"Think of it as 18 and Not Pregnant—that's how I think of it. A show about what your life can be like if you manage to get through high school without making a baby. You can go to college! You can have sex, if you haven't already, with protection! And with an eye on your future! A future that an unplanned pregnancy would really screw up! And one day some obnoxious gay dude will show up on campus and answer your sex questions!"
This is Dan Savage's self-written selling point for his show on MTV, Savage U. Let's get a few things straight:
This is Dan Savage's self-written selling point for his show on MTV, Savage U. Let's get a few things straight:
- Dan's not. He's a big ole homo. Actually he's an "obnoxious gay dude." (His words, not mine.)
- MTV is just a steaming hot pile of bullshit at this point. Let's call a spade a spade.
- I don't hate Dan Savage.
- I just think he is a near-sighted idiot, sometimes.
Dan Savage also started the "It Gets Better" project. For many, this is an amazing awareness-building campaign that lets famous people come out as allies for the LGBTQ community and tell young people who are struggling deeply in sometimes unfathomably hostile school environments that if they just wait it out - they will graduate, and the world will be waiting for them with open arms. Fuck, from some of these videos, you'd think the celebrities themselves would be attending the graduation ceremonies, moving trucks in tow, ready to ship these victimized young people off to a land of rainbows, unicorns, Lilith Fairs and bath houses.
Here's the thing. Dan is mostly pretty good at one thing and that one thing is giving (mostly) sex-positive advice to people whose sexual attractions may be beyond the "norm." Mostly. What I mean to say is that he is ostensibly non-judgmental and open-minded about your freaky-deeky kinky shit and will encourage you to go for the gold[en shower] safely. However, that's where Dan's usefulness ends. It's when Dan decides to be a life-coach and professional advice-giver on all things gay and sexual that things get a bit... to use a word he seems comfortable with: obnoxious.
Let's start with his first offense, which is appearing on RuPaul's Drag Race, which he turned into a self-serious hour of insufferable boringness. Then, we'll move on to his second offense: his assault on pregnant teenagers. I don't love MTV for putting TV shows on the air that could potentially glorify teenage pregnancy. But I also don't feel an overwhelming desire to judge teenagers who happen to get pregnant. I don't know, maybe because I was a teenager who knew other teenagers who happened to get pregnant. At the time (read: when I was a teenager), I had feelings about it. Now that I am older, and wiser (?), I don't feel a need to rush to judgment on those young people. I'm also not as deeply concerned about it because I know that teen pregnancy is on the decline.
Oh yeah, and I don't think that having an unplanned pregnancy will necessarily ruin your life. Just as I don't believe that it will necessarily "get better" for LGBTQ young people. To imply that teenage men and women with unplanned children will not "get through high school," or "go to college," but that they will "screw up their future" is sickening and not in the good way. Do I want young people to have unplanned pregnancies? Not necessarily. I want young people to make the most informed decisions they can make, and wanting that for them means that I have a responsibility to recognize that what I think is best is not always best for them. Furthermore, what they choose to do, whether I agree with it or not, is probably never going to be changed because of the judgment I place on them.
It took me a while to realize this, but I discovered that telling someone about themselves (i.e. telling someone that their life choices damned them forever or produced a negative outcome) was never helpful. What was helpful was understanding that their entire life experience was, and always will be entirely different from mine. So, who am I to tell someone what to do, or even worse - that what they have already done has ruined their lives. And that's where Dan Savage and all advice columnists will inevitably get it wrong.
You just can't tell people what to do. And especially young people. Except maybe interns. Adolescence is a shit-on-the-walls-crazy time in one's life where you realize that you are on the cusp of becoming your own individual person. It's altogether terrifying and exciting. Very few young people are ready and willing to accept the life coaching of adults because it is exactly those adults who they resist becoming. Young people are full of idealism, narcissism, selfish curiosity, optimism, AKA the possibility of a future in their own hands. And as soon as you tell someone what they "should" do, or imply that their choices are wrong, you will always, always, always lose them.
And for good reason. Because all young people grow up to be adults. The same jaded and cynical adults that you and I work with who are constantly telling us what to do. The ones who make us tell ourselves "if I only could do it my way - things would be better." There is truth to that belief, because even if you fail miserably, you still have complete responsibility for what you've done and you will always be left with the dignity of knowing that you did what you thought was best - not what someone else thought was best for you.
Dan Savage is a douchebag for the same reason I have been a douchebag at times and that is because almost everything in the whole world has favored white guys like Dan and myself. Okay, so maybe it's not just because of that. However, just by my being born, I was placed at an advantage because of my class, race, and gender. Sure, my sexual identity gives me oppression points, but let's be serious. To pretend like my maleness and whiteness doesn't factor into who I am today, what I think is right/wrong, what I feel and know to be true, would be pretty ignorant.
