#because the most recent episodes have a much inferior format

[fictionadventurer]

My hobbies include recognizing the names of Arthur writers on other PBS Kids shows.

[afrikan-mapambano]

George Jackson: Black Revolutionary

By Walter Rodney, November 1971 :

"To most readers in this continent, starved of authentic information by the imperialist news agencies, the name of George Jackson is either unfamiliar or just a name. The powers that be in the United States put forward the official version that George Jackson was a dangerous criminal kept in maximum security in Americas toughest jails and still capable of killing a guard at Soledad Prison. They say that he himself was killed attempting escape this year in August. Official versions given by the United States of everything from the Bay of Pigs in Cuba to the Bay of Tonkin in Vietnam have the common characteristic of standing truth on its head. George Jackson was jailed ostensibly for stealing 70 dollars. He was given a sentence of one year to life because he was black, and he was kept incarcerated for years under the most dehumanizing conditions because he discovered that blackness need not be a badge of servility but rather could be a banner for uncompromising revolutionary struggle. He was murdered because he was doing too much to pass this attitude on to fellow prisoners. George Jackson was political prisoner and a black freedom fighter. He died at the hands of the enemy.

Once it is made known that George Jackson was a black revolutionary in the white mans jails, at least one point is established, since we are familiar with the fact that a significant proportion of African nationalist leaders graduated from colonialist prisons, and right now the jails of South Africa hold captive some of the best of our brothers in that part of the continent. Furthermore, there is some considerable awareness that ever since the days of slavery the U.S.A. is nothing but a vast prison as far as African descendants are concerned. Within this prison, black life is cheap, so it should be no surprise that George Jackson was murdered by the San Quentin prison authorities who are responsible to Americas chief prison warder, Richard Nixon. What remains is to go beyond the generalities and to understand the most significant elements attaching to George Jacksons life and death.

When he was killed in August this year, George Jackson was twenty nine years of age and had spent the last fifteen [correction: 11 years] behind bars—seven of these in special isolation. As he himself put it, he was from the lumpen. He was not part of the regular producer force of workers and peasants. Being cut off from the system of production, lumpen elements in the past rarely understood the society which victimized them and were not to be counted upon to take organized revolutionary steps within capitalist society. Indeed, the very term lumpen proletariat was originally intended to convey the inferiority of this sector as compared with the authentic working class.

Yet George Jackson, like Malcolm X before him, educated himself painfully behind prison bars to the point where his clear vision of historical and contemporary reality and his ability to communicate his perspective frightened the U.S. power structure into physically liquidating him. Jacksons survival for so many years in vicious jails, his self-education, and his publication of Soledad Brother were tremendous personal achievements, and in addition they offer on interesting insight into the revolutionary potential of the black mass in the U.S.A., so many of whom have been reduced to the status of lumpen.

Under capitalism, the worker is exploited through the alienation of part of the product of his labour. For the African peasant, the exploitation is effected through manipulation of the price of the crops which he laboured to produce. Yet, work has always been rated higher than unemployment, for the obvious reason that survival depends upon the ability to obtain work. Thus, early in the history of industrialization, workers coined the slogan the right to work. Masses of black people in the U.S.A. are deprived of this basic right. At best they live in a limbo of uncertainty as casual workers, last to be hired and first to be fired. The line between the unemployed or criminals cannot be dismissed as white lumpen in capitalist Europe were usually dismissed.

The latter were considered as misfits and regular toilers served as the vanguard. The thirty-odd million black people in the U.S.A. are not misfits. They are the most oppressed and the most threatened as far as survival is concerned. The greatness of George Jackson is that he served as a dynamic spokesman for the most wretched among the oppressed, and he was in the vanguard of the most dangerous front of struggle.

Jail is hardly an arena in which one would imagine that guerrilla warfare would take place. Yet, it is on this most disadvantaged of terrains that blacks have displayed the guts to wage a war for dignity and freedom. In Soledad Brother, George Jackson movingly reveals the nature of this struggle as it has evolved over the last few years. Some of the more recent episodes in the struggle at San Quentin prison are worth recording. On February 27th this year, black and brown (Mexican) prisoners announced the formation of a Third World Coalition. This came in the wake of such organizations as a Black Panther Branch at San Quentin and the establishment of SATE (Self-Advancement Through Education). This level of mobilisation of the nonwhite prisoners was resented and feared by white guards and some racist white prisoners. The latter formed themselves into a self-declared Nazi group, and months of violent incidents followed. Needless to say, with white authority on the side of the Nazis, Afro and Mexican brothers had a very hard time. George Jackson is not the only casualty on the side of the blacks. But their unity was maintained, and a majority of white prisoners either refused to support the Nazis or denounced them. So, even within prison walls the first principle to be observed was unity in struggle. Once the most oppressed had taken the initiative, then they could win allies.

