Tolman introduces the idea that popular culture and dominant society force American girls into sexual repression. Young, middle class, white girls like 'Isabel' from the article are told it is unladylike to have an identity. To be anything but a willing servant for a mans many many needs. I can corroborate her point with direct evidence. I know dozens of girls who could be described as such. Girls who dress for men, act for men, even girls who will have sex with each other FOR MEN.

We've all seen it. Half the internet is websites made up of the girls who believe their bodies are nothing but a tool, a tool with the power to control a mans libido. These women are understandably desensitized from themselves, as they never think of their sexuality in terms of what they find appealing, but what they can do to be found appealing.

I could not stop thinking about the Madonna video we watching in class when I read this article. Her and Tolhman's points are very similar, the difference is only in the delivery. However, with a few more explosions or near deaths, I have no doubt Tolhmans point could have been banned from the media outlets too.

The embedding was disabled. My apologies.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cAgaPk4GHPY

Twilight: Making America Question the Importance of Literacy

Fearful of the future? If you wish to be I'd advise you to read Twilight, or any of Stephanie Meyers unfathomably popular preteen masturbatory aids. Meyers has created two eternal characters in this series. I'm using the term 'character' liberally as to pretend that Edward Cullen and Bella Swan have a dimension between them.

These books have engulfed the young teenage population in white hot flame. While the grand appeal looks promising on the outside ("THE KIDS ARE READING! PRAISE THE LORD!"), any greater magnification of this situation brings a host of problems. While I could endlessly prattle on and on about the flaws in this publication, I will instead STUDY the afflictions it has placed upon young WOMEN.

Bella is a young high school aged girl who just moved to a small dreary town with her father. Bella has no friends at her new high school and is not really interested in making any. Shes a quiet girl with nothing to say, until she meets Edward Cullen; her new obsession. Her obsessive thinking is idealized, even before they interact for the first time. When they do interact it is brief and inconsistent for months, however it is the only thought that Meyers indicates she has. Dedicating her mind entirely to him though he has no real presence in her life yet.

Throughout the book Bella makes a few shallow friendships which serve as literary speed bumps to slow the courting further. When Edward and Bella do spend time together it is fast, and dangerous. Being a vampire Edward has strength he expends great effort trying to control, and has a supernaturally natural yearn for blood. However he yearns the deepest for Bellas blood. This increase in danger is meant to instill an equal increase in passion. This is the biggest problem.

Meyers frequently and directly correlates danger and love. Though we have seen in the book every interaction Bella and Edward have he never once asks her what her favorite band is, what the last book she read was, what her mom does for work, or anything one would want to know about their "soulmate". The connection is unspoken, a 'love at first site'. Meyers approaches love unrealistically, and tells readers through the character of Bella that if you love a monster long enough and steadfastly enough, eventually he will become your prince (or in this case he will suck the life from your neck and make you immortal). Meyers glorifies dangerous and nearly abusive relationships, while at the same time glorifying women who are seen and not heard, and women who format their life around a man.

The only thing I can hope is that these books will inspire further reading in the lives of young people, they'll need to educate themselves out of the ditch Meyers dug for them anyway.

Vincent Miller made a great deal of points in the fourteen pages of dense material I dug through. However I do believe that he is looking at the social networking phenomenon in an unreasonably narrow scope. He accuses these sites of perverting the English language, of "killing the art of conversation". I do not agree with this commentary. The internet has simply given everyone a voice.

Literacy is no longer something reserved for the elite, or the powerful, or even the Y chromosome owners among us. With each generation the percentage increases, and not everyone has something inspiring to say, and that shouldn't be expected each time words are written.

Communication is defined as "the imparting or interchange of thoughts, opinions, or information by speech, writing, or signs." (dictionary.com) The internet has become the number one medium of communication, but it is not an artist sanctuary. It's a virtualized real world, and in the 3-D world, people don't speak for beauty, they speak for survival.