Shannon Larratt is Zentastic

.

I've just posted an experience update with about 175 new stories. Thank you to everyone who contributed, to BlueStar for being on the cover, and to the review team… that said, I think I've got to write another article about DIY piercing, because there are a little too many (extremely self-righteous) “BME doesn't support self-piercing” comments being left by reviewers as they turn down stories that should be posted, even though BME absolutely supports it.

I really want to be very clear on this subject: I fully support someone's right to pierce themselves, and am not going to censor their stories. Even if you disagree with that, please understand that BME's experience archive is to document what's really going on in this community, not to present some censored and sterilized politically correct version of what's going on.

Yeah, that also means “you lied to your parents”, “you used a fake ID”, and “I'm sorry, but what you did is dangerous” are also not valid reasons for turning down a story… if it's terribly written (many of these are), then by all means reject it, but don't reject something just because you happen to disagree with it or it's not what you would do personally if it's otherwise acceptably written.

The “I know better than you” thing sort of reminds me of this ongoing story about a 13-year-old girl who's had her abortion personally blocked by the head of the Florida Department of Children and Families, with the courts saying she is “too young to make the decision”.

To put it into context, whether you agree with it or not, abortion is legal in Florida, and a minor has the legal right to make their own mind up about the procedure. To put it into further context, this girl was taken away from her parents when she was seven years old and has bounced between foster and group homes since. She became pregnant (most likely from a much older man, although in Florida it's often legal for an adult to have sex with a child, so it may well not be statuatory rape — Florida is a crazy place) while having run away from the group home. But, even though she has the legal right, the courts will probably delay the process long enough to make the abortion impossible.

Oh hells yeah, welcome to more unwanted children and teen suicide. LOL, right?

With the current “teen trend” being daisy-chaining ^?, I'm surprised that there aren't more problems… It's one thing to have a sexually charged youth, but when you couple that with religious oppression that blocks birth control, sex education, and abortions, you move the future into perrilous territory.

I suppose though with Western governments slowly going bankrupt, the only way for them to sustain themselves is a disenfranchised youth who are eventually driven into petty crime, smoking pot, and jail — it's the least socially upsetting way of achieving legalized slavery (although the taxpayers funding it might disagree). There are currently well over two million people incarcerated in US prisons slave labor colonies. It's been an explosive growth industry — twenty years ago, the US prison population was less than a quarter of the size it is now, and when I was born it was only 350,000…

PS. Most of the slaves are still black.

I'm always interested in the tattoos that people in the military choose to get… Usually the meaning and motivation is fairly obvious but other times I wonder exactly what the thought was, and what message is sitting there under the surface.