Tag Archives: Photos

Radio and more photos

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I was on WBAI radio yesterday, doing Rise Up Radio’s Father’s Day show. Here’s an audio file of that appearance, and I’m on for about 7 minutes, from 14:00 to 21:00 or so. Talking about fathers, daughters, and the Good Men Project…

On my Facebook, I’ve got two new public albums of photos from SlutWalk LA. Here’s album one, and here’s album two. All these photos are from the amazing Shari B. Ellis, who documented the event from morning set up to evening afterparty.

Here’s my original SlutWalk LA album. Here’s a photo of me with some of the student volunteers from Pasadena City College (click to enlarge):

And here’s a link to the larger version of the photo I had up before from the front of the march.

Vermont gets it right again: adolescent sexting, adult prurience, and the need for some common sense

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As has been widely reported, Vermont (the first state in the notion to approve same-sex marriage through the legislative process) is now considering decriminalizing “sexting”, the much-ballyhooed practice by which teens take and send explicit images of themselves using their cell phones. The absurd prospect of having teenage girls arrested on child pornography charges for sending topless photos of themselves to prospective beaux has encouraged the sturdy Vermonters to do the eminently sensible thing; as Salon writes, “sanity prevails.”

From the standpoint of a teacher and a youth worker, the furor about “sexting” seems tinged with both media hype and an unpleasantly salacious curiosity about adolescent sexuality. The chief concern I have is with the emotional well-being of the young people who do share naked pictures of themselves; embarrassment is powerful and regret is real, particularly when — as so often can happen — an image meant for one person is shared with many more. I’m also concerned with the dynamics under which sexting takes place: to what degree do the young women (and, more rarely, young men) who take and send these photos with their phones feel pressured to do so? Coercion, peer pressure, and individual agency are key issues in any discussion of teen sexuality. Safe and responsible adults need to be able to initiate conversations with teens about their private lives — and the misuse of child pornography statutes to prosecute adolescent “sexters” is an ironclad guarantor that those conversations will not take place!

The Vermont law, as proposed, wisely distinguishes between a 15 year-old sending a naked picture to another 15 year-old and a 15 year-old sending that same picture to a 35 year-old she’s met online. In the latter case, the law could still be used, as we would want it to be, to prosecute an adult who solicits nude pictures from a minor. The minor would not be charged. Make sure that adults understand that soliciting and knowingly receiving sexually explicit photographs from minors is a crime. Apply that law with a recognition that a relationship between an 18 year-old and a 17 year-old is not dangerously exploitative (despite the minor-adult disparity) in a way that a relationship between a 17 year-old and a 28 year-old almost certainly is. The law, in other words, needs to center the emotional, sexual, and physical safety of young people; it does not need to center the scandalized indignation of adults.

In January, in a post about the “right to a past”, I touched on this issue. I’ve also touched recently on the issue of adolescent resilience, in a post written contra the “one mistake will ruin your life” narrative. To the extent that “sexting” is a reality rather than media-hyped phenomenon, it’s important for us to recognize the potentially coercive aspects of this adolescent innovation. But it’s also important that we avoid the lurid, exploitative hysteria that so often accompanies discussions of teen sexuality. As long as young people know that adult concern for them is rooted less in an obsession with their chastity and more in an interest in helping them develop healthy, mutually satisfying relationships, teens will be open with us about their lives. If we emphasize that foolish or impulsive decisions don’t necessarily need to lead to enduring shame or familial rejection, if we emphasize that our mistakes are character-building rather than soul-scarring, we empower young people to make better choices and recover quickly from the humiliation that is, in the end, the chief danger inherent in the “sexting” phenomenon.

As Vermont, so the nation. May it be so quickly.

Gazing at Gaza and watching “the Wrestler”: some thoughts on when to look and when to turn away

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I’ve avoided blogging about the Israeli incursion into Gaza for the relatively sensible reason that I have very little original to contribute. I’ve been heartsick at the violence, at the images I see online and on television. I follow my usual rule for looking at images of violence and war: I set aside a few minutes when I feel I’m in a reasonably reflective space, and I spend a short while (never more than half an hour) absorbing what I’m seeing. I know that compared to so many, I lead a life of tremendous privilege and safety; I cannot presume to understand fully what goes through the mind of a child in Gaza or a young soldier in the Israeli Defense Forces. I can imagine, however, and visual images serve as catalysts for that imagining. Because before I can do anything else that might be remotely helpful, I’ve got to do the first task of the global bystander: I’ve got to acknowledge, I’ve got to witness, I’ve got — to the best of my ability — look.

