Ingraham: Back to School...or Back to Sex?

www.LauraIngraham.com ^ | September 3, 2003 | Laura Ingraham

[Choose Ye This Day]

Laura's Weekly E-Blast http://www.LauraIngraham.com

Back To School, or Back to...Sex?

Ah, the first week of September! It brings back warm memories of the nervous excitement I felt about going back to school as a kid outside Hartford, Connecticut. It was all about getting new folders and notebooks, maybe a cool pen or two, and practicing for a new field hockey season. And of course, getting back to school was fun because it meant my friends and I would be together to giggle and whisper about boys.

That is pretty much what I remember about the first week of school.

Girls today--I can't believe I'm writing that!--still deal with a lot of these same issues. They manage school work and after school activities and acclimate to their new classes, teachers, and cliques. Yet the pressures facing girls today are worse, not better, than what I experienced twenty plus years ago. Sure, we were urged to be as aggressive in the classroom and on the playing fields as the boys. But along with that (positive) message, girls today are being urged-- in music, television, magazines, and on the internet--to be aggressive when it comes to sex, too.

For years liberal elites cheered as the anti-tobacco lobby railed against RJR and Phillip Morris for "targeting" young people in their ads. Imagine that, companies profiting off something they know is bad for our youth. There was no such sanctimonious outrage toward MTV, however, when, during its Video Music Awards, a 45 year-old Madonna, French kissed girls decades younger (singers Brittany Spears and Christina Aguilera) for a cheap ratings boost. (I'm only now barely recovering.) Is the menage a trois really something we need to glamorize for young women today? (The audience at Radio City Music Hall went nuts.)

I know, it's nothing you haven't already seen on MTV's The Real World.

Of course this is nothing new. Large segments of the music industry, through its lyrics and videos, are sending girls and young women an undeniable message--Sex it up or get out! The lower the pants, the higher the skirt, the more sex you have, the more "woman" you are. Now that's empowerment!

The print media are no better. The once-innocuous teen magazines (remember "16" and "Tigerbeat"?) have taken content cues from dopey sex-obsessed magazines like Cosmopolitan. The September issue of Seventeen includes on its cover the teaser -- "The Sex Questions You Can't Ask Anyone Else Answered." Elle Girl's cover features stories on "What a Guy Wants" and "I Was a Teenage Prostitute."

In this cultural wasteland, is it surprising then, that informal surveys are showing that girls (and boys) today treat oral sex like a handshake?

Or is it shocking to learn in The Washington Post about a new booming business--plastic surgery for teens? Imagine the ad campaign -- "Nose-jobs...they're not just for Tori Spelling anymore!" Yesterday's girls pestered their parents for money to go the movies. If we aren't careful, today soon it could be, "Mom, it's not fair! Brittany got breast implants! Why can't I?!!"

Last weekend I forced myself to go to a movie last week that I knew would depress me--the new, critically acclaimed film Thirteen. It was based on the true story of a girl growing up in a broken home in Los Angeles who does drugs, steals, lies, and uses sex to get her way when she's not self-mutiliating with a razor blade in the bathroom. The film's writer, who also acted in the film, told a deeply disturbing, cautionary tale of her own teenage experiences.

The cultural influences that bombard girls today have real world consequences for them. There will be girls who get pregnant because they see promiscuity glorified. There will be girls who get raped because they put themselves in bad situtations with bad men who tell them "everyone's doing it." There will be girls who get demeaned in "wet t-shirt contests" all for the pleasure of young men.

After 40 years of telling girls they can be anything they want to be, feminists are MIA when it comes to the effects of a culture that pushing sex and deviancy on young women 24/7. They were so concerned about the "religious right" they ignored the "deviant left." One of the great things about early feminists is that they recognized that women are very influenced by social pressure. The culture forced women to play roles that they didn't want to play and limited their opportunities. But which is worse--encouraging young women to act and look like housewives or act and look like hookers? You decide.

[Choose Ye This Day]

I know, I'm a prude. But the degeneration of this young generation sickens me.

[Choose Ye This Day]

Laura Ingraham PING!

If you'd like on or off--please let me know. (If you were pinged, you are already ON the list.)


FYI--Laura's new radio show started this week, in the morning slot from 9-12 eastern. YES! Look for it in your area.

Also, "Shut Up and Sing" will be available in bookstores on Sept. 15!

[goodnesswins]

YOU are not the only one.....and they will complain about their "SEX LIVES" for the rest of their lives, too!!!

[Paleo Conservative]

Talk about their de-generation!

[At _War_With_Liberals]

I'm 35, I was wild in the 80's, but the girls then were of a much higher moral fiber than today. I never thought I would be shocked by young people's beliefs, but I am.

