Category Archives: Bambi legs

The Joy of Teen Sex?

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America is not impressed. Teens are having sex, and MTV is doing f***all to discourage them. As if showing Miley Cyrus’s videos on an hourly rotation isn’t abominable enough (AOL has voted her the worst celebrity influence for the second year in a row – why such a poll was considered necessary, or how Taylor Momsen slipped through the net who knows), the channel is currently airing a brand-new US version of Skins, the cult UK TV show thanks to which youngsters all over Britain have been snorting cocaine and having barely legal lesbian sex after and (more likely) during school hours since 2007. American parents, advertisers and activists are protesting, claiming that the show exhibits child pornography and violates legal requirements to protect young viewers and the teen actors themselves.

In one sense, I sympathise. I feel like I can’t switch the TV on these days without catching a glimpse of sexually hyperbolic children. During last Wednesday’s episode of The Joy of Teen Sex the nation was treated to one youngster’s cringetastic first attempt to ‘go down’ on his girlfriend having just overcome his chronic fear of vaginas. Cue applause from the cameramen?

Now it’s not that long since I was a teen (those who saw my last column will know I cling to youth with a desperation to rival Dorian Gray). However, as a mildly antisocial specimen I wasn’t privy to what one might call the full spectrum of experience early on. I wasn’t (quite) a complete dork, but I was nevertheless more an Inbetweener than an Effy (see below – notorious and sorely missed UK Skins character seasons one through four – I will cool off the TV references soon I promise). When a friend recently told me that he “was getting head in year eight at the school disco, and was one of the later ones,” I was taken aback.  I have a brother in year eight, perhaps why I found this particularly disturbing.

Left-right: Freddie, Effy, Cook and Panda- UK Skins gang seasons three and four

I remember a definite ‘awakening’ occurring during my mid-teens however. For example, I recall a year nine English lesson during which a friend and I compared what we’d done over the weekend. I had written an essay, ironically on Romeo and Juliet – an early parable about the potential hazards of teen sex. She’d given her boyfriend a blowjob during Shrek at the cinema. “WHY???” I gawped.  “He wanted one,” she shrugged.

Obviously there had been various infamous events: “I heard she had an abortion when she was 12,” “they had sex on the beach during the year nine Isle Of Wight trip and TEACHERS FOUND THEM,” and house parties were, by year ten, synonymous with all manner of sexual hijinks. Still, I wasn’t quite prepared for this revelation from a hitherto very shy and retiring girl. But it was not an outrageously outlandish example, and rightly or wrongly, a good proportion of my year had swapped fluids by via one means or another by the time they sat their GCSES.

More recently, I was chatting with a 14-year-old girl when the question of BOYS came up. Ah, I thought, a chance to share the wisdom of years, perhaps help my young friend avoid some of the pitfalls into which I in my naïve youth had fallen. What was the problem, I asked? “Well my last boyfriend dumped me because I wouldn’t give him a blow job. It was kind of unfair, as I had ‘received’, but wasn’t ‘giving’, yano? I mean I’m not at all what you would call frigid, but I just didn’t fancy it. Also the guy I like smokes, and I used to LOADS but I quit a year ago and I really don’t want to start again, and I’m worried if I go out with him I will.”

I took a deep breath. Then I told her as tactfully as possible that her ex was an asshole she was best shot of, and that perhaps she might prove a healthy influence on the new guy and get him to quit smoking. The admittedly tenuous point is that the decisions and attitude she expressed to me in no way mirrored what she had seen on the box the previous night (she likes QI). Furthermore, she rightly stopped when she felt uncomfortable, and this can probably be attributed to her own resolve rather than abstinence from inappropriate television.

The argument I’m havng a semi-arsed attempt at making is that teens are going to have sex whether their parents like it or not. At least some of them. We should accept this, and as they say in The Joy of Teen Sex, the main thing is that it is safe and consensual. Though Skins might be amplifying the fantasies of the Inbetweeners crowd more aggressively than Glee (I lied about the reference thing), if parents are to complain, I’d argue that the smoking/narcotics-related element of proceedings is more worthy of their energy. I personally found the total departure from any attempt at a cohesive or engaging plot in last week’s episode infinitely more offensive than the frequent references to f***ing.

Obviously the second my brother goes anywhere near a girl with the intention of touching anything other than her hand I’ll be whacking a chastity belt on him faster than he can say ‘hypocrite’.


Bambi legs: Holly Thomas dips her toe into the icy pool of freelance journalism

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Age is a sensitive issue. ­ From childhood, we are taught that there can be no more heinous insult than to enquire as to a stranger’s vintage. I never really understood why until now.

