#meat14

[qaaba]

#throwbackthursday #tbt #meat14 #thathairthough #the80s were a bad idea. #mauiandsons https://www.instagram.com/p/CEYdyg_jegd/?igshid=128ftld9392q3

[captainspangly]

This is me at 14. I used butterfly clips to hold my hair back, wrote terrible Harry Potter fanfiction, wanted to be a director when I grew up and still collected beanie babies. I was pumped as fuck to learn violin and always had to have my nails painted. I got kissed by a boy on the cheek for the first time and I broke up with him after because it was gross. I wasn't ready to date a man in his thirties. #meat14

[evangenitals]

Me at 14. Covering up a mouthful of braces by refusing to smile. I️ couldn’t even consent to the terrible haircuts my mom gave me. And that denim. Whoa! #MeAt14 #90sfashion #denim

[rebel-girl-queen-of-my-world]

#MeAt14 - the same age as the youngest girl harassed and abused by @judgemooreforsenate, known predator of young girls. Seeing that being outed as a sexual predator has barely dulled his rabid following shows that the religious right will sell out living girls in the name of the hypothetical unborn - namely, if you can make it impossible for women to get an abortion, you can stalk and grope all the teen girls you want! 😡Prove me wrong, #Alabama - vote @dougjonesforsenate. A zealot who gropes teens vs the man who prosecuted the KKK twice? This should not be a difficult choice. #dgb #dailygrabback #igrabback #votedougjones #dougjones #roymoore #roymooreisasexualpredator #believewomen #sexualharassment #metoo #listentowomen #alabamasenate #teenagegirl #me #nastywoman

[follyjam-blog]

The problem with the problem with Roy Moore

(source for above)

Now that you know what I’m referring to, let me tell you the better title would be “The problem with the problem with wanting a 14 year old.” This is because the problem people have with Roy Moore is a misshapen amalgam of transgressing consent, and of desiring that which should not be desired.

First, let me be clear that individuals who are younger than 18 (or sometimes 16) years old in the United States are unable to provide legal consent, and generally that I think this is perfectly appropriate from the standpoint of cognitive and social development. Second, let me be clear that Roy Moore is a piece of garbage who should have been abandoned long ago by any person claiming moral standing on the spectrum on the better side of reprehensible. Roy Moore can go to hell.

But the #MeAt14 reaction is misguided at best, and at worst detrimental to the core progressive mission of female sexual empowerment. You’ve probably seen it on the social medias: a photo of an adolescent girl, often from a yearbook or otherwise anodyne source, captioned with references to favorite childhood activities (like skipping rope), and sometimes an explicit rejection of sexual desire (boys were yucky). Often the posts are by people old enough that the image is of a scanned 35mm drugstore photographic print.

https://twitter.com/Alyssa_Milano/status/929537951796690945

https://twitter.com/SandraLondino/status/929713682883457024

https://twitter.com/LFinnlnf1964/status/930104793787523072

This side of the hashtag projects an image of 14 year old sexuality that is alien to me, lopsided with retrospective and selection biases, and puritanical. Let’s really go back in our memories and think about this age. At age 14, in the US, most people are transitioning between 9th and 10th grade (in the US). Even 20-30 years ago, by this age most boys and many girls (if they were lucky enough to be raised in a sexually liberated household) have masturbated. As illustrated by the teen-magazine advice letter above, many adolescents this age have more than a passing familiarity with deep, urgent, physical and emotional desire. In my personal experience as a 14 year old, I felt these desires, and I noticed their presence explicitly in the behavior of others. In my 20s, and in my 30s, my interactions with adolescent girls and boys has not revealed my personal experience to be idiosyncratic. I think it’s safe to say that on average, age 14 is not a time of sexual innocence. Of course there is a distribution of experiences, and I wonder if many of the #MeAt14 posters were on the low end of the desire curve, or if it is mostly their adult perspective rewriting their naivete as innocence.

