Orange is the New Black

Imagine coming home from school one day to find that your local police department has gone into your home and sequestered every internet capable device you have to build a case against you for child pornography. Your mother is crying, your sister is hiding and your father is pleading with the police, asking to see a warrant. Of course the police hand it over to show that you-- a young, chipper, teenage boy-- are under investigation for soliciting and distributing child pornography. Of course your parents are furious at you as they search for a lawyer to represent you, if they can even afford it! 
Flash forward a bit: your in chipotle picking up a burrito because your still a free man-- you've done nothing wrong,all yo did was press send, when BAM! the police bust in, put you in handcuffs and let you and everyone in the restaurant know that are being arrested for--you guessed it--child pornography. Picture the look of horror on your face  as parents at a table look at you in disgusted while hurrying away from you because your one jury verdict away from hard time in the slammer.

Of course you have to go to trial and your parents probably can't afford the reincarnation of Johnnie Cochran so you get stuck with a run of the mill, reasonably priced lawyer. But such a shame because your fancy Kansas City lawyer can not defend you against the piles of damning evidence the DA has against your perverted trashcan of a life. They pull up all the text messages you forwarded and of course, the coup de grace: your twitter account where you've been openly soliciting nude pictures of underage girls. No one is reasonably doubting anything and your sentenced to 15 years in prison as outlined by the US Federal Government (http://www.justice.gov/criminal/ceos/citizensguide/citizensguide_porn.html). 

Let's move forward some more: 4 years into your 15 year sentence you're sitting in the laundry room of the prison you now call home because helping around can reduce your time in prison. As you fold the underwear of the man who beat you up last week you think about what you've done to deserve this and then it hits you! You posted naked pictures of underage girls! That's why everyone calls you a "chester" and even the murderers look down on you! How could you forget silly? As you put the last of the orange jump suits in the hamper you think about how every decent human being from your former high school is doing because frankly, they don't live in a 6 by 6 cinder-block cell. Wow...your life is worse than the cafeteria food you eat every single day.

That story was very dramatic, like season 1 of Grey's Anatomy dramatic, but I needed to get my point across: posting and sending nudes is like putting yourself into the prison draft. Within my school there is a culture that sharing private nude pictures is perfectly acceptable, in fact a surprising amount of the student body does it for sport! It's like Pokemon cards, whoever can collect the most ones wins. This has bothered me for a long time but after seeing a twitter account dedicated to soliciting and distributing nudes of high school girls in my town.

Personally, I don't have time to focus on boys: the last time I tried that I got a B in geometry so I've essentially written-off any type of serious relationship (queue Ally Simpson's "That's Why I'm Single"); however, not everyone is me. They don't choose "grades over baes" and I can't force them to, but I can stand up for what is wrong: manipulating someone into sending you private pictures that you then share is wrong. A lot of girls get sucked into the nude train wreck that can hurt their reputation and down the road effect their eligibility for jobs. A lot of times people tend the blame the victim in situations like this: "why did she send the pictures in the first place?"In theory this is true but realistically what we have is a teenage girl, infatuated with a boy who promises her love and affection in exchange for a few pictures. And being a teenage girl she'll probably oblige. Following with the rules of the misogynistic cesspool that we live in the boy will think to himself "this is my property now and I will do with it what I please" and then send it to everyone he knows: another card in the deck.

This attitude that so many boys have is disgusting; the idea that they potentially hold someone's future in their hands and be so senseless is crazy. And the way others react to this is just as bad :the slut-shaming, the finger pointing, the "she should've known better"'s all while the student body continues to praise the violator...until it's them. The best thing we can all do is refrain from sending nudes period, but let's be real that probably won't happen so let's instead shame the person who spreads them around because vulgarity is worse than naivety until there is a common idea that sending nudes outside of the consent of the owner isn't funny.

I think tonight seeing everyone I know stand up against that obscene and illegal twitter account showed me that it's possible to shame the distributor: to make them know that actions of that nature will not be accepted in our school but it needs to become commonplace. And some will ask why this doesn't happen with all social media accounts posting lewd images and I don't have an answer but I think tonight was a step in the right direction. I am satisfied with gradual change, it's acceptable and realistic but not ideal, but the world isn't perfect and I get that. What I don't understand is why it's so hard to stop treating people like objects. I refuse be in a situation where blatant disrespect of the female body is so prevalent and I don't have the ability to move any time soon, so I guess I'll have to change the attitudes and the atmosphere of the people in my town--even if it's gradual, at least it's happening.

