren't being told that it is biologically unnecessary and even potentially harmful to do so. Health problems range from razor burn to cysts that come from shaving underarms, and there is correlation between the combination of shaving armpits and using aluminum-based antiperspirants and breast cancer. It is no longer a personal decision, as many delude themselves into believing, when society as a whole embraces that which is unnatural and marginalizes those who are natural and labels them as "hippies," "bohemians," "freaks," or "perverts." If a person decides to become a "slave to the shave" and "scared of the haired," I don't care. But when everyone jumps on that bandwagon, it only hurts society. Because at that point, it is no longer an individual issue and just becomes brainwashing. It's a cultural thing, and just as Islam has a pretty poor image of women, Americans have adopted that same attitude. Asian countries do not have the same disgust towards women's body hair. China has never adopted the notion that women must shave, and the women who actually shave their pits are usually either movie stars or prostitutes. In Japan, pubic hair is the norm for women, and this is the default preference for men there. Women who shave or wax it off are a small minority and are associated with the adult entertainment business. Additionally, Japan is currently experiencing a niche popularity of "wakige (underarm hair) idols," and wakige idols such as Charlotte Yabuki have graced the cover and content of men's magazines such as EX Flash, and popular Internet vlog personalities like Cotorich. It's becoming fashionable to be natural. However, you'd never see that here in the USA. Instead, you just see stuff in the news like how an old picture of Demi Moore posing nude in the '80s with a naturally hairy bush having resurfaced in recent years. This made the news on online opinion columns and night time comedy talk shows, and everyone acted all disgusted and made degrading jokes about Demi's beautiful, full bush. Our attitudes towards women's bodies have taken a nasty dump since the '80s.
For me, my attitude was shaped when I was in high school and I saw the British SF movie 1984, based on George Orwell's prophetic book on the loss of freedom. The movie had some nude scenes, and the actress in the movie had a big, beautiful black bush and pit hair. I thought it was sexy and cool-looking, but then again, I hadn't been exposed to pornography at the time. Then there was a girl I sorta dated in high school who refused to shave her legs. I liked her a lot, and I thought that it was unique. Those who foolishly say that girls who don't shave have no self-respect obviously have never met a woman who has chosen not to shave. They are strong-willed and have a high sense of self-esteem that is not rooted on the status quo.
As for nudity, I think American society has really painted itself into a corner on this issue. I'm more inclined to side with Europeans when it comes to nudity in that it shouldn't be that big of a deal. I think that while modesty is definitely a virtue, America's inability to lighten up has poisoned itself sexually with its aversion to nudity. A year ago, my sister told me about a conversation she had with this German woman at her work. The German woman has lived here in the USA most of her life. She had some nieces visit from Germany and they wanted to go to the Gap or someplace similar to buy some blue jeans (apparently they're expensive in Germany). So when they wanted to try on the pants, they just started pulling their pants off and changing in the store. Their aunt was a bit embarrassed, and then the store clerk came over to ask them to use the changing rooms. "Oh, that's okay. We're fine." The clerk then demanded that they use the changing rooms. These girls weren't trying to show off by stripping to their panties. They were just naive. (I guess I can conclude that dressing rooms are not that common in Germany, or at least not in the area where they come from.) Later, the woman mused that it is ironic that although these two teens came from a culture where a bit of nudity is no big deal, these two teens also came from a country that has a lot less teen pregnancy.
Check out these statistics comparing the pregnancy rates of Americans vs Europeans. The age of first intercourse is only slightly older than Americans, yet both the birth rate and abortion rates are far, far less. Need more stats? Here you go. Perhaps I'm going in a tangent that doesn't really prove much and my point can easily be shot down, but it's worth at least considering. Because we Americans have been so uptight about nudity though, I think it's made the whole sexualization of girls and women even worse and has given rise to the obsession of nudity and the exploitation of young girls for the benefit of men. However, as a result, we need to protect our daughters even more because of this Catch-22 problem we've created in our society. To one extreme we have the puritanical belief that the naked body is extremely sexual and needs to be covered up, and to the other extreme we have the naturist philosophy which seeks to completely desexualize the nude body. Both are boring, yet we struggle to find the happy medium. Sadly, this will never happen, it seems.
