I mentioned this editorial that appeared in the local Sunday Pittsburgh Post Gazette in my most recent comment to the BFT thread. Happy Reading!!!
This month, millions of young people will congregate on sunny beaches as far from home as possible in order to relieve themselves from the stresses of academia. Their methods? Around-the-clock binge drinking and lively cultural activities such as near-naked girl-against-girl wrestling matches held in giant vats of pudding.
The Fort Lauderdale, Fla., version of spring break was originally made famous by the 1960 film "Where the Boys Are," but spring break is now thought to be best experienced in places like Cancun, Mexico, where the drinking age is 18 and tour companies build packages almost exclusively around access to alcohol: $100 procures a wristband that grants admission to clubs offering unlimited free alcohol.
Meanwhile, in news of the "no duh" variety, the American Medical Association released figures about sex and alcohol use during rowdy spring break vacations. The poll, which surveyed female college students and graduates ages 17 to 35, found that 74 percent believed women used drinking "as an excuse for outrageous behavior"; 83 percent "had friends who drank the majority of nights while on spring break"; and 12 percent "felt forced or pressured into sex" during spring break.
And no wonder. The Journal of American College Health has reported that women partying at spring break hot spots consume an average of 10 alcoholic drinks per day, and men consume an average of 18. Queasy yet? I know I am.
A few years ago, I went to Cancun during spring break to research a magazine article. I was hoping to arrive at some grand psychological and existential reason as to why many of today's college women (who, after all, were presumably pursuing higher education because they wanted to be more than sex objects) seem so happy to let men lick tequila shots off their body parts.
I didn't exactly succeed. But after a week of talking to people in various states of undress and intoxication, I can tell you this much: What's happening on spring break beaches isn't just boys being boys and girls going wild. It's young people, women especially, deciding that the way to measure their readiness for the adult world is not in terms of education or emotional maturity but sexual desirability.
The raunchy contests and general debauchery were something that these women had prepared for, almost as though for a final exam. They'd logged hours at the gym, in tanning booths and at body wax salons. They'd saved up money for breast implants and then timed the surgery so they'd be healed by spring break. Some seemed to have practiced drinking, experimenting with different alcohol combinations to see what afforded the fastest buzz with the least amount of calories and dollars spent.
One word I heard again and again, oddly, was "confidence." As they psyched themselves up for wet T-shirt contests or debated whether a given guy was worth flirting with, a lot of women told me that they saw spring break as the proving ground for their attractiveness. "If I can be considered hot here, I'll be hot anywhere," a rather morose woman sitting on a bar stool in a bikini and high heels told me. "I'm here to get confident."
That's sad, but it's not exactly irrational given the context (no one was there, after all, to participate in a chess tournament). But the more women I talked to, the more it became clear that hotness was, for them, the largest factor in the equation of their self-worth. When they talked about what they wanted to do with their lives, they spoke not of jobs or grad school but of looking good, of having the right equipment and experience to ensure a place in the raunch-obsessed pop culture they'd come to see as the real world.
And why not? These days, miniskirts the size of cocktail napkins are considered appropriate mall attire for 14-year-olds. Local newscasters seem to regard see-through shirts as proper on-air attire. And illiteracy appears to have spread to the point at which parents can put a T-shirt on a 2-year-old without noticing that the words "Future Hooters Girl" are printed across the front. With girl power like that, can we really blame these women for seeing their sexuality as their only currency?
Of course, despite the fact that an estimated 170,000 kids are expected to descend on Cancun this season, there are many more who have better things to do than pass out on the beer-stained floor of Congo Bongo. But every March, when the spring drinking statistics get trotted out like so many vodka shots lined up on a bar, I'm reminded of how much they reveal about everyday life. Revelers may tell themselves that whatever happens in Cancun stays in Cancun, but in some ways, the party never ends.
I'm feeling less confident already.
I didn't realize that the link between alcohol consumption and bad behavior was unclear......hmmmmm.
ReplyDeleteMatt, I hope you don't mind but I'm going to link this page to Angies one about the bimbo website.
ReplyDeleteNot a problem Lee, it seems we are on similar if not the exact same track these days. I too had seen stuff about the Miss Bimbo website in the news here, but by the time I had gotten off of work last nite, pretty much everything that needed to be said was said in the thread, I really didn't have much new to add.
ReplyDeleteI don't know if there is a link between bad behaviior and alcoholic comsumption, I have been known to imbibe from time to time, just not in an effort to loosen my morals to the point where I want to rip my top off. Likewise I have done some less than stellar things while perfectly sober. Still I would argue the idea that a woman's worth being based on how "hot" she believes herself to be is one of the unintended consequences of feminism, women are now objectifying themselves where before it was men who were blamed for it.
