Taking the gag-ball out for HNT

Ahhhh nothing dictates breaking a vacation like an assignment that really hits the heart of wanting to spread my word-seed around. I wrote this article for a different venue, but really felt I had to put it up here tonight.

*dickclaimer: I apologize for my man rant yesterday. My husband put me in my place. Enough said. I still want you all to have fresh hookers and beer though.

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I get a phone call from my editor regarding a 'hot' news story happening in St. Louis about a second grade girl that was assaulted on the playground by twelve 6-8 year old boys during a school recess. Of course this dictated urgency as anything sexually related to our youth we feel necessary to capture and learn from to distinguish premature perversion from normal adolescence. Being me and the unabandoned word-smith that I am; I jump on the story, and here I sit prepared to spew my editorial-- Hold on tight.

From reading the Reuters, the yahoo, the CNN, and every other local Missouri online news venue of my choice I find that the story gets more convoluted as I continue through the updates of the day. By 5pm my time it seems nobody really has their story straight at Columbus Elementary and neither do we. Go figure.

Calling a news station you always get the run around and insinuated diluted information from the news representatives they have on hand. I suppose it doesn't bother me that I cannot speak directly with the author of these pieces to establish information, but that instead I get smoke blown up my ass about 'this or that' or how the St. Louis School District is investigating the extent of abuse. Hrmph. To me it sounds like utter embarrassment about making a mountain out of a mole hill.

So you dig, and you hit the right person that gives you about as much inside information' as a nugget of shit that you labored fifteen minutes and two magazines for. Vein poppage for nothing but a wet fart disturbs the piss out of me...
Allegations are that two boys were touching her inappropriately and there was no struggle. No real factual evidence of assault, but the fact the boys' body parts came in contact with a girls' body parts (under consentual age) exhibits assault. Right agreed okay, I see that.

By book it is assault I suppose. Legalities draw huge borderlines over consensual age and "adolescent grooming". I am a parent as well and do attest that there would absolutely be hardcore assault of some kind happening in my house if I knew my son was tampering with something 'child-proof' on the play ground. You have my acceptance in that regard.

But in the way I can be an unaccepting liberal bitch with a tongue that cuts cement blocks in two I have to vent. If it is true that there was no struggle and instead widespread voyuerism and curiosity on that playground, don't back peddle now. With respect to the parents, teachers, and students of Columbia Elementary and the St. Lois associated press I will say this:

So, a girl lays down and says fine touch me to two other boys on a playground? And they do? Um. Wait, there's a question as to WHY this happened? And you can't believe Johnny would do that, he's never insinuated in any way that he would do something like that... I'm so embarrassed and upset that my child would do such a thing since we've never talked about sex. Where is he getting this stuff from?!?!?

Are you people high?

Maybe you should be? Where are our lovely Canadians to bring a eighth of that good shit down to our misconstrued parents in St. Louis?!?!? Not all of you parents, just the ones that should be beer bonging right now.

But I jumped right over to drugs there didn't I? Alright then, let's talk about our youth and how we choose to hinder their souls with sex, drugs, and violence shall we? Okay, wellll. Let me start this off with a shocker... It's ALWAYS BEEN HERE! How we choose to handle it in society dictates how our children will learn it.

Fact: Our parents are more screwed up in this regard than we are. The generation just before us are confused. As we were given the chance to explore our parents 'free love' phases and learn about menstruation at the 'right time' instead of being pushed into a cubby about when do I tell him what his penis is for? Will he find out on his own? Maybe I should just run with it until it becomes a problem?

Okay, I have actually witnessed more than one disraught parent trying to figure out if the first time she kisses a boy they should buy 'the sex book' and have a talk. Because we fret and bite our nails about our children's sexuality we forget our chemical makeup and where we come from. I talk to my son in gradual phases, as it comes along. I don't need to hunker him down with a forum on 'the change of becoming a man' and show him flash cards of a g-spot.

But dammit if he asks me what a g-spot is I would answer it honestly and with respect to a woman's vagina. Maybe when he's an adult and respectably practicing his own sexual democracy I will share exactly how to hit that g-spot on his wife and listen to him gag at the knowledge of his mom sharing that information. I've ranted enough.

It comes down to human sexuality. Homo Sapiens are only a an intellectual species of animal with opposable thumbs. We reason, we have intellect, we can decide whether we've had too much to drink most times, we have a conscience sometimes too. However, we have hormones that give us the ability to be instinctual and immensely horny in the fact that we need to procreate. No, I don't believe this St. Louis debacle is attributed to horniness, eww.

But I do believe that in fact we are curious of the others equipment from the get-go because we have the need for species survival and population. We, as animals, need to breed... It's what we do. It's our urge, our ability... It's inbred into our genes like the Hox and mutates how we choose to exhibit and begin the confidence of our curiosity.

Basically, it's not about the instinct because that has never changed, but with a society shoving and selling tits and ass on your MTV instead of music videos and a jump on video games teetering on a mature rating for our teens it's not hard to see why our children are confused and afraid to talk to any one about it but themselves.

I weep for this. Because you scratch your head and it makes complete sense to me. Hundreds of years ago women married and bore children as soon as they began menstruation. What median age was that? Hmmm 13-16 as a matter of fact. It wasn't until much later that people realized there was polygamy and disturbed angry young adult women killing 'masta' with a shotgun 'cause she'd bore his 12 children and now he's left her with no option but to starch his shirts for the next 30 years. Check your history, it's there. It's called women's liberation.

Two years the press made a stink about our children maturing too fast physically. Girls were beginning to blossom at 9 or 10 years of age instead of 13-16. It was insane to imagine a fourteen year old being sexually active, and it was unacceptable. Two years ago the pre-teen pregnancy rate in Idaho was astonishing. Read that again people, pre-teen.

Could it be that indeed like the Hox our race is mutating and growing earlier faster? Don't get me started on my theory of evolution or conspiracy theories, but if they can repair my kidney through genetic pharmaceuticals, why isn't it possible that with each and every generation we bear into this world the DNA strand contorts just a tad? Uh-huh, it's possible.

Bind that with the basic instinct as humans and animals to survive, to satisfy curiosity, and to pro-create and it becomes as simple as 5th grade math.

Let's not sit and beat ourselves up over our youth. Let's be pro-active instead of re-active and try to embrace the heart of the problem, let's speak with our children frankly and honestly about their interests. Lets give some stock in what they're doing during the day, what they're thinking, and who they're hanging out with. Let's get a little interested in what they're interested in and talk deeply to them about life and beliefs and a little about yourself.

I guarantee you money back that they will blossom into a fountain of opportunity for you to present a very sensitive and realistic topic to them without disdain, misconstrued ideals and/or a need to discover something that should be respected, not finger-poke on the play ground of our schools.

As an end, let's just be secure and admit to the fact that though we are the dominant species on this earth we are still only here for one thing no matter what the age. We cannot stop the experience of growth and exploration of what we're here for, we can only be the safety line for the next generation to understand and learn from our mistakes, even if we're making those mistakes as adults, and parents. Consider yourself spanked for forgetting what animal instinct is and ignoring it until it becomes an "issue".

Now, I'm going to go have a parent teacher conference about my three year old standing in the girls bathroom playing 'observation' after nap time, somebody get on the phone with those great cannucks and have them hand down some Canadian Green.

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Thanks for taking the time to read that. Hope you did. I thought it kicked ass for a centerfold editorial piece. Fuckin' awesome.

oh, and Happy HNT.
(what, like I'm gonna leave you high and dry on a Thursday?!?! As IF!)



If you want to learn more about HNT, click on the rolling box and talk to my big sweet HNT daddy, Osbasso!