After my coffee permeates my brain, I’m heading out this morning to accompany my friend Ross and his eldest daughter to a skate clinic for younger girls that one of my Scarleteen users and new AGA bloggers teaches at. How cool is that? Hoping to grab some fun photos of the (as she calles them) “lil’ rippers,” and engage in the simple pleasure of watching teens be proactive. I see the more passive ones way too often for my own good.
I spent that whole day yesterday working on graphics for the upcoming Scarleteen fundraising and promotion, which included many hours of perusing stock photography until my eyes bled. Want to know something seriously sad? When you search for photos of teen women, a good half of them are half-dressed or in bikinis. Suffice it to say, the same thing doesn’t happen when you search for photos of teen men. Ugh.
Also spent some hours on the phone with my Dad, who got mugged for the now ninth time in his life: some jerk followed him from the currency exchange where he was cashing his disability check, which meant he lost the whole of his money to live on for the month. When he was last visiting here, we got him an application for low-income housing, and he got a postcard back, telling him he did qualify and would be put on the waiting list, but sweet jesus, this just can’t happen fast enough. I may need to make some calls and see if there isn’t anything to be found in the interim, because this is just lunacy. At a certain age, it’s just beyond unfair that you can’t have some small measure of safety and comfort in your life.
Speaking of certain ages, I really don’t keep up lately, but is there a dearth of sex advice and information sites for adults these days? Because over the last year, we’re getting more and more adults, some even older than I, coming to Scarleteen with earnest questions and it’s really quite weird and, suffice it to say, borderline appropriate, given the fact that it’s really important our teen and YA users have some feeling of ownership with the space. More selfishly, I have to confess that I also find most questions from middle American marrieds more depressing than almost anything a teenager could ask me. I mean, it’s one thing to have someone’s 15-year-old boyfriend not get that two minutes of obligatory heterosexual intercourse as an entire sexual experience is substandard. It’s an entirely different matter whan the partner in question is 45, for crying out loud.
Before I shove off, a desperate cry for help from me for Wordpress experts: is there anyone at all out there able to give me maybe an hour of time, max, to show me how the hell to change items in the sidebar here, which is written into my template? I haven’t even been able to add a permanent link to the book since I updated, and it’s getting really critical, as is just updating basic links, the archives and the lot. HTML I get, easy. CSS is another matter entirely. For some reason, it just all looks like Greek to me. Glad to barter for your time: if someone wants a print, for instance, I’d be happy to do a swap or suchlike, or even toss a few bucks your way. I just really, really need to be able to know how to do this basic stuff ASAP. Thanks!
February 4th, 2007 at 8:55 am
I can’t help with the web stuff, but I can say I feel your pain. I maintain a personal web site and a business web site, and have committed to building a web site for a friend’s dessert business in exchange for a wedding cake and have been trying like mad to understand CSS. It all looks like Greek to me too! Glad I’m not the only one who feels that way. Hope you find someone to help!
February 4th, 2007 at 1:44 pm
I’d be happy to help — I’ve been using wordpress a lot and I’m reasonably good at making CSS work, so hopefully I can help you figure it out. My contact info should still be in the advocate area in ST.
February 4th, 2007 at 2:15 pm
sorry to hear about your dad’s struggles. hope he gets a place soon!
February 5th, 2007 at 1:10 pm
Heather,
I have had good luck getting help from the wordpress support forums. You can either search there to see if someone else has posted the same question you have, or start a thread of your own.
http://wordpress.org/support/
Best wishes to your father. I am sorry to hear that such a horribly violating thing has happened to him, for the ninth time. What is wrong with people? I have never understood how someone could mug someone and live with themselves. Of course there’s a lot I don’t understand about certain human behaviors.
I am not sure about the adult sex ed that is out there, but it’s sorely needed. I have been stunned at times by some of the misinformation that has come out of the mouths of adults regarding BC, STDs, and even what is appropriate behavior in a relationship. Case in point: I used to work with a woman who asked me if I could tell her how to perform oral sex on her husband. Before I could answer she broke down and told me that she believed that if she was better in bed he wouldn’t cheat on her and hit her. I tried very hard to explain that she was in an abusive relationship and that it was in no way her fault, but she wouldn’t listen. It broke my heart.
Thanks Heather, for all that you do to educate our teens.
February 7th, 2007 at 3:55 am
“Want to know something seriously sad? When you search for photos of teen women, a good half of them are half-dressed or in bikinis.”
Closely related to this have your heard about the “corporate pedophilia” controversy in Australia? If not try this link http://larvatusprodeo.net/2007/02/05/djs-sues-thinktank-over-report-on-sexualised-images-of-children-in-advertising/
Short version a think tank has coined the term to cover the use of sexualised images of children in advertising. They produced a report on it which got a lot of publicity and one of the chain stores they accused of being part of it are suing them. A lot here that may be relevant to you.
March 6th, 2007 at 9:47 pm
“Speaking of certain ages, I really don’t keep up lately, but is there a dearth of sex advice and information sites for adults these days?”
Yes. I’ve been a fan of Scarleteen since I was a teenager (I’m 29 now), and have periodically surfed the web looking for equivalent adult sites. There are few and far between, and often not “alive” anymore. I presume that this is largely because of the huge commitment it takes to run a good site.
Also, I think there is a cultural perception (at least in the US) that “sex education” or even education at all is for young people… The idea of adult sex education doesn’t appear to be a cultural concept here. So an older person who comes to the conclusion that they need to learn more about sex probably types in “sex education” or “learn about sex” into a search engine… and gets sites for teens, because that’s where the good information is.
Personally, I’ve found some good stuff on sites that educate about kink and about responsible non-monogamy… but they have fairly narrow target audiences, even though the information is good. They’re probably not as approachable (or even findable) by adults who need really basic sex info.
I do wish there were more adult-focused educational sites.