Problematic Pubescence

Ah, alliteration.

So aside from the general consensus among my cooler friends-who-are-parents that puberty should be banned because it drives parents to drink and has terrible effects on the teenage brain, a conversation started by karnythia in the booj brought to mind that the 'net is kinda lacking in sex education resources for teens that are either truly gender-neutral or geared to boys. While Scarleteen is a fantastic site and I strongly recommend any parents of teenagers to hie themselves and their teens hence, it does skew pretty hard to the "girly."

Don't get me wrong, I'm psyched that there are resources out there for girls. I vividly remember being that age and how difficult grappling with hormones and drives and sexual identities and gender expression and the fact that I had a completely different value set from my family regarding this sort of thing and other shit was being a cisgendered bisexual teenage girl, and all this with a sex ed program at school that was fucking fantastic in retrospect considering the rest of the country. But I also know it's not just us that could use resources, education and help: I know a lot of parents contending with parenting pre-teen/teenage boys who could use resources on how to have responsible and healthy attitudes towards sex and relationships. And don't get me started on transgendered teens and the issues they face navigating the bear and snake pits we affectionately refer to as middle and high school. So the idea of starting up just this sort of website was tossed around. Not sure if it'll get off the ground, but it does seem like something that should exist or at least be discussed.

In the meantime, I'm poking the nets to get a good sense of what IS out there already. I mentioned Scarleteen; there's also sexetc.com. Anything else out there people might have run across in their net travels that people should be aware of?

All kinds of news today

Bit heavy on the posts today, but that's just following the trend of busy day = more posting.

I was sad to hear this morning that Peter Falk had died today. I remember Columbo; my mom watched it. Even so, I was a little young for it at the time, so I don't remember too much of it other than the episode here and there that I caught on Nick at Nite or something as a teen or an adult. No, Peter Falk to me will always be the Grandfather who comes in, makes lame jokes, pinches my cheek even though I hate it, and reads me a certain story because I'm sick. (Just not the kissing parts.) Yeah, this one didn't hit me in the gut until cell23 asked in the car "but who is gonna read the story again tomorrow now?"

I know how some of you feel about The Princess Bride. Yeah, it's overquoted and its fans do tend to think it's the greatest thing since sliced bread to the point of annoyance, I get that. But that movie was a big part of my childhood. From like age 9 until 13 I quite literally watched the copy we had in the house once a week, sometimes twice and certainly every day I stayed home sick from school, and I still know every line and camera angle. So tonight I ask for y'all to stuff the haterade cause for a bit, Peter Falk was the grandfather I never got to have growing up, having missed both Mom and Dad's fathers by years.

Anyway. RIP, Grandpa. You will be missed.

* * * * *

In other news... I was gonna write this whole big long thing about how marriage equality passed in New York this evening, how psyched I am that it is now legal in both states I call home to marry the one you love regardless of what combination of dangly bits you have, why this issue is so important to me and the impact it's had in my life (lets just say if it had been legal in either NY or MA ten years ago I think my life would have been VERY different right now), but then this picture from Newsweek's tumblr got posted to Twitter and I completely lost my shit.



Yep. All of this, and it's a picture of a fucking skyscraper that leaves me sobbing. Pictures being worth a thousand words and all, I think this picture covers just about everything I could possibly express about this, and far more eloquently, so I'm just going to leave it here, and go terrify cell23 by needing a hug now.