 Caucasian Mormon Jesus disapproves of what you did in the bathtub last night!
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Parents are perverse
Since I am a father now, I have been doing a lot of research on parenting girls. I've been reading a lot on parenting websites, and reading stories from parents. I have heard so many stories about fathers who suddenly become so uncomfortable when their daughter begins puberty that they stop cuddling and wrestling with her. What sort of message does he think that gives his daughter? Her body has matured, so therefore he won't touch her because somehow he thinks it's wrong to do so. What kind of position does that put her in? These girls become rebellious and resentful, and quite often they begin looking for this physical intimacy with other boys their age, and getting into trouble as a result. It's proven that people who are hugged daily are most likely to be happier people. If a father denies a girl the positive skinship she needs, he shouldn't be surprised when she starts looking elsewhere for it because he's driven her away. There are plenty of stupid boys her age willing to take advantage of her insecurity.
Parents who get divorced also act all surprised when their teenage daughters start hanging out with the wrong crowd at night, drinking, possibly doing drugs, and start engaging in premarital sex. "I wonder if this has to do with our divorce?" Gee, you think? Check out this question by such a woman. "My ex-husband and I are still friends and we are not neglecting her." Actually, you are neglecting her best wishes. Kids need stability in their lives, and if you deny that to a girl, they will try to find stability elsewhere, and quite often not in the ways best for her. I don't want to sound judgmental because I do not know this woman, nor the circumstances of her divorce. But if she is still good friends with her husband, why the heck did they get divorced to begin with? I can understand getting divorced if you truly hate your spouse of if they're physically or psychologically abusing you, but love doesn't happen by itself. You need to work on it. I'm fortunate enough to have parents who have stayed married the whole time, but thanks to the baby boomer generation and all that hippie "free love" crap, people have become selfish and self-serving. If they aren't getting what they want, they want to split instead of working at solving the problem together. "There's just no love in this relationship anymore." Well if you're still friends, then make the love happen. Love is emotional, but it is also a decision. You can make a decision to love and you can make a decision to forgive. It's not easy to do, but it's a simple concept at least.
Parents, especially mothers, who have a positive self-image of their own bodies will have the best chances of having a daughter who has a positive self-image of her own body. The problem is that this cycle of self-loathing is constantly being perpetuated from mother to daughter. It's hard to have a positive view of your body when you do nothing to maintain it. Everybody wants to leap at the next big dieting craze. The idiotic Atkins diet, the South Beach diet (which actually isn't that bad), drinking acai berry juice... I had a former coworker who was an overweight mother of two who just let herself go after having children. She complained to me about her body and how she needed to lose weight, so I told her to exercise. She didn't like that idea, and instead she said that she'd learned that she could burn calories just by drinking cold water. Look, just exercise already! Quit being lazy! Sheesh! Make it a family activity! Just do something! I'm slightly overweight myself, but I didn't have good role models. Both of my parents are obese, and they did not give me a good model to pattern my lifestyle after. I've had to learn everything on my own about nutrition and exercising. But already my little 2 1/2 year old daughter shows keen interest in my exercise time, and she's turning into a little exercise girl herself.
Girls learn how to be women by looking primarily at their own mothers. This is where they first learn gender roles and how they aspire to become an adult woman. So many parents think that they can behave like cretins and just command their children to behave, thinking that if they just get their kids to do what they tell them to do that they are fulfilling their parental duties. Lead by example! If you have bad habits and poor attitudes, don't be surprised if your kids adopt those same attitudes. If a mother has poor attitudes towards femininity and sex, their daughters will too. Mothers who want to give their daughters cosmetic surgery should be thrown in jail or lobotomized or something. Unless it's some sort of corrective surgery to repair some injury or birth/genetic defect, mothers who want to put their daughters through that ordeal instead of nurturing their self-esteems are vacuous and offensive. Especially since breast augmentation can interfere with the girl's ability to properly breastfeed in the future. Mothers who train their daughters to hate their pubic hair by taking them to the salon to get waxed are only training their daughters to be ashamed of their bodies and to basically sexualize them.
