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Reading my teenage blog: Part II – “Its Just A Small Town Saturday Night”

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“Reading my Teenage Blog” is a series of essays by writer Skylar Baker-Jordan where he, well, reads the online diary he kept as a teenager and responds as a man in his 30s. He hopes to find insights into how he – and the world –  has changed from the early ’00s to the early ’20s. Some names have been changed and some portions redacted in order to protect the privacy of those he writes about.

This one was painful because of how explicit I got. I considered redacting a few portions, and did one (I explain why I didn’t, and why I did). I’m still not sure this is the best idea I ever had. Part of me feels like this will come back to bite me in the ass. Still, I think there are lessons to be learned and insights to be gleaned by looking back at what I wrote, for the world to read on the Internet, in the early noughts. Let’s see if you agree.

Its Just A Small Town Sunday Night 4/21/2002
Well, I just got off the phone with [Sabrina]. We both agree that what happened between us last night should stay between us-especially because I’m gay. When she asked me what posessed me to do that, I said it was the high that I was on. I really think that there was so much nicotine in my system that I was high and not thinking straight. I smoked two packs in about eight hours. I’ve NEVER done that before. But moving on.

I kissed a girl and I… didn’t like it. Very fucking cute that I would blame it on being “high” off nicotine. I don’t actually remember this specific incident, but picking up on context clues and a fuzzy 18-year-old memory tells me I kissed Sabrina. This was not the last time I would kiss a girl (this would happen a couple times in college), but it was never more than a funny game to me.

From 2001 – 2002 I was on what many called at the time (and maybe still do) the “bi now, gay later” plan. I knew I was gay, but for a few months I waffled, telling others – and myself – that I was maybe bisexual. I knew I wasn’t, but being gay seemed so freaking hard. Weirdly, I remember that it wasn’t the homophobia that bothered me, but the thought of being single through high school. Of course, once I discovered that being gay wouldn’t condemn me to a sexless adolescence I quickly gave up the ghost of performative bisexuality and just came out as plain ole’ boring gay. I wonder if kids these days still struggle with this? I was the only openly gay kid in my high school (though not the only gay kid – there were others, and I knew who they were because they told me). For me, dating was a real challenge. These days, though, so many kids come out. Is finding a teenage romance still a problem? I don’t know.

I do think I remember this night, though. If not *this* night, a night around this time that has stuck with me my entire life. My sophomore year there were three girls I hung out with for a few months – Sabrina (mentioned above), Marida (pronounced Merdee), and Brandie (or Brandiie or some unique spelling – can’t quite recall). They were sound, but we drifted apart pretty quickly. I remember one night, though, spent cruising mountain roads while we blasted country music, smoking cigarettes in the park under a pale moonlight, driving 30 miles to Wal-Mart just to walk around. I’ve often wondered why I remember that night so much. We had a laugh, but we didn’t do anything memorable. Yet looking back on it, I see that it’s one of the last nights of innocence I ever had. Just me and three girlfriends goofing off. Yeah, we smoked cigarettes, but that was as rebellious as we got. Flying down a country road blasting Alabama through the mountain night felt quintessentially southern, quintessentially high school. I think that’s why it sticks with me.

Mark. We made out for about 30 minuets yesterday, and for me to say that I didn’t enjoy it would be a lie. He is so sexy, so preppy, has the cutest feet (next to [Ryan]) and is so my type. But I didn’t feel that spark with him that I felt with [Ryan]. As much as I want him to be, he’s not [Ryan]. And when I was giving him that hand job, I couldn’t help but to feel that I was cheating on [Ryan]-even though we aren’t even dating. Mark gave me his number and wants to get together again, and even though I enjoyed his company and his kisses (and his cum…..yes thats nasty I know but hey this is my diary-my most private thoughts go in here-just the whole world gets to see them), I think I like him more as a friend. In fact, my love for [Ryan] has never wavered. I only want him. And that scares me. It really does.

