Dear Young Person: Alcohol, drugs and sexuality can enhance and create life. They work. They can alter your moods, change your perceptions and disinhibit you. It’s fun to be able to behave differently. Blotting out discomfort relieves anxiety. Going wild can release tension. Alcohol, drugs and sexuality have always been part of the human experience. […]
Shades of Intimacy
Everyone is talking about Shades of Grey. Having neither read the book nor seen the movie and with no plans to do so, I can’t comment on whether this creation is liberating for women or an exemplar of abuse. I can, however, say this: sexuality without the constraints of judgment harms men and women. No […]
And the violence, it goes round and round . . .
Let me make one thing clear. As of May 2014 there have been at least 70 mass shootings or shooting sprees with legally purchased guns, according to Rolling Stone. As Ezra Klein reported in 2012, while violence in general declines, more episodes of a lone individual, or team, involved in killing sprees or mass murders […]
Binge Sex: How Kids Learn About Rape
Is there an epidemic of binge sex? Is there a week that goes by without a story about teens or young adults drinking way too much who end up in an encounter of unwanted sexual contact and rape? In response to the recent onslaught of these stories Emily Yoffe’s post urged women to stop drinking. […]
Coming of Age Young and Isolated
Healthy democracies depend on strong citizens to maintain, re-structure and build social institutions. Strong citizenry requires a capacity to think creatively, to operate with good character and to become fluent with diversity. A strongly bi-furcated class structure threatens our young adults coming of age precisely on those very dimensions. While economists and politicians work on […]