And I just don't think Dan, or many other guys like Dan and myself, get that. I think they understand it and comprehend it on an intellectual level, maybe. I think that Dan is well-versed in freaky sex practices and issues involving gender identity and sexual orientation, but I don't think Dan gets how any of that applies to anyone's real life other than his own - his own white, privileged, male life. Perhaps it's just the nature of his position as an advice-columnist, but he's never seemed intent on learning about other people's experiences and treating them uniquely. So, instead he doles out universal, vastly general statements...
You know, ones like "it gets better."
So, let me dole out some universal and vastly general advice: Be wary of guys like Dan and me. Because sometimes, our advice is helpful. Other times, we're not thinking about how fucking completely different your life experiences have been from ours and how maybe you won't benefit from us taking a giant "should" on your face. Be wary of guys like Dan and me who don't acknowledge that we don't have all the answers and sometimes our judgments are wrong. Be wary if we're not asking you any questions about you, your life, your experiences, or your needs. It would be smart of you to be wary of us.
But do please know that some of us are actually actively trying to be better and not just telling you that "it" (and everything that encompasses) gets better.
Let's start with his first offense, which is appearing on RuPaul's Drag Race, which he turned into a self-serious hour of insufferable boringness. Then, we'll move on to his second offense: his assault on pregnant teenagers. I don't love MTV for putting TV shows on the air that could potentially glorify teenage pregnancy. But I also don't feel an overwhelming desire to judge teenagers who happen to get pregnant. I don't know, maybe because I was a teenager who knew other teenagers who happened to get pregnant. At the time (read: when I was a teenager), I had feelings about it. Now that I am older, and wiser (?), I don't feel a need to rush to judgment on those young people. I'm also not as deeply concerned about it because I know that teen pregnancy is on the decline.
Oh yeah, and I don't think that having an unplanned pregnancy will necessarily ruin your life. Just as I don't believe that it will necessarily "get better" for LGBTQ young people. To imply that teenage men and women with unplanned children will not "get through high school," or "go to college," but that they will "screw up their future" is sickening and not in the good way. Do I want young people to have unplanned pregnancies? Not necessarily. I want young people to make the most informed decisions they can make, and wanting that for them means that I have a responsibility to recognize that what I think is best is not always best for them. Furthermore, what they choose to do, whether I agree with it or not, is probably never going to be changed because of the judgment I place on them.
It took me a while to realize this, but I discovered that telling someone about themselves (i.e. telling someone that their life choices damned them forever or produced a negative outcome) was never helpful. What was helpful was understanding that their entire life experience was, and always will be entirely different from mine. So, who am I to tell someone what to do, or even worse - that what they have already done has ruined their lives. And that's where Dan Savage and all advice columnists will inevitably get it wrong.
You just can't tell people what to do. And especially young people. Except maybe interns. Adolescence is a shit-on-the-walls-crazy time in one's life where you realize that you are on the cusp of becoming your own individual person. It's altogether terrifying and exciting. Very few young people are ready and willing to accept the life coaching of adults because it is exactly those adults who they resist becoming. Young people are full of idealism, narcissism, selfish curiosity, optimism, AKA the possibility of a future in their own hands. And as soon as you tell someone what they "should" do, or imply that their choices are wrong, you will always, always, always lose them.
And for good reason. Because all young people grow up to be adults. The same jaded and cynical adults that you and I work with who are constantly telling us what to do. The ones who make us tell ourselves "if I only could do it my way - things would be better." There is truth to that belief, because even if you fail miserably, you still have complete responsibility for what you've done and you will always be left with the dignity of knowing that you did what you thought was best - not what someone else thought was best for you.
Dan Savage is a douchebag for the same reason I have been a douchebag at times and that is because almost everything in the whole world has favored white guys like Dan and myself. Okay, so maybe it's not just because of that. However, just by my being born, I was placed at an advantage because of my class, race, and gender. Sure, my sexual identity gives me oppression points, but let's be serious. To pretend like my maleness and whiteness doesn't factor into who I am today, what I think is right/wrong, what I feel and know to be true, would be pretty ignorant.
And I just don't think Dan, or many other guys like Dan and myself, get that. I think they understand it and comprehend it on an intellectual level, maybe. I think that Dan is well-versed in freaky sex practices and issues involving gender identity and sexual orientation, but I don't think Dan gets how any of that applies to anyone's real life other than his own - his own white, privileged, male life. Perhaps it's just the nature of his position as an advice-columnist, but he's never seemed intent on learning about other people's experiences and treating them uniquely. So, instead he doles out universal, vastly general statements...
You know, ones like "it gets better."
So, let me dole out some universal and vastly general advice: Be wary of guys like Dan and me. Because sometimes, our advice is helpful. Other times, we're not thinking about how fucking completely different your life experiences have been from ours and how maybe you won't benefit from us taking a giant "should" on your face. Be wary of guys like Dan and me who don't acknowledge that we don't have all the answers and sometimes our judgments are wrong. Be wary if we're not asking you any questions about you, your life, your experiences, or your needs. It would be smart of you to be wary of us.
But do please know that some of us are actually actively trying to be better and not just telling you that "it" (and everything that encompasses) gets better.
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