BUST: “Gay Bashing vs. Slut Shaming: Aren’t they equally deadly?”

I have an unwritten chapter in my mind on this exact topic: Why the sexting suicides were blamed on “bullying” and the gay teen suicides getting attention this fall were recognized as the result of homophobia. We seem to finally have a storyline about the oppression of gay teens, which might be getting us somewhere. But there is still no sympathy–and crucially, no existing narrative storyline–for the girl people call a “slut.”

All of this has led me to wonder, why isn’t there as much outrage about this kind of slut-shaming as there has been about gay-bashing?Just try and imagine how wonderful it would have been if folks like Madonna (c’mon, MADONNA!), and President Obama, and Ellen Degeneris, and CBS, all had come out with a message for young women that slut-shaming is bullshit, all people are sexual and if the other students can’t deal with a girl who has sexual desires, it means they are sexists, which is just as bad as racists or homophobes? At the very least, doesn’t it merit a Glee episode? We discussed starting a similar “it gets better” video series here at BUST, and when I asked what we might want to call it, one editor shouted out “how about, ‘it doesn’t get better but you won’t care as much.'”

via BUST.

Berlin on pedophiles: We need resources, not demonization

[Fred Berlin] points out that we are constantly delivering public service announcements to people struggling with depression, eating disorders, drug abuse and the like, telling them to “come and get help” — but rarely do we direct that same message to pedophiles. “What I wish society would recognize is that good people can be afflicted through no fault of their own with these attractions,” he says. “To simply demonize these folks rather than reach out and help them is not serving their interests, or our interests as a society.”

via Salon.com.