Posts Tagged ‘CNN’

Today, my segment on Mike Galanos’ show on CNN Headline News focused on a story from Glades Middle School in Miramar, Florida, where children and teens may have been involved in some sort of sex related misconduct in a classroom – while the teacher was present. It was a very unusual story, and details of the situation have yet to be fully disclosed. The school did not state whether the students were touching others, or whether the misconduct involved touching themselves or revealing themselves with no contact.

The story I discussed on Jane Velez-Mitchell‘s terrific new CNN Headline News show comes from Detroit, where a teenager’s mother was arrested for allegedly holding a party to prostitute her daughter and another teen. Of course, the headlines about this story in print and on television read “sex party” instead of “sex crime.” 

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.

In the background of an international CNN broadcast about the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers, two men (who were sent by the Howard Stern show) pretended to kiss and fondle each other. One of the men lifted his shirt while the other pretended to lick his chest. They never actually made contact, so it was obvious that it was a stunt.  It made me wonder: If two women had been playing this prank, particularly for Howard Stern, wouldn’t they have actually had mouth-mouth contact? Women kiss for Howard all the time. This helps illustrate that in our society sometimes “straight” men make fun of being gay when they want attention; whereas women may actually experiment with same-gender kissing for attention. It was kinda funny, though… 

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.