Pssst! Virginity

VIRGINITY

Yes, I'm going to talk about it. But who ever does? Outside of Breakfast Club, at least. Nobody. Ew.

Virginity. Virginity. Virginity. Get used to how it sounds. Get comfortable with your own. Get comfortable with your own lack of.

In the halls of high school, among the most judgmental spaces as well as some of the most fertile breeding grounds for rumors, sexual acts oneself has "accomplished" and having the scoop on those of others are treasured. I wanted to know why.

Perhaps what I was most curious about is why students would spread baseless lies or, if the gossip was grounded primarily in truth, how did it get out in the first place? Opening an ear to any hallway conversation would yield talk about sex and related acts. It's not taboo in conversation. When the acts truly occur, though, it suddenly becomes prized information–a secret–that people seek out.

After a great deal of thought, I grappled with encounters I've had with these kind of information tidbits about people's sex lives in addition to some of my own experiences. (Don't get your hopes up...my love life is staying off the internet!) I concluded that virginity was the pinnacle of sex secrets and that its significance stems from our own historical social constructions of its importance, however circular that seems. Knowing what we know about our experience with sex secrets, who's gotten with who and everything we don't want people to know about us, it is no wonder why there is a lot of confusion about sexual acts among teens. Even though we so treasure this information about others, I am rather convinced that it stems from our own insecurities and relative lack of experience. My suppositions were confirmed when I stumbled across a series that the Huffington Post published that included teens' questions and experiences with virginity–keeping it, losing it, and the positives/drawbacks to both options. I found one post by a 16-year old particularly telling:

"When I was 15, sex was mysterious, intriguing and terrifying. It wasn’t until months later when I figured out that I didn’t want to or have to want to have sex [...] Our views of sex are so misshapen by the plethora of opposing messages we see every day. Our parents tell us to not have sex. The media shows us teens have sex all the time, from casual hookups to committed couples. We are told to wait until marriage, but to be safe. We are told that we won’t fit in if we haven’t had sex by the end of high school. We assume so many of our peers are “sexually active,” as the adults call it, but how many of us are actually having sex?"

Various audiences each have part of the experience that they don't want you ti hear about. As the author of this post astutely alludes to is that for her parents, it's that sex is a reality of teenagehood. From the media, it's that not every teenager is hooking up consistently with people. Our peers don't want us to know this either. Conversely, our peers are some of the biggest critics about just how many people others are hooking up with. If it's a small number, you're desperate. If it's a higher number, somebody is termed a "slut." It's this ambiguity and differing opinions from the multiple influences in our lives that enshrines the construct of virginity in myth that actually has the potential to lead us into deep, murky water for our physical safety and/or emotional health. 

The Crossroads of Secrets and Politics in Iran

Secrets are one thing if they exist on a personal or interpersonal basis. They can still cause plenty of harm, and sometimes revealing them can do some good, but the impact secrets have increases exponentially when those secrets come into play nationally and—even more so—internationally. There have been plenty of secrets in the United States that have been revealed, especially lately. Some, like Snowden detailing some of the inner workings of the NSA in early 2014 and the CIA releasing its controversial report on torture have shaken many people’s faith in our government. In this post, however, I would like to focus on a Middle Eastern nation–with which the United States has rather tenuous relations–that has a history of political secrets and has historically forced many of its citizens to suppress parts of their identity. To make significant parts of themselves a secret.

In the mid-20th century, between his election in 1951 and his fall from power in 1979, democratically elected Prime Minister Mohammed Mosadegh made an attempt to nationalize the nations oil industry, playing into the fears of westerners of tumult in the region and of a dwindling energy supply. Naturally, the US overthrew Mosadegh because his rule was not in our interests. What we failed to calculate was that the strongest movement in the country was not one that would be any more favorable toward our policies or culture than the previous regime. In fact, it would be just the opposite. The Islamic Revolution was a movement to de-secularize Iran and purge it of Western influences. Many of the effects of these imposed ideological principles show up in different ways in the lives of the multitude of character is Azar Nafisi’s Reading Lolita in Tehran. 

One thing that is hard for us to appreciate about the characters that popped up in Nafisi's novel, the people that really were stifled by the Revolution or anybody else who has experienced an oppressive regime is that the silence that people are forced into acts as a sort of seal/cap on their purpose in life. It keeps them helpless, and that is a tunnel where there isn't visible light at the end. After the fall of these kinds of regimes, we sometimes hear stories of the heroes of the revolution/counterrevolution. Figures like Miep Gies emerge as beacons for heroism. Rightly so. What often gets lost in the fold of the events and the centralized focus on individuals after such tumultuous times is the inherent sadness of a stuation where the governing body, in a position of overwhelming strength, exercises its power over individuals who are to blame for nothing. Entire parts of people's identities are forced under wraps...or under a chador. Unless one claimed to adopt the philosophy of the regime if they were known to previously abide or follow a different set of ideological principles, which would mean a certain kind of concession of integrity, then they would lose all the same. Thousands up on thousands of these cases existed. Thousands upon thousands of secrets were kept, even with regard to who one's family was, the god(s) to whom they prayed at night, etc.