The struggle within the jails is having wider and wider repercussions every day.

Firstly, it is creating true revolutionary cadres out of more and more lumpen. This is particularly true in the jails of California, but the movement is making its impact felt everywhere from Baltimore to Texas. Brothers inside are writing poetry, essays and letters which strip white capitalist America naked. Like the Soledad Brothers, they have come to learn that sociology books call us antisocial and brand us criminals, when actually the criminals are in the social register. The names of those who rule America are all in the social register.

Secondly, it is solidifying the black community in a remarkable way. Petty bourgeois blacks also feel threatened by the manic police, judges and prison officers. Black intellectuals who used to be completely alienated from any form of struggle except their personal hustle now recognize the need to ally with and take their bearings from the street forces of the black unemployed, ghetto dwellers and prison inmates.

Thirdly, the courage of black prisoners has elicited a response from white America. The small band of white revolutionaries has taken a positive stand. The Weathermen decried Jacksons murder by placing a few bombs in given places and the Communist Party supported the demand by the black prisoners and the Black Panther Party that the murder was to be investigated. On a more general note, white liberal America has been disturbed. The white liberals never like to be told that white capitalist society is too rotten to be reformed. Even the established capitalist press has come out with esposes of prison conditions, and the fascist massacres of black prisoners at Attica prison recently brought Senator Muskie out with a cry of enough.

Fourthly (and for our purposes most significantly) the efforts of black prisoners and blacks in America as a whole have had international repercussions. The framed charges brought against Black Panther leaders and against Angela Davis have been denounced in many parts of the world. Committees of defense and solidarity have been formed in places as far as Havana and Leipzig. OPAAL declared August 18th as the day of international solidarity with Afro-Americans; and significantly most of their propaganda for this purpose ended with a call to Free All Political Prisoners.

For more than a decade now, peoples liberation movements in Vietnam, Cuba, Southern Africa, etc., have held conversations with militants and progressives in the U.S.A. pointing to the duality and respective responsibilities of struggle within the imperialist camp. The revolution in the exploited colonies and neo-colonies has as its objective the expulsion of the imperialists: the revolution in the metropolis is to transform the capitalist relations of production in the countries of their origin. Since the U.S.A. is the overlord of world imperialism, it has been common to portray any progressive movement there as operating within the belly of the beast. Inside an isolation block in Soledad or San Quentin prisons, this was not merely a figurative expression. George Jackson knew well what it meant to seek for heightened socialist and humanist consciousness inside the belly of the white imperialist beast.

International solidarity grows out of struggle in different localities.This is the truth so profoundly and simply expressed by Che Guevara when he called for the creation of one, two, three - many Vietnams. It has long been recognized that the white working class in the U.S.A is historically incapable of participating (as a class) in anti-imperialist struggle. White racism and Americas leading role in world imperialism transformed organized labour in the U.S. into a reactionary force. Conversely, the black struggle is internationally significant because it unmasks the barbarous social relations of capitalism and places the enemy on the defensive on his own home ground. This is amply illustrated in the political process which involved the three Soledad Brothers—George Jackson, Fleeta Drumgo and John Clutchette—as well as Angela Davis and a host of other blacks now behind prison bars in the U.S.A."

[brittanyyoungblog]

The True Story of How I Became a Sex Educator and Researcher

Our professional biographies tend to serve as a “highlight reel”—they only say the great things we’ve accomplished and don’t reveal the struggles, challenges, and uncertainties that went into building a career. To lift back the curtain on this, the Society for Personality and Social Psychology (SPSP) recently asked a number of scholars to submit their official bios along with their “unofficial bios” that reveal an extremely different version of the story with more twists and turns.

You can read some of the examples here. Although I didn’t participate in it, I thought it would be fun to do something similar on the blog. So here goes—I’ll start with my official bio, followed by the real, behind-the-scenes story.  

Official Bio of Dr. Justin J. Lehmiller 

Dr. Justin Lehmiller received his Ph.D. in Social Psychology from Purdue University. He is a Research Fellow at The Kinsey Institute and author of the book Tell Me What You Want: The Science of Sexual Desire and How It Can Help You Improve Your Sex Life. Dr. Lehmiller is an award-winning educator, having been honored three times with the Certificate of Teaching Excellence from Harvard University, where he taught for several years. He is also a prolific researcher and scholar who has published more than 50 academic works to date, including a textbook titled The Psychology of Human Sexuality (now in its second edition) that is used in college classrooms around the world. Dr. Lehmiller's studies have appeared in all of the leading journals on human sexuality, including the Journal of Sex Research, Archives of Sexual Behavior, and The Journal of Sexual Medicine. 