Whilst I would not like to see a return to the sexism of the pre 1960's I have to agree that feminism has created a monster in some respects.
ReplyDeleteIndividualist feminism encourages women to take full responsibility for their own lives.And it also opposes any government interference into the choices adults make with their own bodies, yet when we see women doing just this we complain about being objectified.
"...It's young people, women especially, deciding that the way to measure their readiness for the adult world is not in terms of education or emotional maturity but sexual desirability...a lot of women told me that they saw spring break as the proving ground for their attractiveness. "If I can be considered hot here, I'll be hot anywhere," a rather morose woman sitting on a bar stool in a bikini and high heels told me. "I'm here to get confident." <> I'm not sure I agree fully with that whole statement. Mainly because you have spring break which is one week out of a persons life, a week they can be anyone they choose to be, do anything they choose to do and at that given moment not be judged or deemed a "whore" simply because "everyone else" is doing it. I dont seriously think people look at spring break week as the deciding factor in how the rest of their lives are going to turn out. Thats not to say I dont think people get too carried away in the drinking and sex, because I do, but its like they view spring break week as a "write off" One free week in their lives that they dont have to be held accountable for in their real world. And no it doesnt always work out that way.
ReplyDeleteThe confident comment is another thing I'm having issues with. Most of these people who are 'showing it all' on camera, or having sex with every guy that comes along are doing so under the influence of some type of alcohol and/or drug. Most of these people are intelligent enough to realize that they arent really gaining confidence that will last a life time but rather confidence that last as long as they're high or drunk or both.
Except they are planning well in advance of this week. You don't have surgery to make sure your breasts are big enough for spring break during spring break. They are specifically mapping out well in advance of what they need to do to appear attractive to a guy. If they think a guy will only finfd them attractive i with large breasts and in a wet t shirt, then they will have the surgery and drink enough when they get there to make sure that happens. It is a sad state of affairs and worse it happens when they are quite young, spring break is just the culmination of years of women believing that their only value is their attractiveness to men, which is why you have 12 years olds wearing clothes that would make some street walkers blush. Guys by and large will fuck anyone, with limited exceptions. Women are just more than happy to be anyone.
ReplyDeletejust came over from Angie's bimbo blog. that was an interesting read. your spring break is notorious over here, in fact I know I group of guys from here who usually go over for spring break week because they know they will get plenty of sex.
ReplyDeleteAs shocking as this sounds , is it anysurprise that this occurs ...after all we are teaching sex to our children in elementrary school. why shouldnt they go this far we have shown them that sex is fine at any age as long as we can get the old condem on the cucumber.
ReplyDeletevery aptly put howl.
ReplyDeleteBullshit. Teaching of sex in schools has nothing to do with it. Look at the late 60's, early 70's and the "free love" era for example. Sex wasn't taught in schools back then. Lets go back to an earlier time even. Look at when Caligula was Caesar of Rome. The Roman Orgy was "THE" party to end all parties in those days. Hey lets go back even earlier. How about Soddom and Gomorrah? If you actually believe the religious texts, thats when free love was started lol. These days people learn more from the media, the internet and their peer groups about sex than they ever will in a school. Blaming schools is just a cop out.
ReplyDeleteI blame school as equally as I blame the media and lack of parenting skills. But I did like how howl stated that. I dont think its "bullshit" I'll blame the schools but the parents poor choices to not inform their child before sending them to school.
ReplyDeleteWell, whoever is doing the teaching is doing a bad job of it, whether it be parents or schools or somebody else, if 25% of teen age girls today have a sexually transmitted disease. The question of the leser of two evils is should we just pretend that teenagers aren't having sex, or are we making sex a more likely outcome with the methods that our schools implement in sex education. I will admit that I have a problem with the phys ed/health teacher showing kids how to put on a condom, but I also have a problem with the mom that buys her daughter a t-shirt with the word "Pornstar" in glitter on the front.
ReplyDeleteI would agree thats kind of sending mixed signals to our children to tell them dont do it but wear this that says you're a porn star. not to mention the clothes that are marketed to these children are less and less clothing and more like swatches of material to cover just enough of the body.
ReplyDeleteI think the nail has been hit on the head here...too many parents are leaving it to the schools and the schools are doing a poor job.
ReplyDeletetick....i dont know your age , but i had my first sex ed class when i was ten (1970). back then it was just an explanation of the biological function of the reproductive organs and puberty and such. Today however it has gone too far in what they wish to tell a child.
My personal opinion is that the free love era of the 1960's is partly the cause of todays parents being myopic on thiier children's sex lives.