I almost redacted two parts of this, and you can probably figure out which two parts they are. Something we didn’t understand in 2002 is that the Internet is forever. To find my teenage blog you would really have to do some deep digging. The website has been offline for at least 16 years. Yet, it’s still there if you know where to look. That’s a frightening thought, and any Gen Z folk reading this should take heed. Nothing online ever goes away.

Now, Mark. I have no idea who this is. I do not remember a Mark. Sorry, Mark. If you read the previous entry in this series, you’ll know I do remember Ryan. He was probably the first boy I ever loved, even if it was a puppy love. Still, dealing with those feelings as a teenager is scary. I had only just turned 16 when I wrote this. At the time I felt so grown-up and certian of myself. Looking at this, though, it’s clear that I was still a child and deeply insecure and unsure of what I was doing. This isn’t new; adults looking back at their teenage years with mortification is a tale as old as time. It’s especially uncomfortable, though, when you read the words you wrote as a youth. 

[Sabrina] thinks that me giving up sexual activity is the worst thing I could do. I’m going to be so “jittery (I’ll) be bouncing off the walls.” I swear, I dunno what to do. I really, really don’t. My heart says give up sex for him, but my head (and dick) say not too. So I dunno. Me and [Sabrina] have decided to tel [Ryan] about my dream. She’s going to do it tomarrow-somehow. [REDACTED]

I redacted part of this because taken out of context or in bad faith it could be used to hurt someone, and while I think the chances of anyone I went to high school with reading this or figuring it out small, it’s not something I want to worry about. None of the people I wrote about in this diary consented to being written about, a harsh truth I have to accept as an adult and actually had to reckon with in high school. My senior year, my online diary became public knowledge and I became Gossip Girl before there was a Gossip Girl. It was never my intention, but it happened, and I couldn’t control the fallout. I was indignant at the time. I am remorseful now.

I wish I had the context for my decision to “give up sex” because I don’t remember this at all, which probably means I didn’t do it. Of course, as of this writing I was still a virgin. I wouldn’t be for much longer; looking at the date this was published, I would lose my virginity within three weeks of its writing. Still, I’d love to know what was going on in my head and in my life before and after this entry. Unfortunately (or fortunately depending on how you look at it), only excerpts of my online diary from 2001 – 2003 are available, meaning some things will be mentioned without context and with no way to know what exactly was happening. Things I thought I would remember forever have been forgotten, while some things I read bring back memories so vivid they could have happened yesterday. Funny, that.

I’m really annoyed that I didn’t know how to spell “tomorrow.”

Well, thats it. Nothing major has happened today. I’ll ttyl all.

When was the last time any of us used “ttyl.” I wonder if teenagers today even know what “ttyl” means?

Peace.

Bye.

Skylar Baker-Jordan is a freelance writer based in Tennessee. His work has appeared at the Independent, Huff Post UK, Salon, and elsewhere. Follow him on Twitter @skylarjordan and become a sustainer at www.patreon.com/skylarjordan

The gay community must do more to protect young gay boys from sexual exploitation

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Earlier this month, news broke that Ralph Shortey, a Republican Oklahoma state senator and prominent Donald Trump supporter was charged with engaging in child prostitution for soliciting sex from an underage boy on Instagram and Kik, social media apps popular with teenagers. Shortey was found with the boy (whose name is withheld for privacy) in a motel.

There are plenty of cases in Britain of boys being sexually exploited.. 2014 murder of Breck Bednar, a 14-year-old boy from Essex who was groomed by a 19-year-old man before being killed in a “sadistic and sexual” act of violence stunned the nation.  British boys as young as 10 were the victims of a prolific Canadian paedophile who used the internet to prey on boys around the world. And earlier this year, Colin Gregg – the heir to the Greggs bakery fortune – was alleged to have molested four boys over the period of three decades.