The confusion of naivete and innocence is perhaps the reason the #MeAt14 campaign is sending a disempowering message more appropriate to 1950s and ‘60s America. Obviously the depth of emotional and sexual experience of any 14 year old is paltry, and this is one of the primary reasons for protecting young people from the much-higher-caliber wiles of adults. But consider what a girl of 14 might infer from the focus on the idea that innocence, aka sexual dormancy, is the thing that ought to protect adolescent girls from the likes of Roy Moore. If she, as in the quote above, doesn’t feel at all virginal because she sometimes fingers herself, then perhaps she infers that it is the fact of her abnormal sexual desire that has caused the unwanted attention of much, much older men. Or perhaps she infers her innocence is spoiled enough that she can consent after all, and maybe even has! Perhaps she infers these things and begins to feel both responsible, and like a freak.

And now what if this hypothetical girl is actually attracted to older men? This hashtag is yet another source of information telling her not just that sexuality at age 14 is wrong, but that her particular desire, as a class, is especially wrong. If she dares to explore it, and finds herself in danger because an older man with no moral compass tries to take advantage of this, is she going to feel comfortable asking for help? Does any of this “14 is an age of innocence” messaging contribute in any way to a young woman’s development of sexual agency and autonomy? 

No, it doesn’t, and it can’t, and that is why this aspect the of the #MeAt14 campaign is utterly broken, reproducing outdated and oppressive gender roles that progressive political ideologies purport to denounce. 

The problem with Roy Moore is not that 14 year old girls are, or are not, sexual beings. It’s not even that someone like Moore would perceive a 14 year old as sexually attractive. The problem, as is often the case, is about power, and consent. Age-of-consent laws are about protecting the naive and the vulnerable.

Though I initially focused on the part of this campaign that I think is really off-base and counter-productive, there are also many posts that detail rape and sexual abuse. This is where the #MeAt14 reaction gets it right. These posts underscore the fact that adolescent girls are raped and abused, often by adult males, and that Roy Moore is likely a criminal regardless of the age of the women he harmed because his power and their vulnerability (by way of their relative naivete) make it impossible to imagine a situation in which, even given a radical view of adolescent agency, they could consent.

What would this campaign look like if we did take adolescent sexuality as legitimate, and adolescent agency as, if not fully realized, at least recognizable? We would be able to tell girls that it’s okay to get hot for whoever you get hot for, regardless of anyone’s age. We would be able to tell them that no matter the circumstances, they are in control of their own sexuality, and that means never having to endure discomfort, regardless of the dirty, delicious, sexual things they have thought or done. We would be able to give them open and safe spaces to experiment with and discuss their sexuality so that they could develop their agency and autonomy through experience and knowledge. 

After talking to her friends, Corfman says, she began to feel that she had done something wrong and kept it a secret for years.

We would be able to make it clear in no uncertain terms that the criminal transgressions of adult men have absolutely nothing to do with anything a 14 year old girl might do, think, or feel.

[repressedmilf]

undefined

i made the funniest video i’ve ever seen #MeAt14

[lovelayladesigns]

Me at 14! https://lovelayladesigns.co.uk #meat14 #lovelayla #dreammattemousse #funnymemes #orangeface #teenyears #teenager #makeup https://www.instagram.com/p/ByKEA4ilobi/?igshid=wwc307opknjo

[beeotchgoddess]

#meat14 #meat14yearsold

[lajacobine]

.

[uglyscandalnormaltease]

moderate joke + no notes = 1 like

good joke + low notes = 1 reblog

bad joke + high notes = 1 like

bad joke + low notes - reblog = 1

bad joke + high notes + reblog + reblog + reblog = 2 likes

low notes + high notes + reblog + reblog + reblog = 3 likes

low notes + high notes + 2(reblog^3) = 4 likes

low notes + 2(reblog^3) + 1 like = 5 likes

high notes + low notes + 2(reblog^3) + 1 like + reblog^1 = 7 likes

sources: https://www.reddit.com/r/MeAt14/comments/2bmdnmn/wtf_when_are_we_done

[elisedietrich]

Self portrait on the edge of 15 #comics #graphicmemoir #selfportrait #meat14 #loosepencils #manicpanic

[lilyluminous]

#MeAt14

Can’t consent at 14! Not in Alabama...not ANYWHERE!