I've read posts from mothers on advice columns who freak out at the circumstantial sight of their daughter's leg and armpit hair and frantically post on how best they should teach their daughters to shave. Then the standard response is always that they definitely need to teach their daughters to shave. Take, for example, this one perverse mother who posts, Help! My daughter is freakishly hairy!" It turns out that her daughter is an early bloomer (which happens a lot more frequently these days, thanks to toxic chemicals, growth hormones and soy in our diets), yet there's nothing freakish about it at all. What is upsetting is how this stupid mother mocks her own daughter by calling her "Sasquatch." Any young girl would be so mortified and hurt terribly if she knew her own mother was saying such insulting things about her to countless people on the Net. The only reason why women and men have such terrible views of a woman's body hair and consider it "disgusting" and "unclean" is because of the attitudes like this mom and countless others in our society have permeated their unhealthy and self-conscious views and have imbued a sense of shame self-loathing from generation to generation. They are the ones who are to blame for this revulsion to the natural state of a woman's body and claim it isn't "feminine." They are the ones who damage their daughters, and their daughters grow up to perpetuate it with their own daughters. Their primary role model, their mother, is the one telling them to shave it or else they'll suffer rejection from others. A teenage girl's emotional life is tumultuous enough as it is, with society telling them that their boobs aren't big enough, convincing them that they are fat, and forcing makeup on them at such young ages. Society is only getting worse, especially now that the generation that grew up during the Internet pornography explosion is now having children of their own. I forsee that the battle for women to be natural and healthy will only become more difficult.
It's easy to blame the media for the sexualization of girls, but really, they only market what sells. If they know girls are stupid enough to watch moronic movies like Twilight with the whole idiotic "sparkly vampire" bullcrap, of course they'll sell stupid "Team Edward" shirts to them and make money. We all vote with our money. Inane movies in the theaters? We're to blame for not supporting the intelligent ones enough. Nothing but insipid and degrading reality shows on TV? It's because people actually believe that this crap is real and are fascinated by it. There are too many moms out there who are total imbeciles. These moms buy clothing for their girls that says, "Little Princess" across the chest. When their girls grow older, they buy them Bratz dolls and those Barbie busts for them to apply makeup to. While the little boys are getting Legos or fireman playsets, these girls get busty Barbie Dolls and McDonalds or Wal Mart cashier playsets. They indoctrinate their kids into gender roles. While the gender roles for boys are quite often positive, the ones for girlscan be quite harmful, so you get these girls who grow up to feel powerless and insecure. You can't just ban the sale of overtly sexualized toys and apparel for girls. The minds of these moms need to be transformed through persuasion. But honestly, these women are just plain stupid that it's a hopeless cause. I see these moms at the stores or on the train to work, with their low rise pants displaying their tramp stamp on their lower back and their trailer trash attitudes. Too many parents allow their daughters to wear what I call "titty shirts" --- those skintight, revealing tanktops that show off their breasts. These moms have bought into the lie about feminine beauty, and they pass this down to their daughters.
These days, parents do not shame their children for masturbation like they used to, and now even prominent Christian leaders like Focus on the Family's James Dobson refuse to condemn it. There is at least some positive progress in this respect, yet there are still plenty of neurotic, ignorant, self-righteous holdouts who still take up the banner of shame. There is this pervasive dichotomy of ultra-liberal and ultra-conservative attitudes, and there doesn't seem to be any agreement especially when politics comes into play. On one hand, you get parents who think that giving condoms to their kids and think that they're being responsible parents by telling them, "If you're gonna have sex, at least be 'safe.'" They place zero expectations on their kids to behave, so it is no wonder that they behave promiscuously. On the other hand, you have parents who refuse to believe that their children are sexual beings, make every attempt to stifle their sexuality, and tell them that masturbation is harmful and wrong. These children grow up repressed. They often end up rebelling and turn out to be just as promiscuous as children of liberal parents when their first positive sexual outlet is condemned and it causes them great confusion and despair.