Dr. Lehmiller has run the popular blog Sex and Psychology since 2011. It receives millions of page views per year and is rated among the top sex blogs on the internet. In 2019, he launched the Sex and Psychology Podcast. It ranks among the top sexuality podcasts in several countries and has been named one of “11 sex podcasts that will help you get better in bed” by Men’s Health. 

Dr. Lehmiller has been interviewed by numerous media outlets, including The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Chicago Tribune, The Boston Globe, CNN, The Atlantic, The Globe and Mail, and The Sunday Times. He has been named one of 5 "Sexperts" You Need to Follow on Twitter by Men's Health and one of the "modern-day masters of sex" by Nerve. Dr. Lehmiller has appeared on the Netflix series Sex, Explained, he has been on several episodes of the television program Taboo on the National Geographic Channel, and he has been a guest on Dr. Phil. Dr. Lehmiller has also appeared on numerous podcasts and radio shows, including the Savage Lovecast, the BBC’s Up All Night, and several NPR programs (1A, Radio Times, and Airtalk). 

He is a popular freelance writer, penning columns and op-eds for major publications, including The Washington Post, Playboy, USA Today, VICE, Psychology Today, Men’s Health, Politico, and New York Magazine. He has also interviewed several prominent authors, journalists, and psychologists about their work for his blog and podcast, including Dr. Sanjay Gupta, Lisa Ling, Drs. John and Julie Gottman, and bestselling authors Christopher Ryan (Sex at Dawn) and Lisa Taddeo (Three Women). 

Unofficial Bio of Dr. Justin J. Lehmiller

When Justin’s parents asked him what he wanted to study in college, he said “psychology.” He had taken a couple of psychology courses in high school that he found to be absolutely fascinating; however, his parents discouraged him from this because getting into a PhD program was tough and uncertain and, if that didn’t work out, they didn’t see much potential in a Bachelor’s degree in psychology. They encouraged him to pursue a career in occupational therapy (OT) instead because a family friend said “they needed more men in the field,” and also because his parents saw it as a path to job security with a pretty good paycheck.

He applied to a 5-year combined Bachelor’s/Master’s program in OT at Gannon University and was admitted. Incidentally, he was one of two men in the entire program. He spent a year and a half in it and made straight As in every course, including biochemistry and physics—but he wasn’t happy. He recognized the importance of OT to society, but it wasn’t his passion. After showing his parents that he was taking college seriously and earning good grades, they allowed him to switch his major to psychology.

Upon completing his Bachelor’s degree, he only applied to Master’s programs in psychology because he didn’t think he had the chops to get into a PhD program right away. The inferiority complex was strong in this one, so he didn’t even try. He applied and was accepted to Villanova University’s Master’s program in experimental psychology. He was not competitive enough of a candidate to receive an assistantship initially, although he eventually received one after another student dropped out.  

He really wanted to study social psychology at Villanova, but there was only one social psychologist on staff at the time and several interested students. The only option for him was to beg one of the clinical psychologists to let him do a social psychology study for his Master’s thesis. 

As he began looking for PhD programs to apply to, he met Dr. Chris Agnew at a meeting of the American Psychological Association. Chris was studying romantic relationships and Justin thought that sounded like a fun thing to spend his life doing. Plus, Chris was a super cool guy who seemed like a fantastic mentor. He applied and was admitted to Purdue’s social psychology program, although he was initially waitlisted (and rejected from all but one other program). Justin’s plan was to get his doctorate and become a college professor. Teaching and research sounded like things he could probably do.

Justin was assigned to teach a Health Psychology course at Purdue during his first year. He had never taught a class before and quickly realized that he was very uncomfortable with public speaking. The class was a disaster. Attendance dropped 60-70% within the first couple of weeks. He had no idea what he was doing and dreaded going to class each day—and he received poor evaluations in the end.  

Around the same time, Justin submitted his first academic paper to a journal, it was promptly rejected and came with this review: “This manuscript is fatally flawed and of marginal utility, which is a shame because potentially interesting questions could have been asked given the topic and timing of the research. The tone of this manuscript represents the worst in scientific misconstrual, particularly because the claims are silly, wrong, or not warranted by the data.” Justin clearly sucked at both teaching and research—and if he couldn’t do those things well, how would he ever become a college professor? 

He also started hearing horror stories from advanced students in his program who couldn’t find jobs and were sticking around for 6 or 7 years in the hope of eventually landing a job—any job. All of this led Justin to question what the hell he was doing with his life. Maybe he should have listened to his parents after all? Chris encouraged Justin to stick with it, though, as did his friends and mentors. 

