CNN

My appearance yesterday, as seen from the control room …

Today at 5:15pm EST, I’ll be on CNN Headline News talking about this news story…

Teen girls sent naked pics and now parents are suing school

By Jessica Blanchard, Seattle Post-Intelligencer

“Parents of two Bothell High School cheerleaders have sued the Northshore School District, alleging school officials erred when they suspended the girls from the team this year after nude photos of them circulated throughout the student body via text message.  School officials learned of the photos in August after receiving copies from a source they have not named, according to the lawsuits. In early September, the two teens were suspended from the cheer squad — one for 30 days and the other for the entire school year. Both lawsuits, filed Monday in King County Superior Court, accuse school administrators of violating the girls’ due process rights, needlessly sharing the photos with other school staff members and failing to promptly report the matter to police as possible child pornography.  Attorney Matthew King, who represents both families, said it also was troubling that the teens were punished, but football players and other students at the school who sent or received the texts were not.”  This is the link to the full story.

I just got off the air from the appearance during which I discussed the MTV Video Music Awards. See the photo below of me standing in front of the camera. Host Mike Galanos is based in Atlanta, so I was on via satellite from CNN’s gorgeous studio in NYC. In two segments, Perez Hilton and I discussed Jordin Sparks’ remark defending purity rings. Also on the air for the first segment was Joanna Weiss who wrote about this story for the Boston Globe. I agree with Perez Hilton that Jordin was right to say something, and given the fact that her remark was unrehearsed, she did fine. However, it is wrong to classify people — as she did — as either virgins or sluts. It’s the myth of that dichotomy that often keeps us from discussing the reality of most teens’ and young twentysomething’s sex lives. Most teens and twentysomethings have sex in the context of relationships, and at least 87% use birth control. Perhaps teens could feel more comfortable talking about sex with mom and dad if their parents understood that when teens have sex it is not always harmful or ”bad.” Perhaps teens would also feel more comfortable reaching out to get sex education if they knew that our culture would not categorize them as a “slut” if they responsibly choose to have sex.

Today on CNN Headline News at 5 pm, I’ll be talking about the Katy Perry song, “I Kissed a Girl (and I liked it)”, and whether the song could pressure teenage girls and college women to be interested in same-sex kissing. Preview…

Most often when a teen girl or college women identifies herself as heterosexual, but chooses to kiss another girl or women, it is because she feels attracted to the other person, because she is striving to define her sexual orientation for herself, because she is curious, or because of any number of other personal reasons. Could they be pressured by a pop song? It’s possible, but unlikely. Possibly, and stereotypically, IF a woman feels any pressure to kiss someone of the same gender, then that pressure could be coming from a guy and alcohol could be involved – as depicted in Katy Perry’s song. Her catchy besong is not so troubling to me, but it’s the video that I find offensive. It’s anti-woman and anti-feminist. Katy Perry’s album is called “One of the Boys,” and that’s exactly what the “I Kissed a Girl” video is about. She is pandering to a male heterosexual fantasy to sell CDs. The video is not all bad. Some of it is sexy and sensual, and some images simply allude to sex, including Katy on a bed stroking a pussy cat. But the disturbing images are those in which her harem of black-lace clad women are depicted not as whole people, but rather in pieces – a shoulder, a leg, a neck — seemingly dismembered women. The still shot below is taken from the video.  The image is shown in the video just as it is here, with no context. She is not seen going under the couch, nor does she leave the couch. Is it a sexual joke that I’m missing? Are they just trying to come up with something “edgy” and unusual? Or is it solely intended to degrade women? Drop me a note if you have any thoughts on this image.