These cases are not isolated incidents. A 2014 study funded by the Nuffield Foundation and conducted by NatCen and the University College London found that 1 in 3 exploited children supported by the children’s charity Barnardo’s is a young man, a startling statistic that shows boys and young men are far more vulnerable to exploitation than many would think. “Society is miserably and unacceptably failing sexually exploited boys and young men,” Javed Khan, the chief executive of Barnardo’s, told the BBC at the time. “The telltale signs are being missed because of a lack of awareness and stereotypes about the nature of this form of abuse.”

We don’t frequently think of boys as being sexually exploited, in part because girls are viewed as so much more vulnerable and in part because boys are often so reluctant to come forward, fearing that doing so will make them appear weak or emasculated. Yet boys and young men, particularly young gay and bisexual men, are often the targets of sexual predation. SaferKids, an app which notifies parents if their children download one of thousands of apps where they could fall victim to sexual predators, over a dozen examples of children being sexually exploited by men they met on Grindr alone.

This isn’t to say that this is solely an issue effecting gay and bisexual boys and young men, nor is it to imply that perpetrators are often gay and bisexual men. All boys and young men, regardless of sexual orientation, are vulnerable – and sexual orientation does not a predator make. A 2014 report by the West Sussex County Council actually shows that the majority of the boys who sought help from Yorkshire MESMAC’s BLAST programme identified as straight. (Yorkshire MESMAC  is “one of the oldest and largest sexual health organisations “in the UK, and their BLAST programme works specifically with boys who are victims of or vulnerable to sexual exploitation.)

“It’s not someone’s sexual orientation that puts them at risk,” the report reads. “It’s their circumstances, the situation they’re in and their beliefs.” A teenage boy who seeks a boyfriend his own age is much less likely to be exploited than a boy who seeks an older woman for sex. But, the report adds, “gay and bisexual young people and those questioning their sexual orientation may be particularly vulnerable to being sexually exploited if parents do not support them, and if schools do not provide adequate information and support that is relevant to them.”

We can’t even get LGBT-inclusive sex and relationship educated mandated in British schools, and LGBT young people represent up to 24% of the British homeless population – a startlingly disproportionate share when compared to the overall demographics, and evidence that many kids still face rejection at home. Homeless boys are more likely to be exploited for sex or prostitution, but even those kids who aren’t kicked out of their homes are likely to turn to apps such as Grindr, Scruff, and Recon to connect with other gay men.

This is normal and fine. When I was a gay teen coming of age in a small Kentucky town, chat rooms were my only opportunity to talk with other gay people. The problem with Grindr, Scruff, and Recon is that they are apps tailored specifically to hook gay men up with sex – a perfectly acceptable purpose but not one that should include minor children.

Grindr was sued because of the lack of age verification, but a court found that it wasn’t liable. Likewise, Tinder also has no real age verification. This means that the onus is on individual users to verify the age of any potential sexual partners – and that doesn’t always stop the sexual exploitation of boys and young men, regardless of sexual orientation.

While there are no easy answers to end the exploitation of boys and young men, there are a few things that can be done to help prevent children from being victimised. Schools need to include LGBT people in sexual and relationship education, but they also need to do a better job of teaching boys about the dangers of grooming (particularly online) and that they, too, can be sexually exploited. We need to eliminate the stigma around being a male victim, which includes combatting the notions that sleeping with someone older is “cool” and that being abused is emasculating or in any way the victim’s fault.

We need more support services for boys and young men who come forward as victims, and we need the police to actually follow up when parents lodge a complaint that their child is being groomed. The parents of Breck Bednar received a payout from the Surrey Police because they “lacked knowledge of dealing with grooming concerns.” Had they known what to do, Breck might still be alive.

In the meantime, the rest of us need to stay vigilant. These are our children, and we have a responsibility to protect them from sexual exploitation. We can no longer fail to spot vulnerable boys on an app for grown men. They don’t belong there.

These boys are our boys. It’s time we protect them.