One of the reasons I find pornography so problematic (even as I grow less doctrinaire on the subject of how to deal with sex work from a feminist perspective) is because of this sense that what we gaze at matters. If there’s one thing that’s caused me to be more of a jerk than anything else in my life, it’s the failure to empathize. And for me — and I’m willing to admit this is not a universal response at all — repeatedly using pornography did impact my ability to empathize with my real, flesh-and-blood sexual partners. For me, and again, only for me, connecting my arousal to a one-dimensional image rather than an actual human being made it much harder to connect with girlfriends, wives and lovers. My anti-pornography feelings are, on a gut level, derived from my own admittedly compulsive use of sexually explicit imagery in my younger years. One of the many ways in which I honor not only my marriage but my sense of what I want sex to be is by avoiding looking at porn.

I’ve learned, however, to distinguish between “using” an image for my sexual arousal (which, in my singular experience, damages my empathy) and “witnessing” an image for the sake of creating greater empathy. That sounds like so much psychobabble, so let me offer an example. The best film I’ve seen this awards season so far is the captivating Mickey Rourke vehicle, The Wrestler. It’s a graphic film; several of the wrestling scenes are barbaric. I had to force myself to keep my eyes on the screen at times, trusting that in this context, taking in the brutality was a necessary part of understanding the life the central character lived. I can’t speak to the realism of the scenes, as I have no brief for professional wrestling, but can say that my own discomfort at the violence helped raise compassion for the protagonist. Similarly, Marisa Tomei’s character in the film portrays a stripper; in one or two scenes, she dances nude. I haven’t gone to a strip club in more than a decade; staring at a performer’s breasts is not something I do anymore. But in this film, the nudity worked perfectly — it was connected to one of the film’s larger themes, about the way in which bodies are commodified and the way in which those who make their living with their flesh hold on to sovereignty despite being brutalized, despite being ogled.

I wasn’t aroused by Tomei, but I was moved. In this case, it was good and right for me to look. (That doesn’t mean I’m positing arousal as the enemy; it’s not. The enemy is the failure of empathy, and it is true that for some of us, broken as we are, sexual arousal, like anger, makes empathy more difficult. That’s what makes insisting on one’s right to sex in a relationship so toxic — another topic that comes up ’round here a lot). The husband who demands his wife have sex against her will to satisfy his needs is offering an obvious example. Though the story in “The Wrestler” was fictional, the realism was undeniable — and at least for me and my wife, the effect of that realism was deeply moving. I’m not any more intrigued by professional wrestling and strip clubs, but I came out of the film in a reflective mood. What I had seen, what I had taken in, had touched me. And though my compassion was directed towards fictional characters (though there was admiration, too, for Rourke and Tomei), it was genuine. And anything that makes me feel more of that compassion for other people is probably a good thing. Continue reading →

Bowflex boy, found

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Back in July, I wrote a post called “Bowflex Boy” and Kristy McNichol: desire, celebrity, and the sexiness of earthy reality. It got a lot of comments, but at the time, I couldn’t find any of the 1980s-era photos of “Bowflex Boy”, who “caused” me a brief and intense period of insecurity. There were many pictures in the ad campaign, but reader Sarah has tracked down one image that closely matches my memory, and she sent me the link tonight, and here it is. The story is now complete.

Back from the Southern Cone: UPDATED

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We’re home again. LAN Flight 602 from Santiago, Chile, to LAX touched down at 6:45 this morning, and my wife and I were just about the first two off the plane, so eager were we to be back on familiar ground.

We were gone for three weeks, spending six days in Chile, four in Argentina, and the rest on an adventure cruise down to Antarctica. More about the trip later, but for now, I’m working on editing photos and reading about Super Tuesday. I hope to have pictures up on Flickr in the next few hours.

UPDATE #1: Photos from the Chilean portion of our trip are up, including many from our visit to the Chinchilla National Reserve.

UPDATE #2: Photos from Ushuaia, Argentina, and from Carcass and New Islands in the Falklands are here.

UPDATE #3: And almost 100 photos from the Antarctic cruise are now up in this album.

UPDATE #4: And a fourth and final batch of a few photos from Buenos Aires.

Christmas tree up

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If there’s one aspect of Christmas that I am exceptionally passionate about, it’s the tree. Growing up in a secular household, the tree was Christmas. In my family, our trees are the subject of intense discussion and considerable effort.

Going back several generations, we’ve had the custom of including a wooden snow scene/Santa’s workshop at the base of each tree. Each of these is made to look like a large redwood trunk, and the decoration thereof takes as much time as the tree. This year, at long last, my wife and I got our own tree trunk, courtesy of my wood-working cousin Dean. And though I’d seen many snow scenes done in my childhood, it is only now — at my forty-first Christmas on this planet — that I find myself with one of my very own.

Pictures of the tree, the snow scene, and the Santa shop are up here. If you look at my eyes here, you can see how happy this makes me.