Making kids feel dirty or guilty for having an otherwise healthy interest in sex is sick. Ironically, despite all the controversial things that Joycelin Elders said, the one positive thing she said that would have helped the pro-abstinence crowd greatly was what ultimately got her fired from her job, the result from pressure from the same pro-abstinence crowd that was too self-righteousness to really think about the ramifications of what she said about keeping kids away from risky sexual behavior. Kids need to be instilled with a love for themselves and a love for their bodies: to eat right, exercise, positively focus their mind and spirituality, and to control their sexuality in a positive way that keeps them from getting into trouble. This is the proper stewardship they need to learn to keep a healthy balance of mind, body, spirit, and sexuality. This is how they become good spouses and good parents, and break free from all the brokenness and unfulfillment in our world. Kids should be taught to feel confident about themselves and respect their bodies, but shaming their sexuality is not the way to go about doing it. Girls especially who are insecure and have been taught by their mothers or others that their genitals are untouchable and as filthy as a sewer are almost guaranteed to not have a healthy respect for themselves and are prone to the "swept away" phenomenon and wind up in unhealthy sexual situations. Conversely, girls who have been raised with a positive, healthy attitude towards masturbation tend to have a healthy view of their own bodies and become more sexually responsible and level-headed in their attitudes towards boys. Just let children be children and teach them right from wrong. Christians have been influenced by Gnosticism for far too long, and it has harmed countless people and has caused crises in faith that really should not have happened to begin with. It's far better for a woman to have learned how her body works as a young girl than to have lived in a marriage of frigidity for decades, only to pay money to go to sex therapists who teach her that she needs to learn for herself how her body responds sexually and how to have an orgasm---exactly what she should have been allowed and encouraged to teach herself when she was a younger girl.
Conservative groups want to teach kids the value of abstinence. This is an important virtue that should not be dismissed or ignored. However, the problem with this is that much of this crowd is opposed to sex education in schools. They believe this education should come from the home. Well, guess what? It just isn't happening. You still see the hoochie mama jailbait types and teen sex is rampant. We are now finally seeing a decline in pregnancy rate among teenage girls, so there is some progress being made. I just think it would be more strategic to promote abstinence simultaneously with proper sex education. The problem with abstinence is that it has been stigmatized as being a Christian virtue. I've had non-Christians tell me that they wished that they had waited, as well as others who have said that they are glad to have not had sex yet. We human beings are designed for monogamy. Compared to wild animals, our babies are rather pathetic and helpless. We're not like cats that can be weaned after a few months and they can survive on their own. Our children take years of nurturing, and they need both a mother and a father while growing up to take care of them. The way I looked at it, I was not ready for sex until I was fully capable of living with the potential consequences of a sexual relationship, mainly pregnancy. The only viable option therefore was to postpone sex until marriage, and I am glad that I did wait. If I cannot justify my Christian beliefs with basic logic and common sense, then my religion is worthless. I really do not see abstinence as a religious issue, nor do I see abortion as a religious issue either. But if radical liberals can marginalize abstinence or the thought that abortion ends a human life by branding these as solely a "Christian" issue (even though that is so very far from the truth), then they won't have to debate these issues at all and can conveniently dismiss them. And if conservatives' only approach to underage sexuality is just to teach abstinence and fear of STDs, this too is a disservice to kids. If they teach abstinence along with a proper education about sex, then it is quite possible that those kids who'd already made up their minds to have sex just might reconsider this, based on a more educated opinion. Moreover, an over-emphasis on abstinence can become detrimental, since a girl who has messed up and engaged in premarital sex is at risk of succumbing to depression and a sense of hopelessness as the fear that she could never be loved again when her sexual education has pushed purity a bit too strongly. A girl in this situation may be under the impression that she'd made the biggest mistake of her life, when in fact it probably wasn't as long as she did not contract an STD, become pregnant, or was psychologically or physically traumatized.
Sarah Palin was accused of being a hypocrite when her teenage daughter got pregnant. I really caution people in using the word "hypocrite" because in this context, it would be only true if the case was that Sarah Palin was telling everyone to teach their children about abstinence while she teaches her own daughter to go out and have sex. She was most likely consistent, however if she is to blame at all for her daughter's predicament of having thrown away her childhood during the critical years of her life that should be focused on becoming the woman she wanted to be if she didn't have to focus on a baby, it would be that perhaps she didn't give her daughter a proper sexual education to respect sex enough to understand that it would be unwise to engage in sex at her age. I also wonder if Sarah Palin's political career interrupted the relationship she could have been cultivating with her daughter, which could have steered the girl away from the situation she's in now. Regardless, the girl could have possibly salvaged her young adulthood if she had put the baby up for adoption, but that's just my opinion and I cannot say what is in her heart about the situation.