The difference is that we could critically think. Now, they are mind numbed robots. Anyone that does not conform is ostracized by not only peers, but by the establishment.

If I were 15 today, I would be drugged and reprogrammed for sure.

[WorkingClassFilth]

No, you're not a prude. Neither am I. I'm probably a degenerate on some people's scales, but I confine myself to my marriage vows. I want to pass that ethic on to my children and help them bypass the destructive decay that society is undergoing. Most of my children's peers don't even have stable families or both parents.

This pop-culture stuff is deliberate, premeditated and carried out with the full intent of destroying the moral/character strength of future generations. Do NOT appologize or denigrate yourself.

[Choose Ye This Day]

Exactly the same with me. I, too am 35. I, too, was somewhat wild in the 80's. I probably would have loved to have wild, promiscuous carnal relations with no strings attached back then, except that where I grew up GIRLS DIDN'T DO THAT.

There really were different standards back then.

[Choose Ye This Day]

You're right. The "I'm a prude" comment was rather tongue-in-cheek, but it was just to cut off the anti-morality comments that are almost sure to come on this thread from the libertine-with-no-consequences crowd.

But I agree with you. We're doing our best to raise our kids without the influence of this filth. That's why we don't even have a TV (well, we have one, but only for viewing select videos and DVD's).

[F16Fighter]

In this cultural wasteland, is it surprising then, that informal surveys are showing that girls (and boys) today treat oral sex like a handshake?

Just one more disturbing element left behind from the real "Legacy" of William Jefferson Clinton.

[Alter Kaker]

I'm 35, I was wild in the 80's, but the girls then were of a much higher moral fiber than today.

I grow up in early 1950s, and think same of 1960s. Generation of 1960s think same of 1970s. 1970s thinks same of 1980s. It is perhaps will of G-d that each generation infuriate the next and the previous. Aristotle complained of how children were then of lower character than when he was child. If devolution were rule, we should all be Hamas terrorists.

[cyborg]

I'm 29 and when I used to tell guys up front that I'm a virgin, they'd say oh that's wonderful, that's great, I really admire that. That would be followed by them taking off faster than the roadrunner. Why waste time with a single girl who isn't going to put out, when men can go with the 'sex and the city' wannabe whores? I'm not saying that to feel sorry for myself. It's just the reality of what's out there. I do not believe in asking a man out or approaching men romantically because I think that's the man's job. If I say that I want to be a wife and mother (which I do) they get crosseyed.

I refused to change myself and now men are beginning to come to me. They're older (I don't care about age) and almost all are from other countries of very conservative backgrounds. American girls have a very bad reputation, and I still feel by sticking to my morals that I'm helping to counteract that dried up whore Madonna's damage to society.

[Choose Ye This Day]

good for you. I really think there are many, many more women out there like you than the media wants to mention.

Stick to your guns. Decent guys are out there (speaking as a pretty decent guy myself, IMHO--at least my wife thinks so, even after 11 years). They may be harder to find--or should I say, it may be harder waiting for one of them to find you, cuz I agree the man should ask.

I asked my bride after about two dates, because I knew she was the right one, and I wasn't going to let her get away.

Just keep doing what you should be doing, and when you´re least expecting it, como llovido del cielo, BANG! It´ll happen.

[BradyLS]

Laura Ingraham pics, please! Coluter gets hers, so Laura she get the same props!

[bandleader]

Mega Dittos To That!My Favorite"Dr.Laura"is now a regular feature(7:00-9:00pm)on Rush's flagship station,WABC(50,000 Blowtorch Watts)!!!!!!!!!!!

[Choose Ye This Day]

Sorry. I'm HTML-challenged. I was hoping by Post #14 somebody would have obliged us...

[Choose Ye This Day]

Is Laura doing a separate 2-hour show just for WABC? or is it just 2 hours of her morning show re-broadcast at night?

I thought I heard her say she was doing 2 extra hours in the evening...

[MrNatural]

ping

[goldstategop]

Its called "The Britney Spears Effect."

[Travis McGee]

Laura, (if you're lurking), they took your show off in San Diego! (760 AM)

It was great, ROTF funny and dead on target. I really miss it!

[Choose Ye This Day]

The new show just launched Monday, so she's picking up affiliates as she goes along. She is now on in the morning, so make sure you check the dial during your a.m. drive time.

This may be a dumb question--do you get KRLA on 870, out of Los Angeles? I know you're a ways away, but I didn't know how far KRLA's signal reaches. Laura is on LIVE on KRLA from 6-9 a.m. every morning. 870 AM.

Her new show (she switched syndicators) is still funny, still biting and sarcastic.