Film, TV, & Music Reviews with a Twist
August 24, 2009 by The Date Safe Project Inc
Filed under Film, TV & Music Talk, Movies, TV & Music Reviews
Every week, new films and songs are released around the globe. Throughout the year, TV shows are launched. 24 hours, 7 days a week, you can turn to “Breaking News” on one of the many “news dedicated” cable channels. With all of these mediums constantly changing, how can you stay up-to-date or know how to hold appropriate conversations with students and/or people in your community about the shows everyone is talking about? Good news! Now, you have a source to turn to for fun, thought-provoking, and helpful reviews.
Here, you will find reviews from parents, educators, experts, and teenagers (giving their perspective). Each review will provide you with an unique perspective relating to how the media and/or entertainment outlet’s production effects society’s views of dating, sex, intimacy, relationships, violence, consent, and sexual assault. Having these analytic reviews will provide you with great tools to engage the younger and older generations around you with a different outlook the next time they watch and/or listen to the medium you are reading about.
You know how often people of all ages “roll their eyes” when you try to challenge everyday views on a subject. The reviews provided by DSP Critics (Date Safe Project Critics) will give you more useful and progmatic material to share with others.
Be a Reviewer. You can be given full credit for your reviews here at The Date Safe Project, Inc. or your reviews can be kept anonymous. You choose. Either way, you can create your own following as a DSP Critic. To send us a review of ANY medium, click on “Leave a Comment” on this page OR send an e-mail to Review@DateSafeProject.org.
Jamie Lynn Spears, Pregnancy, Statutory Rape, and the How Schools Need to Talk with Students
December 20, 2007 by Mike Domitrz
Filed under Educators & Organizations (Blog)
Jamie Lynn Spears’ official announcement she is pregnant is bringing up conversations about the legal age of consent for sexual activity. From the Genarlow Wilson case in Georgia earlier this year to now the pregnancy of 16 year old Jamie Lynn Spears (the star of Nickelodeon’s "Zoey 101" and sister of Britney Spears), our country needs to take a sincere look at consent and society’s current approach to sexual education in our schools and in our homes. From educators to parents, direct conversations are needed with all students.
The entire concept of "consent" is constantly misunderstood. In reporting of pregnancies involving minors, the media often says "consensual sex among minors." When a state has laws stating a minor cannot give consent with a partner of a specific age, the media needs to use the following wording instead, "mutually agreed upon sex." The failure to use the correct wording leads to students and overall society responding with, "How can consensual sex be rape?" Consent is a LEGAL term.
Here is where the problem begins. How many teenagers and young adults actually have MUTUALLY AGREED UPON sexual activity? For the sexual activity to be "Mutually Agreed Upon," it would demand two people agreeing together – A CONVERSATION (No, not a contract. Two people talking with each other). However, we know most students do not openly discuss their sexual activity with their partner until they are already at the point of being uncomfortable OR until after the act has already been done OR or not at all.
While speaking in middle schools, high schools, and colleges, students continually tell me that if they TALKED FIRST, it would slow down the speed at which the sexual activity is taking place AND often stop it from happening at all. By talking first, they would frequently find the conversation uncomfortable which would be a telling sign one of the two people (if not both) is not mature enough and/or comfortable enough in the sexual situation that is about to occur! Teaching consent the correct way better protects today’s students.
Start this discussion in your classroom and then report the results in the "Comments" section of this post.