In this age, it is insane to not teach children about sex. Kids need to know as much as they are interested in knowing about it. It's difficult to say what an age-appropriate level is, considering how some parents expose their children to all sorts of depravity (I even once worked with a woman who had a 5 year old nephew who was a fan of the disgusting Saw movies). If you want to teach your children the importance of abstinence, you can't just say "don't do it" and let those three words be your child's sexual education. Some parents think that if their children are ignorant about sex, they'll be scared of it and stay away. The opposite is often true, and these kids are less responsible in sexual encounters in which they are too young for as a result. I think it must be similar to firearm safety. The more you know how a gun works and the damage it is capable of doing, the more careful you will be in handling it so as not to injure or kill yourself and/or other people. Not just with sex, but with every aspect a parent's advice should be more than just "don't do it" if they want their children to truly consider the consequences. There's a big difference between "don't touch that stove" and "don't touch that stove because it is hot and it will burn your fingers." But most of all, sex should be portrayed as a positive thing, and instead of framing sex in a completely negative light, parents ought to instill a healthy desire for sex as well as a healthy respect for the sanctity of sex in their kids. They should also be taught about how damaging it can be to them if they were to choose to engage in sexual behavior before they are meant to. Simply ignoring childhood sexuality only creates more problems.
A young girl's budding sexuality is a very complex and nuanced issue. American society has polarized girls' sexuality so much that it's become a black and white issue: either a girl is an angel or a slut. This dichotomy is perfectly illustrated by those moronic mudflaps and rear window decals depicting the "angel girl" and "devil girl" silhouettes that I often see on pickup trucks, and it speaks volumes about the assholes who drive those trucks and their attitudes towards women. The concepts of "sexuality" and "purity" should not diametrically opposing forces in a young girl's mind, yet unfortunately this contradiction has been thrust upon girls and many girls have a difficult time diffusing the negativity. A young girl can espouse the virtues of purity and innocence, yet that should not preclude her from being a sexual being. Parents denying that their daughters are sexual beings damages them greatly, and quite often these girls prove these misguided parents wrong in unfortunate ways that cause much heartache. A healthy interest in sex should be nurtured in girls and celebrated by her parents, not discouraged and ignored. If she is made to feel guilty, it should be no wonder when rebellion ensues. Oops, I said "ensues."
Homeschooling is not the answer
I think the main driving force behind the homeschooling philosophy is just that these parents are 1. over-protective of their kids, and 2. do not believe their children can learn in public schools. I'm so sick of hearing about homeschooling, and it seems like I only hear it from Christian conservatives. Christian conservatives can be such a paranoid crowd. "The schools are gonna indoctrinate my children and turn them into Democrats! I won't let them! We need to take back America! Derp-a-derp derp!" What's wrong with instilling in your children a sense of what is right and wrong and expect them to make the right decisions depending on the morality you've taught them? If you want to "take back America," how is yanking your kids from schools going to help accomplish that? If justice is on your side, what impact will your child have on his or her world if he or she doesn't even have any peers to influence? Quite often, these children's social sphere is limited to their church circle.
You cannot isolate and shelter your kids forever. Bestow on them your knowledge and instill a sense of morality and justice within them, and this will empower them to make a difference in this age of moral decay. Your children need to know that there are people in this world who are assholes, and they need to learn how to deal with them. My cousins were homeschooled their whole life until college, but even though I had many difficulties in high school and such, I never envied them. Plus, the homeschooling crowd acts as though their kids are going to be murdered every day at school by ruthless gangs of mutant cyborg gorillas or something.
A lot of people have the idea of the homeschooling crowd as the same ilk as the "the earth is flat, and dinosaurs didn't exist because the Bible doesn't mention them" crowd. While I'm sure that this does represent a minority of homeschooling, it's unfair to dismiss them all as such. And yes, there are a lot of Creationist parents who don't want their kids to be taught Darwinist evolution. But this goes back to what I said about raising your kids to be free thinkers. Heck, my parents didn't yank me out of school once I started adopting a Darwinist belief in evolution. But it was because I was taught about evolution, and especially about how DNA works, is how I later came to realize that so much of Darwinism is pure crap.
