I’ve recently come back from my annual pilgrimage to leavers (schoolies) celebrations. I organise people to look after those who are heavily intoxicated. apart from the usual vomit and regretful behaviour two things really stood out to me this year. (1) What 17 year olds thought were a normal amount to drink. (2) What some girls wrote on themselves or their clothing. Drinking amounts included: 4 litres cask wine for one person and 1 bottle of bourbon, 1 bottle of vodka and some cask wine for another. This second person started their description of what they have had with "I’ve only had...". Then there was the things girls had written (ironically I presume) on their clothing or their bodies. this included "fuk me I’m hot" (their spelling) and "can you help me find my g-spot?".
As a society we may have given up a "just don’t do it" attitude to sex and drugs and embraced a more liberal attitude. The problem I have with our current liberal attitude is that it is also an ignorant attitude. An attitude that is unhealthy if not out right dangerous. The lack of awareness about the possible consequences of their actions demonstrates to me that these are issues are not being discussed with our young people in a mature a sensible way.
6 comments:
That we may have embraced a more liberal attitude is not the problem, as far as I can see. Nor do I see liberalism as a form of ignorance.
The problem is that we have embraced ignorance itself. We don't inculcate critical thinking in our kids, thereby giving them the wherewithal to take responsibility for their own bodies and behaviour, to anticipate and thereby avoid the possible consequences of their actions. And that's because we as a society don't see any value in critical thinking and reasonableness. We want everything now, and everything must be precisely the way we want it, thankyou. We see credit cards as free money. We "buy" (i.e. take mortgages out on) homes we can't afford. Long-term thinking? Forward-planning? It's for the birds.
Welcome to Aspirational Australia, now on the receiving end of a bitch-slap by economic reality.
The lack of awareness about the possible consequences of their actions demonstrates to me that these are issues are not being discussed with our young people in a mature a sensible way.
I see the fact that these issues are not being discussed in a mature and sensible way as a symptom of the embrace of ignorance I was referring to earlier. It stems from a view of sex, and of the female body, as something "dirty" and "bad." It is a vision of the body and of sex that has been around for millennia, promulgated by various religious traditions, and is shared alike by the girls you describe in your post, and those in the churches and the tabloid press who would see in the girls' actions a cause for moral panic about sexual permissiveness.
In short, "Fuk me I'm hot", abstinence education, opposition to birth control and contraception . . . all of these phenomena are manifestations of wilful ignorance, especially as regards a reality-based understanding of sexuality.
(Rant ends here.)
Thanks for the rant AV, I agree that ignorance is the problem and didn't mean to equate liberalism with ignorance in case you thought I had. I think their is soemthing more going on than just a the female body being seen as "dirty" or "bad" it may stem from that but it is more than that now. I sense there is some kind of unhelpful power relationship happening. Exhibited by someone writing "can you help me find my g-spot?" who has no intention of letting any random strangers near her g-spot. Mmm will keep pondering.
A further point/rant:
As a society we may have given up a "just don't do it" attitude to sex and drugs and embraced a more liberal attitude.
"Sex and drugs" is a common collocation in the moral panic lexicon. (Rock & Roll used to be thrown in there too, in the days before Hillsong.) But they don't bear comparison at all.
Many drugs contain chemicals which--if consumed in sufficient quantities--are physically harmful (e.g. tobacco and alcohol). There doesn't seem to be a completely harmless way to use tobacco, for instance, other than abstention.
Sex, by contrast, is not in and of itself physically harmful. You can take measures, quite easily, to reduce the likelihood of pregnancy. You can take measures, quite easily, to reduce the likelihood of contracting STDs.
I sense there is some kind of unhelpful power relationship happening. Exhibited by someone writing "can you help me find my g-spot?" who has no intention of letting any random strangers near her g-spot.
I'm not going to infantilise that particular girl by suggesting, from the comfort of my armchair, that she is too young to make her own choices about who she wants to have sex with, or how many sexual partners she wants, or what kind of sexual activity she prefers to engage in. Provided she's 16 or older (and provided her partner is 16 or older), she has the right to decide these things for herself. For all we know, she may have had every intention of letting random strangers near her g-spot, and with full appreciation of the risks and potential outcomes entailed.
The point, though, is that it's her call. It's not the call of her prospective sexual partner, and it certainly isn't the call of some random who happens to see "can you help me find my g-spot" and take it for what it most certainly is not: an open invitation to sex. It's always her call, and keeping that firmly in mind is, in my view, the yardstick of civilisation.
However, I would still strongly counsel against her writing that message on her clothing or body in the context of a leavers celebration. And I am quite willing to hypothesise, from the comfort of my armchair, that she lacks the kind of contextual awareness that a mature, sensible and reality-based sex education might have provided her.
If she writes that message on her clothing, and then ends up being raped, that is categorically not her fault. It is categorically the fault of the rapist. At the same time, she would be well advised not to walk around wearing such an inscription in an environment where the danger of being assaulted by stronger/older men is higher than normal.
By the same token, there are areas of Perth I would probably not venture into at night for fear of being mugged. If I go there, and I am mugged, I am not at fault; my assailant is. But I still would have been well advised to have taken measures to prevent such an outcome.
Hey mate... long time no read:)
I recently started working as an orderly in the Emergency dept of a hospital here in Melb, and have been really quite impacted by seeing what Alcohol really does to people. From the pathetic and stupid to the very traumatic and violent. Ive been wrestling with the whole drinking thing over the last year as I kind of stopped due to a problem with binging to deal with depression. And Im starting to lean towards giving it up for good.
Always struck by how teenagers have this need to put themselves at risk. I think this is part of the growing and learning process.
Im not sure our "liberal" attitude is all that current. Alcohol was a form of currency from the beginning of colonization. The constabulary of the first fleet became known as the "rum Corps" coz they were the main traders and purveyors of the "rum economy" of early colonisation particularly to the convict population.
The elixir of the exiled:)
from what I see in the Emergency Dept, alcohol still is the drug of choice for exiled peoples, they're just no longer dressed in late victorian attire or shackled to a gum tree:)
Hey AV,
In the last five paragraphs you've nicely summed up some of my thoughts on the issue. I'm certianly going to defend the right for people to do what ever they like provided it is not hurting others, I just might not reccomend it. I might defend somones write to soak their head in honey, but I'll still recomend they don't run through a beehive. So to speak.
Hey Urban monk,
Thanks for commeting. My sense is thta most Australians don't realise how much of an impact alcohol has on people, particularly in hospitals and police calls. I agree that risk taking is something that teenagers do. I just get the feeling from the kids I dealt with at Leavers that they were hoping to take a 5 out of 10 risk and ended up taking a 8 out of 10 risk.
You're probably right that most of Australia never had a "tea and biscuits" attitude to alcohol. When you consider that we used to get paid by alcohol we're pretty conservative right now. Alcohol is certainly engrained in the Australian culture. I think that trying to ban drinking altogether would be like trying to ban driving becasue people are dying from speeding. Mmm will do some more thinking?
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