rastriker95's Blogs

I just put a video called "Jackpot" on my home page.  It's about a 14yo boy that gets beat up for being for being gay after he gets caught with a stash of gay porn mags. The year the video is based in is 1994, the year I was born actually.  So, long before the internet and people yelling "assault" after everything.  My how times have changed.

When I was in high school, I was only involved with one fight.  I won, and it lasted about a total of four swings.  It wasn't about being gay, but about the fact that I wasn't going to give him the answers to a test.  I was a pretty little kid at that age, I was below the average height and weight for 14 years old, so I usually tried to avoid physical confrontations.  Wasn't going to get out of this one though.  So after we took a few swings at each other, I came around faster than he could react to and took my right leg and went straight between his.  He hit the ground fast, hard, and over! It was on the school property yet so one of the teachers came and broke us apart and sent us on our ways, but that was the end of it.  There was no calling our parents, and no calling the police either.  

The problem today is that every time someone gets into some kind of altercation adults want to arrest someone and possibly send them to juvie or jail.  We are trying to teach the younger folks to stand up for themselves, yet at the same time we punish them for doing it.  How many times have you heard stories in the news about some kid getting bullied, and when the bullied has had enough and strikes back, he is the one getting in trouble because he "started" the altercation.  Well, newsflash!  It was the bully who actually started it.  

Probably 90% of the time, bullies are not going to beat you up, because that is not what they do.  Bullies taunt.  Sure, they may do something physical to you, like the old head in a toilet, or steal your clothes in gym class, or knock your lunch or books over, but they are generally not going to turn you black and blue.  They want to continue to taunt.  And when the bullied breaks, watch out!

I mean come on, I've read about kids in the single digit ages getting in trouble with the police because they hit another kid.  I hate the phrase "boys will be boys", but are we ever going to let the boys stand up for themselves anymore?  I also hate the phrase "be a man", but isn't standing up for yourself and throwing the occasional punch part of growing up?  We are turning the kids these days lushes who wont stand up for themselves because they are too afraid of the trouble they will get into if they do.  I've seen too many fights just locally in public get ended by the police and someone getting handcuffed.  How about if we just stop the fight, find out what it was about, and separate the participants?  Now if it calls for police help, then so be it.  

Parents can't even discipline their kids in public anymore for fear of police intervention. I remember when I was in the single digits if I annoyed my parents too much when we were in public, one of them would give me a good swat on the butt.  I can hear the child abuse police coming already.  I don't even know how straight dating works anymore because even cat calling is sexual harassment.  I don't dare accidentaly bump into someone in line at Starbucks for fear that they will think that I'm trying to feel them up.  

I just don't know.  I know we want to keep ourselves and our kids safe, but at what cost?  I think we are making life a lot worse by NOT letting a fight go on, and then be done with it.  But sure, you want to end it before someone needs a hospital visit.  But even then, sometimes, there is a lesson to be learned.