The next year, Justin got assigned to be a teaching assistant for a human sexuality course taught by Dr. Janice Kelly. It changed his life. He had to lead weekly discussion sections with students and answer their sex questions (a subject he knew next to nothing about, having attended Catholic schools most of his life). He read about sex extensively and instantly knew he had found what he really wanted to do with his career. He saw it as something fun and interesting—but also a way that he could make a real difference. He realized how little most people actually know about sex, and how education can correct so many harmful myths and misconceptions. 

An opportunity to teach his own human sexuality class opened up the following year, and he took it. This time around, teaching was different—he was passionate about the subject and the students were, too. He had no problems with attendance. He ended up teaching this course six times before he graduated and eventually received a teaching award for it. He found that he loved being a sex educator. 

He also found a solution to his public speaking anxiety: he started taking a beta-blocker (propranolol) on public speaking days, which removed physiological symptoms of anxiety. This allowed him to feel like himself in front of a crowd and, after just a few months, he no longer needed to take the medication—the anxiety had gone away completely. 

He started conducting his own sex research, too, including a series of studies with Dr. Kelly on friends with benefits. His research skills improved and his studies started getting accepted instead of rejected.   

He eventually landed a job at Colorado State University as an assistant professor, where he stayed for three years and continued his work as a sex educator and researcher. His partner couldn’t get a job in the area and had just taken a job in Boston, so Justin applied for every academic job within two hours of Boston. He was turned down for all of them. As a last-ditch effort, he applied for a teaching position at Harvard but had absolutely no confidence in it. He almost didn’t submit the application, but his partner encouraged him to do so. Justin had applied to Harvard’s PhD program previously and was rejected—if they didn’t want him as a student, why the heck would they want him as a teacher? 

To his great surprise, he got the job at Harvard, where he stayed for three years. However, he had given up his tenure-track job in Colorado for a teaching position in Boston with no job security. So he decided to reinvent himself just in case things didn’t work out. In his spare time, he started a blog, wrote a human sexuality textbook, and became a freelance media writer. Communicating about sex science to the public became his hobby and was going to be his backup career in case the college professor thing didn’t work out. 

Eventually, Justin’s partner wanted to move to Indianapolis for a job opportunity, so they left Boston. But Justin didn’t have a job at first and his backup plan wasn’t yet enough to be a full-time job. He knew the Kinsey Institute was nearby, so he drafted a letter to the director in the hope of establishing a connection, but he never sent it. He had a severe case of imposter syndrome and did not feel accomplished or experienced enough to have anything to do with what he saw as the premier hub for sex research in the world.

Much to his surprise, the associate director of the Institute reached out to him after he moved to Indiana to explore opportunities for working together. It was actually his hobby/backup plan that caught their eye—they were interested in working together to disseminate sex science to the public and were impressed with what he had done with his blog and social media.

Justin affiliated with Kinsey, but also jumped back on the tenure track with a job as the Director of the Social Psychology Program at Ball State University, which fortuitously opened up about 4 months after he moved to Indianapolis. After 3.5 years, he decided to leave full-time academics and do his own thing. His science communication hobby had managed to grow into a full-time job and it was no longer feasible to do that and academics. Plus, he found that the science communication work was really where his passion was. So, the backup plan officially became “the plan.” 

Justin now spends every day finding new ways to help educate and inform the public about the science of sex. He’s still not sure how things ended up this way, but wouldn’t trade his current job for anything. 

Want to learn more about Sex and Psychology? Click here for more from the blog or here to listen to the podcast. Follow Sex and Psychology on Facebook, Twitter (@JustinLehmiller), or Reddit to receive updates. You can also follow Dr. Lehmiller on YouTube and Instagram.

Image Source: 123RF

You Might Also Like: 

How Do You Become a Sex Researcher?

So You Want To Be A Science Blogger? Here’s What You Need To Know

Sex Question Friday: What Is A Sexologist And How Do I Become One?

from Meet Positives SMFeed 8 https://ift.tt/3qyX2CQ via IFTTT

[ellenlucasonlinedatingblog]

The True Story of How I Became a Sex Educator and Researcher

Our professional biographies tend to serve as a “highlight reel”—they only say the great things we’ve accomplished and don’t reveal the struggles, challenges, and uncertainties that went into building a career. To lift back the curtain on this, the Society for Personality and Social Psychology (SPSP) recently asked a number of scholars to submit their official bios along with their “unofficial bios” that reveal an extremely different version of the story with more twists and turns.

You can read some of the examples here. Although I didn’t participate in it, I thought it would be fun to do something similar on the blog. So here goes—I’ll start with my official bio, followed by the real, behind-the-scenes story.  