#NNSexism: Newsnight illustrates the rise, Twitter the need, of digital feminism

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Last night, Fi Glover had an excellent piece on BBC’s Newsnight about digital feminism and the future of women’s liberation in the 21st century. She profiled Laura Bates’ “Everyday Sexism Project”, the media’s fascination with and objectification of breasts, including Amanda Palmer’s Glastonbury nip slip, as well as the objectification of black women’s bodies. The prevailing theme was that technology and social media is changing the face of feminism, promoting the democratisation of the women’s movement.

So perhaps it was inevitable that a story about feminists online would prompt a storm of controversy on the Twittersphere. Using the hashtag #NNSexism, the Twitterati engaged the masses in their own experiences with everyday sexism while a debate erupted over the role of feminism and, indeed, women themselves. One of the biggest debates I had was the tiresome, redundant, 20th century debate over the difference between sex and gender, as illustrated below:

Now, for those of you who aren’t aware, the difference between sex and gender is quite simple. Sex (male/female) is physiological. It has to do with your reproductive organs, your hormones, and your pelvic bone. Gender (man/woman), on the contrary, is a social construct. It’s the set of characteristics we are assigned, even before birth, based on our sex. Think of it as blue for boys, pink for girls. Dolls for Linda, trucks for Liam. It’s not a radical notion; it’s been debated pretty heavily for the past sixty years, certainly since the advent of the third wave feminism in the United States.

My position sparked a lot of vitriol, mostly from conservative (small c) men. Some of it was quite nasty:

Others took to calling out the “sexism” of the Newsnight piece:

What was most poignant, though, were the women (and some men, like myself) using the hashtag as a sounding board for their own experiences with everyday sexism:

What was most disappointing was the number of men trying to trivialise or completely write off sexism and misogyny:

To say there is no evidence of real sexism is laughable. It certainly shows, at the very least, that one hasn’t been paying much attention to, well, anything. Just this month we’ve had Newsnight presenter Emily Maitlis speak out on the fear many women have of being “found out” or labeled a “fraud”, the United Nations showing just what the internet thinks of women (and it isn’t pretty), and The Great British Bakeoff finalist Ruby Tandoh defending herself against allegations that she flirted herself to the top. I mean, cos, you know, pretty women can’t bake well. Only male chefs and your nan.

Or they attempted to turn the conversation away from women and onto their own perceived grievances:

Which Laurie Penny succinctly put down to actual, perhaps stealthy, misogyny:

And of which I stand guilty:

I’ll be honest, it hadn’t occurred to me that by sharing my own experience I was steering the conversation away from sexism against women (which is 99% of sexism, after all). In fact, I thought Laurie Penny was calling me specifically out when she tweeted that, and it made me reevaluate my personal approach to the hashtag. After all, regardless of whether or not I identify as a feminist, gay men are still capable of sexism, and we have a notorious entitlement to womanhood and women’s bodies.

In the end I forgave myself. My feminist credentials are fairly well known, and while it was perhaps rude to change the subject in the middle of a conversation, it wasn’t entirely off-topic. In fact, I challenged Laurie on this point (and got no response, I should mention-though I do hope she’d agree):

For as the men who couldn’t grasp the difference between sex and gender prove, we (as a society) can’t even seem to get the vocabulary, let alone the conversation, right. So the men who actually acknowledge not only the merits of feminism but the hindrance patriarchy places on their own existence ought to be not only allowed but encouraged to freely contribute. At the very least we’re acknowledging sexism is real and tangible, which is more than can be said for a great lot of us.

That’s not to give us a pass, though. Patriarchy manifests itself in all sorts of ways, and the internet has proven that even those of us with the best intentions can sometimes stand accused, and even slightly guilty of, inadvertent sexism. In the end, Newsnight did a commendable job of highlighting the rise of digital feminism, but Twitter itself illustrated the dire need for it. Social media makes it possible, in real time, to illustrate tangible examples of blatant and even unintentional sexism and misogyny, and the Twittersphere was not lacking either yesterday. The rise of sites like EverydayFeminism and Jezebel give voice to women (and men) who may otherwise lack one, and perhaps it’s only a matter of time until we have a Feminist Spring.

Until then, let’s all brainstorm it a catchy hashtag.