The Different Levels of Fake Depth

I need to vent. I am sick and tired of this quasi-feminist, fake anti-racist crap that keeps being thrown around everywhere. I recently watched "Fake Deep" by Cecile Emeke and let me tell you, it put my feelings into words! The poem describes how a lot of men, specifically black men, will continually praise women for all the wrong reason, while still holding racist and anti-feminist ideals. The video is great, but I think the fake deep mentality goes beyond any racial or gender barrier. 

There are four types of feminist: feminist, anti-feminists, quasi-feminist and non-intersectional feminist; the same can be said for men. 

• Feminist: Someone who believes in the equality for women, whether that be professionally, socially, morally or economically. This person has read up on feminist literature and speeches. This person understands how just about everything in society is geared towards men and doesn't resent men because of it, but aims to change our patriarchal society to benefit everyone within it, no matter race, gender or sexuality.

• Examples: Beyonce, Lupita Nyong'o

• Anti-Feminist: Someone who totally rejects feminism entirely because their boyfriend doesn't hit them, they like catcalling, they've never been raped or some other stupid myopic reason that makes no sense. Most of these types of people have done negative research on feminism and are going entirely off of their own bogus ideas and stereotypes perpetuated by other anti-fems or male rights' activists. 

• Examples: Shaileen Woodly, Kelly Clarkson, everyone in the "#ImNotAFeminist hashtag

• Quasi-Feminist: A person who preaches a Hemingway quote or something and pretends it's feminist rhetoric to seem smart, urban, and educated. A quasi-feminist will try to reject any type of progress made in the West because "Muslim women have it way worse!" because most Islamic nations, to their knowledge (there is very little knowledge), have never had a female Prime Minister or President, even though in reality, many of them have. They will also point out very basic ideas such as "let women be equal" and at the same time say that using male based pronouns ("freshman", "you guys", "every man") to address women is not fundamentally wrong because in actuality quasi-feminist are just along for the ride; they want to look cute and get a bunch of retweets from other quasi-feminists and move on to stopping Kony again.

• Examples: Meghan Trainor

• "But Maame why? 'All About That Bass' is my feminist anthem!" Believe me when I say I used to really like that song, but when you actually listen to the lyrics Trainor's message is everything but feminist. For example, her song reads "don't worry about your size...'Boys like a little more booty to hold at night'".  She's saying that being larger is perfectly fine, not because you truly believe that you're beautiful, or because you're comfortable in your own skin: but because some rando boy you don't know wants to hold onto your butt as you sleep. 
• Non-Intersectional Feminists: This is someone who chooses to uplift their own race, gender, socioeconomic class, ability level or other descriptors while leaving all women outside of their demographic to continue suffering. Non-intersectional feminist will make jokes about transgender people and tell someone with cystic fibrosis to give their handicap permit back because they "don't look sick". This type of feminist will praise Miley Cyrus for owning her sexuality while she appropriates African American culture, but condemn Nicki Minaj for doing a similar thing without her appropriating culture. They can also be referred to as Feminist Lite (as coined by Annie Lennox) 
• Examples: Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, Annie Lennox
• "But Maame Seneca Falls Convention was the greatest thing to ever happen in feminist history!" Sadly, this isn't true. Here's the part about the convention our schools failed to teach us: the convention was essentially a bunch of white women being very upset as to why immigrant and black men could vote and they couldn't, paying little to no attention to the rights of immigrant and black women.
• Here's an actual quote from Stanton (taken from her biography): “Asked straight out whether she were ‘willing to have the colored man enfranchised before the woman,’ she answered ‘no; I would not trust him with all my rights; degraded, oppressed himself, he would be more despotic with the governing power than even our Saxon rulers are.’ “ (Hill and Yang in '09). 
• I saved the best for last...MEN'S RIGHTS ACTIVISTS: This is almost always a man who believes that men have it really tough in a male dominated world created to serve them. He believes that things like hiring women to work on oil rigs will slow down production and that it's just not fair that a man can't hit his female significant other. He probably also thinks that woman are very weak even though Venus and Serena Williams, Mo'ne Davis, and I don't know, the entire US women's soccer team exist.
• Good ways to spot him: "Shut up and go make a sandwich" t-shirt; Facebook picture of him at Hooters; Refers to feminist as lesbians probably
• Example: Sam Pepper
• I really don't think I need to explain this but Sam Pepper is a popular Youtuber who made a video where he grabbed women's butts as a "prank". Nearly everyone who saw it thought it wasn't very funny and the video caused major backlash. Sam then came out with 2 more videos: one where he had women grab men's butts and one where he let us all know that this was a social experiment to raise awareness of male sexual abuse. 
•  Male sexual harassment and abuse is real, but female sexual harassment and abuse is far worse. According to the US Department of Justice in 2003, 9 out of 10 rape victims is a woman; there is no impending doom for men to be raped.