Official Bio of Dr. Justin J. Lehmiller 

Dr. Justin Lehmiller received his Ph.D. in Social Psychology from Purdue University. He is a Research Fellow at The Kinsey Institute and author of the book Tell Me What You Want: The Science of Sexual Desire and How It Can Help You Improve Your Sex Life. Dr. Lehmiller is an award-winning educator, having been honored three times with the Certificate of Teaching Excellence from Harvard University, where he taught for several years. He is also a prolific researcher and scholar who has published more than 50 academic works to date, including a textbook titled The Psychology of Human Sexuality (now in its second edition) that is used in college classrooms around the world. Dr. Lehmiller's studies have appeared in all of the leading journals on human sexuality, including the Journal of Sex Research, Archives of Sexual Behavior, and The Journal of Sexual Medicine. 

Dr. Lehmiller has run the popular blog Sex and Psychology since 2011. It receives millions of page views per year and is rated among the top sex blogs on the internet. In 2019, he launched the Sex and Psychology Podcast. It ranks among the top sexuality podcasts in several countries and has been named one of “11 sex podcasts that will help you get better in bed” by Men’s Health. 

Dr. Lehmiller has been interviewed by numerous media outlets, including The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Chicago Tribune, The Boston Globe, CNN, The Atlantic, The Globe and Mail, and The Sunday Times. He has been named one of 5 "Sexperts" You Need to Follow on Twitter by Men's Health and one of the "modern-day masters of sex" by Nerve. Dr. Lehmiller has appeared on the Netflix series Sex, Explained, he has been on several episodes of the television program Taboo on the National Geographic Channel, and he has been a guest on Dr. Phil. Dr. Lehmiller has also appeared on numerous podcasts and radio shows, including the Savage Lovecast, the BBC’s Up All Night, and several NPR programs (1A, Radio Times, and Airtalk). 

He is a popular freelance writer, penning columns and op-eds for major publications, including The Washington Post, Playboy, USA Today, VICE, Psychology Today, Men’s Health, Politico, and New York Magazine. He has also interviewed several prominent authors, journalists, and psychologists about their work for his blog and podcast, including Dr. Sanjay Gupta, Lisa Ling, Drs. John and Julie Gottman, and bestselling authors Christopher Ryan (Sex at Dawn) and Lisa Taddeo (Three Women). 

Unofficial Bio of Dr. Justin J. Lehmiller

When Justin’s parents asked him what he wanted to study in college, he said “psychology.” He had taken a couple of psychology courses in high school that he found to be absolutely fascinating; however, his parents discouraged him from this because getting into a PhD program was tough and uncertain and, if that didn’t work out, they didn’t see much potential in a Bachelor’s degree in psychology. They encouraged him to pursue a career in occupational therapy (OT) instead because a family friend said “they needed more men in the field,” and also because his parents saw it as a path to job security with a pretty good paycheck.

He applied to a 5-year combined Bachelor’s/Master’s program in OT at Gannon University and was admitted. Incidentally, he was one of two men in the entire program. He spent a year and a half in it and made straight As in every course, including biochemistry and physics—but he wasn’t happy. He recognized the importance of OT to society, but it wasn’t his passion. After showing his parents that he was taking college seriously and earning good grades, they allowed him to switch his major to psychology.

Upon completing his Bachelor’s degree, he only applied to Master’s programs in psychology because he didn’t think he had the chops to get into a PhD program right away. The inferiority complex was strong in this one, so he didn’t even try. He applied and was accepted to Villanova University’s Master’s program in experimental psychology. He was not competitive enough of a candidate to receive an assistantship initially, although he eventually received one after another student dropped out.  

He really wanted to study social psychology at Villanova, but there was only one social psychologist on staff at the time and several interested students. The only option for him was to beg one of the clinical psychologists to let him do a social psychology study for his Master’s thesis. 

As he began looking for PhD programs to apply to, he met Dr. Chris Agnew at a meeting of the American Psychological Association. Chris was studying romantic relationships and Justin thought that sounded like a fun thing to spend his life doing. Plus, Chris was a super cool guy who seemed like a fantastic mentor. He applied and was admitted to Purdue’s social psychology program, although he was initially waitlisted (and rejected from all but one other program). Justin’s plan was to get his doctorate and become a college professor. Teaching and research sounded like things he could probably do.

Justin was assigned to teach a Health Psychology course at Purdue during his first year. He had never taught a class before and quickly realized that he was very uncomfortable with public speaking. The class was a disaster. Attendance dropped 60-70% within the first couple of weeks. He had no idea what he was doing and dreaded going to class each day—and he received poor evaluations in the end.  