Homeschooling supporters like to brag by comparing the test results of homeschooled kids versus the kids in public schools. This is unfair, since public education encompasses a wide spectrum of children of both intelligence and economic status. It's safe to say that the economically disadvantaged children most likely live in an environment that is not condusive to education, and they especially do not have rich parents who can afford to have one parent stay home with their children to teach them all day long. I think that the statistics would be a lot closer if you compared homeschooled kids to honors students in regular schools, since both of them come from families that have an involved investment in their children's education.
I certainly could not have survived being homeschooled. I highly doubt that I could have properly been taught a foreign language, nor would I have had a chance to ever successfully learn chemistry, one of the most difficult classes to understand for me. If you're a parent and you can afford to stay home with your children, and you are an expert in calculus, music theory, world history, science, physical fitness and so much more, then I say go for it. But my parents could not have done this for me. just reading books and calling tutors on the phone would not have done me much good growing up.
Moreover, there is no discipline with homsechooled kids. I mean really, these kids go from orange juice and toast at the coffee table to cracking open the books a few minutes later. They don't have to wake up at 5:30 am, walk in the snow or rain to the bus stop, taking notes during the class lectures constantly, and having to get from one class to another all day long. I've known some homeschooled individuals who struggled when they first went to college, whereas I accelerated my learning once I got to college. These kids had to learn discipline real fast and they learned that they can't just keep asking the instructors to keep repeating themselves during the lectures because they couldn't take notes fast enough. And they had to face the reality that they had to get from one part of campus to the other in ten minutes and keep up the pace without getting exhausted.
Yes, I admit that there is some rather frighteningly poisonous factors in schools that I want to protect my daughter from, but shutting her up inside the house for 18 years will not be healthy for her. If anything, I may explore charter schools or something. Unfortunately, even with a Republican House and Senate, former President Bush was unable to institute the school voucher system on the national level. It's a shame, since the states that have vouchers in local areas have benefited from the schools competing with each other to turn out the most successful students they can. Conversely, my home state of Arizona has abysmally low student scores.
Raising a geek
My parents want to shove cowboy crap down my daughter's throat as she grows older because that's their background. I admit that I hope that my daughter will enjoy science fiction and fantasy and that it will stimulate her creativity and intelligence. But my wife and I want her to discover herself. Her own tastes and interests. I have to admit though, I really hope she doesn't go for that cowboy/country crap because I don't want to have to listen to terrible country music. Nor do I want her to listen to mysoginistic, violent rap music that glorifies thuggery and debauchery. I'll have faith enough that she will find some intelligent music to listen to instead. I will do my best to instill an appreciation for that which my wife and I appreciate, but ultimately, she will develop her own tastes and I hope that she will surprise me with new things she can share with me as she grows older.
Watching The Empire Strikes Back in the theaters in 1980, my imagination was jumpstarted. Travelling the galaxy, a city in the clouds, exotic locations, epic battles... The movie inspired me so greatly. I taught myself to read by the time I was in kindergarten because I was bored with having to ask my mom to read stuff for me. By the time I was seven or so, I was reading 250+ page books like the Star Wars movie novelizations. I was reading the Empire Strikes Back movie novelization by Donald F. Glut in the 2nd grade and I had kids accuse me of faking my ability to read the book. But I read the books, and I began reading other books like the Narnia series and Isaac Asimov's The Norby Chronicles after that. I loved the library and I was constantly checking out all sorts of books. Choose Your Own Adventure books, Peanuts comics, SF novels, and anything that interested me. Then when I was in the 4th grade, my teachers frowned upon what I was reading, as it's only been in recent years that science fiction has been regarded as true literature and not trash fiction. In the 5th grade when I was reading Arthur C. Clarke's 2001: A Space Odyssey, I made the mistake of admitting to my mom that I was having some difficulty with the level of language of the book. She then found other books that were far beneath my reading level and were not at all interesting. I understand that she meant well, but I was hoping for some encouragement instead of distraction. I don't want to do this to my daughter. A lot of idiot Christian parents are freaked out about the silly Harry Potter books, thinking that it will encourage kids to explore real witchcraft, and that is preposterous. It's good to see children reading books, and if these books give children a desire to read and expands their imaginations, then I am all for it. Children need fantasy in their lives.