Despite my youth, given the choice between a student debt-clearing windfall or three years wiped off my passport, I would choose the latter without a blink. Because there is nothing more depressing than awaiting the arrival of another birthday without feeling that you’ve achieved anything to merit celebration, and in the bleak knowledge that you’re another year closer to expiring. And when said achievement is largely dependent on the procurement of a job, or at the very least, sufficient work to keep financially afloat, it’s fairly tempting to climb under the covers with a tub of (cheap) ice cream and eat your way into chilly depression as your pride wrestles with the desire to call Mum and tell her to ‘come get you’.

Yes kids, this is what happens to optimism when you enter the world of freelance journalism.

Perhaps I sound unduly pessimistic. I only graduated in July. However, let us consider the landscape: I took a gap year. I also took a break for personal reasons after university [read: I went home for a few months, confronted a less than savoury family situation, ate an obscene quantity of chocolate, found that didn’t help, and so moved to London]. BUT there are people more organised than me who didn’t take gap years, jumped on the application wagon during their third year, and are now, at the age of 21, sitting pretty in their first job and well on their way to having ‘a life’.

Not everyone of course, we’re talking about the blessed few upon whom karma smiled, and who of course had the acumen to think ahead. But you see what I mean. Once stuck in professional no-man’s land, it’s pretty damn hard to claw your way out, especially when you’re aiming for a job in a competitive field such as journalism (hi), which requires evidence of busy labour. “But I have a first class degree, a bagful of awards and a pretty sweet list of work experience placements”. Nope, unless you’ve been employed by a respectable (ie: widely circulated) publication for at least a year OR have a helluva good specialised qualification, you are barely worth the gum on the heel of that elusive editor who refuses to answer your emails.

What happened though? When did the outlook become so bereft of any hope? And when did we supposedly bright young things become such ungrateful, acrid husks of woe? After all, a few decades ago my main concern would have been the hunt for a groom to worry about all this job malarky on behalf of us both. Now that’s only plan two (*JOKE. Unless things get really bad).

The recession (I’m really sick of that word, so that will be the only time I whisper its bromidic name in the course of this moan, er, article) obviously hasn’t helped.  The unrealistic glamorisation of the hack trade, has, I think, also added rather to the numbers of aspiring scribes clamouring for their slice of the journo pie.

Take Twitter for example. I joined a couple of months ago because it appears to be the ‘done thing’. And thanks to Twitter, I am now privy to the minutiae of the lives of almost every well-known journalist one might care to name.  And this doesn’t just entail their personal opinions on the hot topics of the day, but actual titbits (or jaw breaking gobfuls) of their home lives. And what fabulous lives they are.

Initially, I must confess to having felt a hint of jealousy. When, for example, India Knight and Caitlin Moran, both highly successful and extremely talented self-made journalists tweet each other to arrange celebratory cocktails “when you’ve finished your book” (and we know that this book will inevitably sell by the bucket load), the figurative stomach thunders with hunger for that lifestyle – the luxury to type away in one’s beautiful London home safe in the certainty that the fruits of your labour will comfortably furnish an entire Christmas shop within the hallowed confines of Selfridges and Harvey Nichols.­

I wouldn’t dream of suggesting that this is undeserved, or that these fortunate women didn’t have to pay their dues and work their way up. But things have undeniably changed in the last couple of decades, and whilst deeply painful to accept, we ‘newbies’ (until October that is) must either find something else to do or acknowledge the fact that we’re just going to have to suck it up and endure whatever it takes to get ahead.

SO if you can’t afford an MA or quickie journalism course (I can’t), write. Get a blog. Learn your stuff. Apply for things. Obviously learn how to use InDesign, WordPress, etc. But to be honest, though all the technological fireworks look pretty on a CV, ultimately the key thing is to be good and be motivated. And be interested. It doesn’t matter what your topic is; be it music, film, fashion, the environment (gulp), whatever, keep up to date so that when your dream job comes up you’ll ace the interview. Don’t be picky.

Frankly, if you’re actually talented you don’t need loads of serious writing practice. Just take what relevant work you can, suck up, be prepared to make tea and copies, and thank your lucky stars you have somewhere to go in the mornings. And most importantly, find the thing that spurs you on, cling to it like a limpet, and let it push you forward. For me, that’s watching India and Caitlin on Twitter, and imagining the day when I too will have 57,000 followers (sounds quite cult-like doesn’t it) and can afford to stuff myself to the gills with organic goodies bought online and delivered to my W1 door.