"Jessie Logan....RIP.."

I wasn't planning on doing another blog post so soon...but ya know, when stuff finds me, it finds me. 

So, last night, as I was checking away on my multiple social networking sites, the hubster has the TV on, as he always does. This heartbreaking story caught my attention. In a nutshell, what happened was this: eighteen year old Jessie Logan texted her boyfriend a naked pic of herself. Bad idea, OK. Very bad idea. Very, very bad idea.  I am in no way, shape or form pretending like this gal is a completely innocent victim. She did something unbelievably stupid. But what happened next is just beyond inexcusable. This poor girl was harassed so much that she ultimately wound up taking her own life.  Read the story linked to above on MSNBC for more details.

I guess what comes to my mind here, is what are we doing to our teenagers??? Groups like planned parenthood tell us that all this teenage sexual behavior is "perfectly normal" and that anyone who suggests otherwise should just get over themselves and pass around the condoms. And of course the contact info for the friendly neighborhood abortion clinic, in case those condoms break. Yeah...they think if everyone else would just back off and let them do their thing, then all would be happy in teenage sexland. NOT.

Here's the thing...I was listening to a lot of the commentary surrounding this at the time that this news broke.  One of the talking heads reporters stated that there is so much of this "sexting" (now there's a new word) going on is because these young girls feel that they must do this to get a guy.  Or they are seeking attention. The bottom line being that our culture has so sexualized EVERYTHING that sending naked texts of yourself to some guy that you're crushing on seems like a perfectly reasonable thing to do for many, many teenage girls. This gal Jesse Logan was a beautiful young lady. Gorgeous. What has happened in our culture that someone such as her would feel that she has to do this???

This is just a stunning example of what I call the "law of unintended effects". When planned parenthood and their ilk were screaming around about how prudish everyone else was and all the hippies in the sixties were yakking on about "peace, love and drugs, man",  I am quite sure that none of them were sitting there thinking that the end result would be young girls coming to feel that sex is all that they have to offer young boys. I'm quite sure that they still don't.  They see it as a totally separate issue. Curable by "empowering" girls and "raising their self esteem". Coupled with a nice dose of male bashing, because of course, we all know that men are such animals that nudie pix are all they respond to. Please. When in doubt, blame the men. If only they were more like women, then all would be as it should be. (can you feel the sarcasm dripping off of my keyboard here???) It's only getting worse. Women sexualize themselves because the culture tells them to.  A lot of men DON'T think this stuff is cool, but are afraid to even face that or say otherwise because then they might be suspect themselves. Talk about a Catch-22.... Everyone loses. Sorta sucks, doesn't it???

Of course the kids who harassed her get a big  helping of blame here too. I have heard comparisons to the Megan Meier cyber-bullying case in Missouri. To a point. Both involved torment by peers. That is where the similarity ends, though. Megan had done nothing except tick off her psycho neighbor. Of course the classmates should not have tortured Jessie Logan. That goes without saying. But the cultural blame goes off in another direction besides simply bullying gone too far.

It never occurred to these brainiacs in the sixties that there might in fact be some very, very good reasons that just about every major world religion has confined sex to married men and women.  These idiots keep blaming just about everything else BUT that for the natural course of events to emanate from all that free lovin'.  Ah yes, denial rears it's ugly little head.

The sad thing is, individuals are faulted simply for doing what their culture tells them to do. It takes a very, very strong person to swim against that tide. No one looks at the big picture. The talking heads and kiddie shrinks just try and put band-aids here and there to avoid looking at the obvious.  And girls like Jessie Logan pay the price...