Sunday’s Super Bowl is over. The players have gone home. The confetti has been cleared. But I have been drawn into the post game debrief conversations centered around sex and sexism at the Super Bowl. As a woman, a Christian, a wife and a mother of two young girls, these conversations are important to me. Read the rest of this entry »
Category Archives: Media and Culture
The Super Bowl, Sex and What to Tell Your Daughters
Where were You when You just had Sex?
As the ever-expanding world of social media appears to be systematically eliminating anything close to what we might have once called “privacy,” it should probably come as no surprise that there is now a social site dedicated to announcing where you have most recently worn a condom. You read that right. Just as you might utilize Foursquare or Facebook to “check in” at a restaurant or a theater or a ballgame, Planned Parenthood has now developed a new website targeting teens and young adults, called “Where Did You Wear It?” In short, it allows you to “check in” on where you just had sex with a condom because after all, “sex that safe should be shared!”
And just how much should we expect you to share? Well, after entering in all the pertinent geographic information, the site also allows you to add a few more details. Because after all, it’s not enough that everyone knows where you’re having sex. This is the “Information Age.” It’s the “Age of Jersey Shore.” We need more!
So what’s your gender? Male? Female? Trans? What about the gender of your partner? No point in making any assumptions or in protecting his or her identity. This is all about maximum exposure.
How was the sex? Was it “ah-maz-ing,” as in “rainbows exploded and mountains trembled?” Or was it a bit more … down-to-earth, say “a work in progress?” Don’t be shy, now. Spill the beans. We want to know. Was your world rocked or was it not?!
Every once in a while, in a culture as vast and as complex as ours, you run across something so patently “new” that it’s difficult to know where to even begin an analysis. And so today, I simply want to leave the analysis up to you. What do you think Planned Parenthood is trying to accomplish through this site? What exactly are they trying to normalize and should it be normalized? What about what we, as a society, are sacrificing for this to be normalized? Is there moral value in trying to protect people from the consequences of their actions? What about the value in teaching privacy as a virtue of sorts? Or is the concept of privacy growing increasingly “passe” in a hyper-connected world? Regardless of religious affiliation, do you want to be part of a society that “checks in” on a site such as this? Why? Or why not? And if the whole point is being “proud to wear protection,” why is there no ability to “share” this information directly through your personal Facebook account or Twitter? The comment section is yours. Have at it, readers.
Dying to Bring You the News
I know almost nothing about her, save for the few sketchy details that have emerged in the aftermath of her death. I know that she was a Yale graduate in her fifties and that she had been married three times over the course of her life. I know that shrapnel took her left eye in 2001, but that it didn’t deter her from going right back into war zones of this world. I know that she was a journalist, working in places like the Balkans, Chechnya, Sri Lanka, East Timor and Syria. And I know that she died as a willful witness to the very worst elements of humanity.
Today, I honor Marie Colvin, veteran war correspondent for the Sunday Times. History may never recall her as one who changed the world, but I, for one, will always be grateful that there are people like her who are willing “to speak the truth to power” – people willing to “send home the first rough draft of history.”
Goodbye Ms. Colvin.