We are reminded in our nation's own relatively recent past (and present) of the kind of pain that forcing people to keep secrets can lead to incredible division and loss. Therefore, this is not just a post about Iran, but also any country's history of persecution. It is also about the tragedy of being forced into a mold that one isn't going to fit. It is not about the chracters in a book I, a well-off student in the United States of America, am reading, but rather about the members of our global community who have to live in fear. It is a post about violation. 

The Untold, Among other Thoughts

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Every Screen Has Two Sides

"Secrets, secrets, are no fun! Secrets are for everyone." The individual who came up with this cute catch phrase could never have been so right, but they also could never have anticipated the application to one of the most defining problem/success of this generation: social media.

Secrets may be fun for the taunting, but the potential for people to cause harm toward the subject of the subject shoots through the roof when social media becomes the platform for this form of cyberbullying. In an article by The Economist, the most prominent form of bullying has shifted away from the bully on the playground who stole kids' lunch money to the person or people who preserve their identity online. The industry of anonymous social media sites and platforms sprouted in the mid-to-late 2000s when VC firms invested in inklings that later transformed into multi-million and, for some, multi-billion dollar customer bases. One example is Yik Yak, a challenge that many school have had to deal with, the Glenbrooks included. Yik Yak is a location-based site where one can post just about anything and has an audience of whoever is within a 1.5-mile radius can view. It became a hotbed of gossip and slander and has caused many students--or victims--to seek help from guidance counselors. Clearly, there is a problem with the anonymity factor in this case. Especially for teens, the concoction of being able to keep oneself secret--which functionally erases common bounds of morality and conscience--and having secrets of others to share, a great deal of harm can be done. However, is anonymity all bad?

Contrary to popular belief, there are always two sides to the screen. There is certainly a case against the traditional social media platform like Facebook, that actually centers around ego, vanity, and the concept of a profile: the image one architects for the rest of the world to see. Little do most users know that what they don't see is equally if not more important than one of their friends' or followers' profiles. By hiding secrets, which are what we are in the end, a false or distorted image has the ability to make others feel quite bad about themselves (see video below). In this article, the case is made that given the fact that this same focus on vanity, that has even driven people to suicide, people are more likely to come forward and make themselves vulnerable. I an interview, the CEO of a booming company (that pioneered the application known as Whisper) pulled up a screenshotted conversation between one girl, who shared that she was going to inflict self-harm, and another girl who talked her down anonymously. Granted, we must put this situation in context ad look at the application holistically, but it is important to recognize the alternative impacts that secrecy can have.

After all, we are more inclined to share secrets with those we don't know with the comfort that there isn't, theoretically, a way for those secrets to be traced back to our thumbs tapping the screen in little text boxes. Drawing the distinction between whose secrets are being shared, however, does teach us the valuable lesson that coming forward with our own secrets can go as far as to save us, but sharing those of others before they are ready can do the exact opposite. Secrets, therefore, should by no means be considered playthings and need to be treated as even more fragile when posted where they can't be erased.

Response to "Soldier of Change takes one soldier from the closet to center stage"

September marked the three-year anniversary of the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy for gays and lesbians in the U.S. Military. DATD is perhaps one of the best contemporary examples of secrecy being woven into the fabric of an institution so large as our armed forces. The transition away form this enforced secrecy has been a critical one for increased rights for gays and lesbians in this country and, more importantly, marked an ideological shift with regards to how we treat openly gay people. While the transition for most has gone relatively smoothly, there are still stark examples of prejudice that have lurked, targeting the men and women who continue to serve an apparatus and a nation that doesn't always treat them with the respect to which they are entitled given such their service to the nation. (To see one example, see the article on Air Force Maj. William Britton http://www.glaad.org/blog/soldier-change-takes-one-soldier-closet-center-stage). 