Around the same time, Justin submitted his first academic paper to a journal, it was promptly rejected and came with this review: “This manuscript is fatally flawed and of marginal utility, which is a shame because potentially interesting questions could have been asked given the topic and timing of the research. The tone of this manuscript represents the worst in scientific misconstrual, particularly because the claims are silly, wrong, or not warranted by the data.” Justin clearly sucked at both teaching and research—and if he couldn’t do those things well, how would he ever become a college professor? 

He also started hearing horror stories from advanced students in his program who couldn’t find jobs and were sticking around for 6 or 7 years in the hope of eventually landing a job—any job. All of this led Justin to question what the hell he was doing with his life. Maybe he should have listened to his parents after all? Chris encouraged Justin to stick with it, though, as did his friends and mentors. 

The next year, Justin got assigned to be a teaching assistant for a human sexuality course taught by Dr. Janice Kelly. It changed his life. He had to lead weekly discussion sections with students and answer their sex questions (a subject he knew next to nothing about, having attended Catholic schools most of his life). He read about sex extensively and instantly knew he had found what he really wanted to do with his career. He saw it as something fun and interesting—but also a way that he could make a real difference. He realized how little most people actually know about sex, and how education can correct so many harmful myths and misconceptions. 

An opportunity to teach his own human sexuality class opened up the following year, and he took it. This time around, teaching was different—he was passionate about the subject and the students were, too. He had no problems with attendance. He ended up teaching this course six times before he graduated and eventually received a teaching award for it. He found that he loved being a sex educator. 

He also found a solution to his public speaking anxiety: he started taking a beta-blocker (propranolol) on public speaking days, which removed physiological symptoms of anxiety. This allowed him to feel like himself in front of a crowd and, after just a few months, he no longer needed to take the medication—the anxiety had gone away completely. 

He started conducting his own sex research, too, including a series of studies with Dr. Kelly on friends with benefits. His research skills improved and his studies started getting accepted instead of rejected.   

He eventually landed a job at Colorado State University as an assistant professor, where he stayed for three years and continued his work as a sex educator and researcher. His partner couldn’t get a job in the area and had just taken a job in Boston, so Justin applied for every academic job within two hours of Boston. He was turned down for all of them. As a last-ditch effort, he applied for a teaching position at Harvard but had absolutely no confidence in it. He almost didn’t submit the application, but his partner encouraged him to do so. Justin had applied to Harvard’s PhD program previously and was rejected—if they didn’t want him as a student, why the heck would they want him as a teacher? 

To his great surprise, he got the job at Harvard, where he stayed for three years. However, he had given up his tenure-track job in Colorado for a teaching position in Boston with no job security. So he decided to reinvent himself just in case things didn’t work out. In his spare time, he started a blog, wrote a human sexuality textbook, and became a freelance media writer. Communicating about sex science to the public became his hobby and was going to be his backup career in case the college professor thing didn’t work out. 

Eventually, Justin’s partner wanted to move to Indianapolis for a job opportunity, so they left Boston. But Justin didn’t have a job at first and his backup plan wasn’t yet enough to be a full-time job. He knew the Kinsey Institute was nearby, so he drafted a letter to the director in the hope of establishing a connection, but he never sent it. He had a severe case of imposter syndrome and did not feel accomplished or experienced enough to have anything to do with what he saw as the premier hub for sex research in the world.

Much to his surprise, the associate director of the Institute reached out to him after he moved to Indiana to explore opportunities for working together. It was actually his hobby/backup plan that caught their eye—they were interested in working together to disseminate sex science to the public and were impressed with what he had done with his blog and social media.

Justin affiliated with Kinsey, but also jumped back on the tenure track with a job as the Director of the Social Psychology Program at Ball State University, which fortuitously opened up about 4 months after he moved to Indianapolis. After 3.5 years, he decided to leave full-time academics and do his own thing. His science communication hobby had managed to grow into a full-time job and it was no longer feasible to do that and academics. Plus, he found that the science communication work was really where his passion was. So, the backup plan officially became “the plan.” 

Justin now spends every day finding new ways to help educate and inform the public about the science of sex. He’s still not sure how things ended up this way, but wouldn’t trade his current job for anything. 

Want to learn more about Sex and Psychology? Click here for more from the blog or here to listen to the podcast. Follow Sex and Psychology on Facebook, Twitter (@JustinLehmiller), or Reddit to receive updates. You can also follow Dr. Lehmiller on YouTube and Instagram.

Image Source: 123RF

You Might Also Like: 

How Do You Become a Sex Researcher?