I know too many people who fall into every category that isn't actual feminism and it upsets me. It makes me sick! It's almost like a fad, a trend that will come and go and once it's gone you can add it to the list of counterculture things you took part in. Literature, films, articles: read up on anything you can about feminism before you make any decisions on what and how feminism works. 

I've officially come clean as a feminist. Am I a lesbian witch who doesn't shave her armpits or leg hair and purposefully grows out a unibrow? Or am I your everyday suburban teen, with somewhat prickly legs and a strong belief in the idea that all people are created equal no matter their race, gender, or other descriptors? It doesn't matter which one I am, you still have to respect me as a person and you don't get to decide for me: it's not up for you, it's my choice. Feminism doesn't come with a cookie cutter, we aren't all the same; every single one of us has our own events and reasons why we've all come to the same conclusion. 

Catfish

There's currently this show on MTV called "Catfish" which is basically 2 guys flying around America creeping on your bae to find out if they are who they say they are. Often times the person who seeking aid's significant other is a creep who stole someone else's pictures; nonetheless I've always had an issue with the show because a lot of these people have access to a computer and can easily look up this information on their own. I mean, maybe you can't fly out to meet them, but a lot of times a quick image search will prove that your up and coming rapper boyfriend Shawn in Atlanta is actually Chris, a college student in Connecticut turned model. 

It's like a shady version of "Married At First Sight" except instead of just flat not telling you they switch up the pictures. It's like putting a dollar into a vending machine expecting a Dr. Pepper but receiving a Dr. Thunder. A complete disappointment. Another bit about the show is how do you totally reject someone with serious emotional problems. If you're going way out of your way to make someone fall in love with fake you, real you must be for real messed up. And I've seen some episodes where the two reconnect and continue dating and it kind of scares me because the catfisher must be extremely emotionally volatile. You literally have to be the heart SWAT team with them at all times.

But that's not really the point of this entire post. I think what fascinates me most about the show is the idea that you can seriously fall in love with someone and you have no idea what they look like at all. Maybe I'm snobbish, I don't know but my motto is "pics or it didn't happen".. I don't know maybe I'm high maintenance? but a few Skype calls would be nice, a Facebook with more than 20 friends would be preferred, an address that isn't a PO box, and maybe a mutual friend would be beneficial.  I also have no room to speak about any of this because I am a perpetually single middle class suburban girl who writes blog posts in her free time instead of going to get turnt, BUT I DIGRESS. It's odd.

I think I'm too smart to get tricked into being in love with someone from the internet, but then again, I was a One Direction fan when they had exactly 0 songs released, so my brain activity may very well be limited. And I know a lot of people argue that they were "blinded by love", but, anyway, I'm still a huge skeptic about everything. If I'm at a deli and you tell me the cheese I'm buying is from Paris, I'm checking the serial number to make sure you didn't conveniently leave of the "Texas" part. And I know I'm weird, but I'm not a lame-o-zoid creep face who is going to devote so much time to stealing pictures online, so my chances of being on Catfish and meeting Nev "Heart Throb" Schulman are small. 

I've thought it through and even though someone stealing my pictures really creeps me out, one thing reigns true: someone using my pictures to catfish another person is pretty cool. It's kind of like you are the epitome of everything the catfish wants to be. You've got the right hair, makeup, face, proportions, and, well, pictures. And if you ask me it'd be kind of flattering. I guess if someone I don't know came up to me and told me they've been dating me for 2 years I'd be really creeped out, but the idea of being basically perfect to minimum 2 people seems fun. Someone for years would have had to Facebook stalk you, keep up with your current events and build a make believe life all around you based on bits and bobs, which yeah is really creepy...the more that I think about this, the more weirded out I am.

I would like to recant my previous statement. Please do not use my pictures to catfish someone, or at least don't tell me so I can act surprised when Nev calls me to ask if my name is Mary Claire and I have to tell him I'm Maame B and totally confused.

Sure, being in a love ponzi scheme isn't the best situation in the world, but the best position to be in when on the show "Catfish" is not as the stupid idiot that fell in love with a picture, or the creepo behind the fake identity, but as the real deal 100% official real life verified bystander-semi-victim. It's like the Beverly Hills of catfishing and in the words of Weezer: that's where I wanna be. 

Pictured: The crew of MTV's "Catfished" in a quick photo-op.