[wanderingawilderness]

開いてはいけない引き出しを開けてみる

最近夜眠れないで起き出すことが多い。隣で寝ているパートナーを尻目に部屋の中をぐるぐる歩き回っている。とくに何もすることはなくて、たいていはどこかで夜更かしするのを諦めて布団に入るのだけど。

というのも、最近封印している別の記憶が顔を出すので、この先どうしようかまよっているからだ。正直カウンセリングに行った方がいいんじゃないか、でもまたあの辛い記憶の整理をしたくない。一度パートナーに打ち明けようと思ったけれど、何となくやばそうな雰囲気を察してくれて、夜中に飲むヨーグルトをコンビニで買って散歩をした。真夜中の1時くらいで、とくに何も話さずに真っ暗な公園で二人で鉄棒をして遊んで、喉のあたりまで出かかっていたのをうやむやにしてから帰って眠りについた。

さて、開けてはいけない引き出しを開けようと思う。父親のレイプの記憶と戦った今なら、文章なら、声に出すのとはちがって気持ちに影響がでないかも。ダメだったら書くのはやっぱりやめてまた今度にしよう。

父親の弟にあたる叔父は、父親と重なる時期に私に虐待を加えていたもう一人の大人の男だった。私の古い記憶はおそらく保育園ぐらいからの虐待で、少しずつ始まった体への接触が小学生の頃にはクンニをされる程度にまで悪化していた。その映像はポーチの横にカメラがついた盗撮グッズで撮られていたけど、私はまだあのレンズが何を撮影していたものだったのかはわかっていなかった。ただレンズは畳に敷いた布団に寝そべっていた私の性器に向けられていたし、叔父は私の性器を覗き込みながらレンズを近づけたりしていた。

小学6年生の卒業をする頃には「親に秘密にしていること」への罪悪感ができていた。その頃失業したてで昼が暇だった叔父は車で私の下校中を狙って声をかけていたし、たいていは数少ない友だちといっしょに帰る最中だったので呼びかける声を無視できなくて車に乗っていた。叔父の「ドライブ」は3時間続いて、人気のいない海辺の駐車場に車をとめて中でバイブをあてられたりしていた。卒業まじかに刑事ドラマで見たセリフを真似してマンションの玄関前に停められた車の中で「これで終わりにしよう」と言ってみた記憶がある。

「寂しかったらこれを使って」と言って叔父から渡されたのはバナナの形をした小さなどうしようもないバイブで、気味が悪かったので紙袋に包んで後でこっそり捨てた。でも父親は私のゴミをその頃から漁りだしては私に報告したりしていた。その中にあれはあったかな…。

程なくして父親からのレイプが始まった。

中学３年の時、私は叔父に父親のレイプの話を打ち明けた記憶がある。叔父は少なくとも残虐な人体実験をして遊んでいた父親と違ってソフトな性虐待しかしていなかったので味方に見えた。

でも叔父は怒って部屋に上がってきた。私は誰もいない家の中で叔父にレイプされた。争った記憶が少なくとも父親のときに比べるとはっきりあって、その後叔父との縁は切れたと思った。それでも叔父からの身体接触は続いていて、祖母の家でこたつに入っている時、キッチンにたっている時、人眼を偲ぶように、でも人眼につくように虐待は続いていた。私の家はこんな家だった。

今日はここまで。記憶の引き出しをしまって鍵をかけよう。鍵にはセーラーネプチューンのキーホルダーがついている。安心しておやすみ。

[travisfludd]

it's so easy to get caught up it the publicity of the accused, that we can forget the waves of victims.... #maga #RoyMoore #RoyMooreChildMolester #MeToo #MeAt14 

[sicksinceofficial]

When you go to the mall in Alabama #roymoore #pedogate #childmolester #republican #alabama #sicksincecomic #mallstalker #meat14 #sicksince #childabuser #sneekysanta #makeamericagropeagain #maga @judgemooreforsenate

[aplusapp]

Twitter responded to the allegations facing Roy Moore, a Republican U.S. Senate candidate from Alabama, with the hashtag #MeAt14 and a reminder of how important age-of-consent laws are.