The decision to move away from DATD was not one that happened over night. Despite its official end, I don't believe it to be a policy we have entirely abolished. In an (article) published by GLAAD, a soldier by the name of Stephen Snyder-Hill (then Captain Hill) submitted a video to a 2011Republican primary debate two days after the repeal of the DATD from his station in Iraq. Hoping other people would ride the same tide of change that the military had, he reasonably urged the Republicans to consider extending spousal benefits to legally married soldiers. He was not only rejected in his request, but those attending the primary collectively booed the soldier off of the virtual stage. (While he no doubt assumed some sort of risk involved in submitting this video, there is still a line that was crossed by one who bashed him.) Although it is now a couple years after the fact, this resonates in a variety of ways. First and foremost, Snyder-Hill is a rather clear example of how somebody's secret can be used to malign them in the moment. As a result of his outing himself and merely encouraging further discussion of rights, he was ridiculed and almost certainly treated differently as a member of the armed forces after becoming the focal point for the military's gay rights movement. (His memoir, "Soldier of Change: From the Closet to the Forefront of the Gay Rights Movement", was released in June 2014). Secondly, just after making room for change, the door was slammed on an entire segment of the population, that had just been accepted regardless of preference, with a message that couldn't be missed: "we don't care if it's acceptable to tell your secret or not because you are still not equal."

While laws have since changed and the Defense of Marriage Act has been extended to the military, the importance of the secret exhibits itself in a couple of different ways in Snyder-Hill's case. While he was ridiculed by the Republicans in the moment and likely ridiculed as well by other soldiers for a period of time after that, the case he presented by coming forth with a secret has played a role in helping same-sex couples to have same benefits as heterosexual couples have extended to them. We all have secrets we come forth with at some point in our lives. Even if those don't have the same profoundness or audience that Snyder-Hill's did, there are very often two sides to the secret that determine whether or not a secret is worth sharing. Those two sides are the side that empowers and the side that maligns. Will you malign yourself but wind up helping people in the long run, will you wind up only benefitting yourself while damaging others' images, or is there another combination? Just some food for thought as we go about keeping and telling the big and small secrets in our daily lives.

Until next time,

Aaron

Pssssst.

Yeah, you.

I may not be close enough to whisper in anybody's ear. Nonetheless, here is where I will tell secrets. They won't only be my own. In fact, I will also document some of the secrets shared with me that are pertinent to this blog, I will delve further into some famous secrets that have already been uncovered in history and literature, and I will explore the parts of our psyches that clamp down on to information on others that could potentially increase their vulnerability.

What's so funny about secrets is that, especially in the present day and age with the exposure of the "dirty details" technology is capable of, secrets are right in front of us all the time.

Just ask somebody like Jennifer Lwarence, the beautiful 24-year old star featured in the background of this blog on the Vanity Fair cover. Up until about five weeks ago, she was one of Hollowood's straightest arrows (yes, arrows, like the ones she is known for shooting with deadly accuracy in the Hunger Games films). Scratch that, she still is one of Hollywood's straightest arrows. She is articulate, she is a human rights activist in many media and she has opted out of the Hollywood talented-actress-to-superficial-screw-up metamorphosis, which is astoundingly rare. Anyways, I digress; just over a month ago, there was a breach of security of Lawrence's iCloud account, where she had nude photos stored. Without spending too much time deciding whose fault it was for the nude photos being leaked, the hacker's for leaking the photos or Lawrence's for having taken them in the first place, these photos were meant to be secret. And that secret getting out, judging by her lack of public appearance for an entire month, had very real consequences which Lawrence must now contemplate how to face.

Readers, you and I tend to get so wrapped up in the idea that having someone else's secret empowers us and puts the subject of the secret at a disadvantage. The same secret that empowered the blogger degraded lLawrence. The same secret that empowered Edward Snowden ameliorated a nation,s confidence in the leaders there to keep them safe. In a nutshell, a secret is a form of story; as one of my favorite authors, Chimamanda Adichie (who penned a New York Times bestseller titled Americanah and whose TEDTalk can be found here) said, "stories can be used to malign a [person], but they can also be used to empower them."

I'm about to make myself vulnerable to illustrate this point. I am a closeted gay high school/soon-to-be college student-athlete. You're probably saying to yourself, okay? What gives? Well, I say closeted because that means that you are among the select few that know my secret. If any one of you were to send an email to the kid who I've sat next to in classes for three hours a day for the last three school years telling him I liked dudes, he would be in for quite a shock. The teammates I've changed next to in locker rooms for years would also be quite surprised (probablyn less from the fact that I'm gay and more because I haven't found them attractive enough to hit on). In that sense, you have a lot of dirt on me. You have power. Go ahead, feel good about that.

This story I have just shared with you is just one dimension, or story, of the many of which I am comprised. Your wielding of that power could cause rather sobering social challenges for me to face. That being said, I feel a significant burden has been lifted knowing that I'm not continuing a practice I call "untruthing" (not lying, but not being forthcoming with people because I haven't been ready until now). The people who lay eyes on this blog are the only people in my life who I have totally "truthed" to. Stated alternatively, you will be the first people in my life who I have not untruthed to. I trust you. I find that pretty empowering, and I hope you do too.