So You Want To Be A Science Blogger? Here’s What You Need To Know

Sex Question Friday: What Is A Sexologist And How Do I Become One?

from MeetPositives SM Feed 4 https://ift.tt/3qyX2CQ via IFTTT

[miraculousbox]

The Fandom’s Canon

Good morning, noon, and night, Miraculers! Recently, I’ve come across many different tropes and ideas that the entire fandom (or most of it) believes are true. This is probably due to the hiatus. This post is a partial list of what the fandom has considered canon, even though it hasn’t been confirmed through the show itself nor through the creators. Please note that when “Word of God” is mentioned, it means that Thomas, Jeremy, and other members of Zag Animation have confirmed it, but it hasn’t appeared in the show.

So keep in mind that this post is in no way trying to discredit headcanons, for all of them are good. The only objective here is to differentiate fanon from canon.

Nino takes pictures and video for the Ladyblog.

We do not know if Nino helps Alya with the Ladyblog. We don’t even know if Nino is tech-savvy with source codes, video format, video editing, et cetera. This is entirely fanon.

Akuma attacks happen every few days/weeks.

Canon has confirmed that akuma attacks can happen multiple times a day. Hawk Moth has all the time in the world and he desperately wants the Miraculouses. He has sent out up to three akuma a day, though this is rare. On average, he sends out at least one per day. He sends them out at any time of the day too, as seen in the Christmas Special. (Sources: “Lady Wifi,” “Princess Fragrance,” and “Antibug,” among other episodes.)

Marinette is nervous/not confident in herself/has not faith in her abilities/thinks Chat Noir wouldn’t like her civilian self.

If you are writing a fic before Marinette got Tikki, then this is true. However, ever since September 2 (”Stoneheart Origins Part 2″), this is false. Marinette has confidence in herself and her abilities. Sure, she’s clumsy, but she isn’t nervous, doesn’t lack confidence in herself anymore, and has faith in her abilities as a normal girl.

Marinette doesn’t want to tell Chat Noir who she is.

Tikki is the one who doesn’t want Marinette to tell Chat Noir her identity. Marinette wants to tell him. She says that in “Lady Wifi.” However, Marinette agrees with Tikki’s logic in not telling Chat Noir her identity, whatever that logic may be.

The public doesn’t like Chat Noir as much as Ladybug or the public relegates him to a sidekick role.

No. In “Pixelator,” the public adores him. They cheered him on when he was about to take Pixelator’s camera, which led to his capture. They trust Chat Noir. Moreover, the Copycat episode doesn’t show a single disappointed face when only Chat Noir shows up for the statue inauguration, showing that they’re pretty equal in the public’s eye. However, Manon and Antibug have been shown to make a difference between Ladybug and Chat Noir by respectively not mentioning him and calling him a sidekick.

Marinette has an online store/does commissions.

This has not been confirmed in canon. This has not been mentioned in canon. Marinette wears the clothes she makes, yes, but we have no proof that she sells them.

Gabriel Agreste abuses/doesn’t love his son/wife/family.

Gabriel does not physically abuse anyone in his family. Gabriel loves his family as shown in “Simon Says.” In the webisode “Adrien’s Double Life,” it is mentioned that Mrs. Agreste disappeared and that Gabriel changed when that happened. However, it is not explained the reason and the nature of the disappearance.

Gabriel may neglect Adrien to the care of Nathalie and indirectly emotionally abuse Adrien, but that depends on how you characterize Gabriel. Gabriel cares for Adrien, but he doesn’t know how to handle his emotions about his missing wife (as seen in “A Christmas Special”).

Gabriel forced Adrien to model.

According to the same webisode, “Adrien’s Double Life,” Adrien models sometimes for his father because he believes it can bring him closer to him, and because he thinks it helps Gabriel out. Adrien thinks modelling is fun, but he doesn’t want to pursue a serious career.

Adrien starves because he’s a model.

First, male model diets are far different from female model diets. Male models are encouraged to be huge and buff. Because Adrien is a teen, he doesn’t have to be buff. Second, Adrien can eat whenever he wants; he was given five dishes in Origins Part 1 just because he wanted a snack. Adrien eats at least three square meals a day. He probably eats more than that because of all of his extracurricular activities (basketball and fencing take a lot of calories). Nathalie takes care of Adrien. She doesn’t let him starve.

And lastly, as mentioned in the previous point, Adrien models for fun.

In “Animan,” Alya told/didn’t tell Nino about Marinette’s crush on Adrien.

According to Word of God, we don’t know. The creators do not know what Alya told Nino while in that cage. During the Miraculous Meetup in May of 2017, the four writers said that the cage came up almost every time they met and they couldn’t decide what actually happened there. They took a poll from the audience on who believed Alya told Nino and who didn’t. All but three people in the audience who voted said that Alya told Nino. Thomas took that poll into account as to what would be canon, but as of July, 2017, he has not said what happened in the cage. The true canon should come about with the eventual comic that discusses what happened in the cage.