I want my daughter to be a geek. This doesn't necessarily mean that I will force her to play Dungeons and Dragons with me on Friday nights instead of having fun with her friends. No, what I mean by "geek" is someone who doesn't fit into societal norms. A fish swimming upstream. A nonconformist. I can teach her the importance of these. My wife is teaching her a love and fascination for animals, insects, and nature. We both want her to become a bookworm who loves to learn. I must say though that these days, being a nerd has never been so easy. Wearing glasses is no longer viewed as "nerdy" and people are realizing what I've known for a very long time: glasses are sexy and attractive. The last time we were at the optometrist, our little girl was trying on different children's glasses and posing in front of the mirrors. She's only 2 1/2 years old, and she already says she wants glasses. There was a young girl there, around ten years old, who wanted glasses so badly that I think she would have been crushed if she turned out to have 20/20 vision! It was so cool to see this girl's enthusiasm to have her own pair of glasses.
Nerds are now considered cool, being a geek is chic, and stuff like comic books have been the source of movie inspiration for the past decade ever since the success of the first X-Men movie 10 years ago. I was an anime and manga nerd when I was in high school. I was probably the only overt one in school. Some skaters had seen Akira, but most of the other kids' knowledge of anime back then in the early '90s was limited to Speed Racer which was being shown on MTV late at night. It is amusing that I now find myself talking with parents who say that their kids are crazy about learning Japanese and someday traveling to Japan. When I'm talking with parents of these kids who are crazy about stuff like anime and manga, I always tell them that they are so very blessed that their kids are pursuing nerdy interests instead of crap like tattoos and drugs. They are relieved that their adolescent would rather spend money on comic books than stuff like cigarettes. Being a geek means that you do not have to abandon the innocence of youth. I've told my wife that she will never have to worry about me experiencing a "second childhood" because I am too busy still enjoying my first childhood.
If you've read my other essays, you'll know that I've said before that I was pretty lonely in high school. I had kids I talked to during lunch, but I was an outcast among outcasts. In my previous article, I mentioned that my Friday and Saturday nights were spent watching The Empire Strikes Back and Blade Runner. I also spent a lot of time in my room alone. I read books and played video games and computer games. I dimmed the lights, lit some candles, and mellowed out listening to dreampop music. I went through a phase when I was all "sensitive" and shit and wrote poetry a lot before I matured. I wrote and contemplated. Considering what a socially awkward dork I was, I did a lot of contemplating. The teenage years are quite often a philosophical time for kids, and these are the years that form the person they will become. It would have been better if I had better friends during that time, yet at the same time I am glad that I had the opportunity to do so much soul searching. Having a girlfriend at that time would have most likely disrupted that process, and I think that teenagers who wind up in so many relationships end up short changing themselves of a valuable time of learning. Their focus is on others instead of on themselves, and as a result a lot of these kids end up not even knowing who they are themselves. I've seen girls adapt their opinions and tastes to match whomever they are going out with at the time. If you ask them what their favorite music is, they'd be honest with themselves if they were to say "whatever my current boyfriend likes." Girls who become boy crazy tend to end up to be shallow and fickle.
I reject the notion that being an introvert means that one is somehow dysfunctional or socially inept. That is not the case at all. Being an extrovert means that you draw your energy from others, while being an introvert means that you draw your energy from mainly yourself. I am certainly an introvert, but it is too early to tell whether my daughter will be one or the other. Following her starsign, a Taurus will be bold but yet have a small, yet deep, close circle of friends. I was a lonely kid, and I do not wish loneliness upon my daughter at all. However, raising her as a geek would be one of the best things I could do for her. To me, a girl who spends time in libraries and can speak passionately about the books she's read is far more attractive than a girl who dresses and speaks like a slut. Fine, she may turn out to not be interested in tackling the Silmarillion when she gets older. But I will still read The Hobbit to her as a child and attempt to instill a love for fantasy in her heart.
