I believe one should never work on Sunday. It’s the Sabbath. I should write it in on a resume. Don’t schedule me, my dog is going to need to go to the vet or something as trite as that. I’m a busy woman. My Sundays are filled with going to church, if it’s Christmas or Easter, and on the other 50 weeks of the year it’s filled with what I do best.
I wake up and make breakfast for my man, I don’t brush my teeth, gossip on the phone, and then with a glass of coke I sit down with my remote control and begin to fill my head with countless hours of television.
After trying to find what to watch this glorious omega of the week, I settled on WE channels High School Confidential. This is a show that does what reality television almost strays from doing. It allows itself to be a documentation of life. It follows the lives of 12 girls through four years of high school in the suburbs of Kansas.
Watching the show I got to return to a world that was filled with more pain than I could ever imagine. I sometimes forget the nights I cried, the days of other people’s lives I ruined, and the sense of accomplishment I felt when it was over.
I applaud the brave honesty of youth. I remember that if my life were documented I would hold the title of over achieving cheerleader in search of a boyfriend. I would talk about me being in A.S.B., yearbook editing, clubs, Church, community service and more, all as an excuse to escape from my household. And by senior year my life was filled with skipping school to get high, and sipping wine coolers on a Friday night.
But in all that footage I don’t think sex would really be too much discussed because I was a virgin all through high school. But I will tell the I was curious about sex, and it would be a constant battle in my mind. I think that maybe the fear that all are not virgins in college might be a better topic. To be honest there were girls having sex in high school, but there were TONS of us who weren’t. Or maybe it wasn’t until after graduation everyone started getting knocked up.
The point is after watching three hours of this program, in everyone episode a girl got pregnant. IN every episode!!! I might be so naïve, but just because high school pregnancy is common. I feel like a world that is being filled with modern technology one would think that birth control would be discussed. And even with middle America straying away from “the talk” I’m sure the girls are smart enough to ask. I’m sure if a teenager could set up a MySpace account they could find out about contraceptives.
A show like this is saying that high school sex is all too common, but what about emphasizing that there are girls who aren’t having sex. There are girls who aren’t having sex and aren’t prudes. There are girls who just fool around. There are girls who stop at fellatio.
I think this needs to be addressed. And if education doesn’t work in Kansas well then tell the girls to only drink soda because it must be in the water.