Adrien thinks Marinette is scared of him/doesn’t like him.

This one is not technically false but would be in more futuristic headcanons.

Adrien and Marinette became friends when he gave her his umbrella. Marinette stuttered and blushed around him at first, but they are much more comfortable around each other as of “Kung Food” and “Gamer.” Marinette doesn’t stutter when he gives her compliments. They can speak with each other without Alya translating what Marinette said, and that shows that their relationship has improved off-screen. Marinette is not a shy girl, just an anxious one. Word of God says the characters do a ton of stuff off-screen that will never be mentioned on-screen.

It might be interesting to note, however, that Adrien actually feels inferior in their friendship (as seen in “Gamer”) because he thinks Marinette is a much more incredible person.

Adrien is oblivious to Chloe’s meanness and hatred.

He sees what she does. He just doesn’t call her out on it or throw her under the bus because she was his first friend. (”Origins Part 1″)

Marinette and Lila are friends.

Lila has never met Marinette. She met Ladybug. We have no idea how the two girls will interact, especially since Marinette does not like liars. Sure, Ladybug apologized to Lila, but Marinette knows Lila’s a liar. We don’t know if Marinette holds grudges, especially when the only source of Marinette’s ire is Chloe. We don’t even know Alya’s reaction to finding out Lila is a liar because there are only a handful of witnesses who saw Volpina as a villain and not a hero.

Master Fu gives up his Miraculous or Turtle!Nino happens.

As far as current canon is concerned (seasons 2-3, possibly 4 and 5), Master Fu isn’t giving up his Miraculous any time soon. Yes, there is going to be a new Miraculous holder that we don’t know about (as in, not Fox or Bee), but we also don’t know what Miraculous that person will have because it’s supposed to be a Miraculous that has yet to been seen in the show.

Gabriel has the Peacock Miraculous.

We don’t know. Thomas tried joking with the fans that it was weird that Plagg didn’t react to it, but the fans replied that Plagg doesn’t care about anything other than Camembert. It is unknown if Thomas was implying the Miraculous was a replica or the real thing. 

The akuma butterflies return to Hawk Moth.

Nope. Word of God says they go off in the wild and are free once Ladybug has cleansed them.

Hawk Moth can compel good people to do bad things/people can’t reject Hawk Moth.

Nope. Hawk Moth finds people who are in despair and have practically no hope of anything getting better. Then he compels them to do bad things. He can’t compel a good person to do bad things and people can reject him as long as they’re not akumatized. He can, however, cause akumatized victims pain if they don’t do what he wants them to (as seen in “The Evillustrator” and this thread).

Nino isn’t Moroccan.

Nino is Moroccan. Alya is from Martinique. Nathaniel is German and Jewish. Lila is Italian. Marinette is half Chinese. These kids come from all over the world. That is the intention of the show. The creators take pride in the show representing so many different people, especially people from other places with French history involved.

Ladybug and Chat Noir are known around the world.

Nope. According to “Kung Food,” Ladybug and Chat Noir are hardly known throughout France. It is not known how much of the world knows about Ladybug and Chat Noir, but it is safe to say that their influence does not go outside of Europe. Eventually, it will get to America and China, but those countries currently have other heroes who don’t necessarily have Miraculouses. It’s safe to say that they also aren’t known much throughout history. Mr. Kubdel was in charge of the King Tut exhibit, most likely could read hieroglyphics, and did not even acknowledge that there were ancient superheroes in a papyrus scroll prominently displayed on the wall. Jalil Kubdel definitely reads hieroglyphics and he didn’t notice the ancient Ladybug and Chat Noir until after he was akumatized. There are probably hundreds of more Egyptian Ladybug and Chat Noir artifacts across the world, yet no one has put anything together. (Source: “The Pharaoh”)

Marinette is always late/sleeps in class.

The only times Marinette is late are when Marinette forgets to set her alarm and when she purposefully ignores her alarm several times and her mother telling her about the alarm. Though these have happened, they haven’t been recurrent enough in the show to be called a habit. Akuma attacks also cause Marinette to be canonically late, but those normally happen while she’s in school already and the students have to evacuate the building.

Marinette has never fallen asleep in class. Chloe, Nathaniel, and Ivan, however, have all fallen asleep in class at some point.

There we have it. 20 things the fandom has considered canon even though it’s either unconfirmed or not true. This list is not exhaustive of all the small things the fandom does and it is likely to change as seasons 2 and 3 premier worldwide.  We here at the Box are not trying to force your fanfiction writing to be anything less than you want it to be. We’re just trying to provide accuracy where it can be provided. This post is mainly for people who prefer to write in more canon aspects.