Raising a strong daughter
My daughter is an extremely attractive little 2 year old. People often tell me that I'll have much grief keeping the boys away from her when she's older. What's interesting is that some women say what a "doll" she is. I understand what they mean, but phrasing such a notion in that way is a disservice to femininity. She isn't a doll. She is a human being. I know of parents who treat their daughters as though they were dolls. I've had family members give us gifts of these frilly, lacy clothings which we just call "princess dresses." Scratchy, stiff, impractical, and uncomfortable. I'd hate having that touching my skin, so why should I make my daughter wear it? She is not a doll to dress up and pretend. She is an individual with her own personality and tastes. We do not put her on display for our gratification, nor the gratification of others. That's why we will never subject her to one of those psychotic child "beauty" pageants where they rob girls of their childhood by dressing them up as miniature adults. And as for the grief they say she will give me, only time will tell. But it is my goal to raise her to be a free-thinker and to not go boy-crazy and act like a retarded teenager.
My wife and I want to instill in her the ideals of self-worth and self-esteem that is not rooted on what America's toxic culture believes. We want her to reject what our society says is the way she ought to be, the way she ought to think, the way she ought to behave, and what our society says is sexy and attractive. We want our daughter to know that she does not need to wear a revealing clothing in public in order to attract the attention of guys, and that enslaving herself to the purchasing of cosmetics is not necessary either. When I was in high school, I wised up and learned that the type of girl I found myself attracted to wore glasses, simple clothing, and had her hair in a simple pony tail or just cut short.
We want her to find her own voice. She should never feel that she needs to be quiet in order to please others when she finds her well-being and values under assault. We want her to be assertive, yet not aggressive. We want her to know that she can choose who she will romantically love, and she can decide who she will marry. It is exciting to see that times are changing and gradually leading to the point where women will feel empowered to do the marriage proposal and not have to wait for the man to do so. Perhaps by the time my daughter is an adult, this will be in her favor. Despite what society wants for our daughter, we will try our best instill in her a healthy sexuality: a healthy interest and respect for sex, to independently identify her sexual desires and responses, to nurture an appreciation for her own body and how it works, a love for how God has naturally made her, and to know that until she is married, she alone holds the key to her sexuality and that nobody should ever pressure her to relinquish that control; not one particular guy, nor society as a whole. We want her to have a confidence in the beauty of her body, yet we will teach her modesty and to not encourage her to flaunt it. She needs to know that she does not need to wear skimpy clothing to attract boys, and we want her to say no to detrimental fashion trends that sexualize girls and objectify their bodies. We will also try our best to instill in her a healthy, positive respect for her menstruation even before that time comes, and to understand the incredibly awesome power God has given her as a woman to create life.
We will not encourage her to buy into the mindset of stuff like cosmetics, pierced ears, or fancy designer clothing since none of these embrace the true essence of femininity. We will tell her that she doesn't need makeup in order to be beautiful. Instead of indoctrinating our daughter into shaving, my wife and I will tell our girl that shaving is completely optional and that she does have a choice in the matter. If she chooses not to shave and/or apply toxic makeup chemicals to her precious skin, we would encourage her not to, and to be her moral support. We endeavor to build up her self-esteem to stand up against peer pressure and challenge the notions of femininity that our toxic society has placed on everyone's daughters.
We will encourage our daughter and back her up to cultivate her self-esteem as she challenges a society that constantly bombards the self-worth of women and distorts the perception of true femininity. We will nurture a nonconformist attitude in her to stand up to what society expects her to look like, behave like, and think like. Beauty is not about being anorexic, having huge breasts, completely hairless, tattoos, body piercings, clown red lipstick, and behaving like a slut. True beauty is a wholesome thing that starts with the mind and permeates from her soul and shines through her body, her behavior, her attitude, and her kindness towards others.
Right now, my daughter is at such an innocent stage. She will play with a plastic robot just as much as a stuffed bunny. The whole world seems open to her. She has no concept of shame, gender inequality, or racism. I wish that she could remain in this state forever as she matures, but unfortunately society will work its poisonous ideas into her thoughts. We cannot prevent society's corruptions from having any sort of influence on our daughter, but we can at least try our best to raise her in such a way to resist these toxic influences and to be a strong girl.
Further Reading
Well, I'll get nerdy again and talk about some games.
Go back to the "Greg's Life" Table of Contents
"A woman's heart can only hold so much evil before her body makes room to store it elsewhere on her body." ---me, when I was in college, once I got sick of girls who were conceited about their large chest sizes. Yes, I was cynical.
mail: greg -atsign- stevethefish -dot- net