Friday, February 15, 2008
Is our children choking?
Every few years a new story comes along to remind us of the fact that the younger generation is composed entirely of lascivious thugs. A decade ago it was casual blowjobs on the school bus, followed shortly thereafter by sex bracelets. To this we can now add "space monkey," AKA The Choking Game, aka Michael Hutchence disease, which the CDC announced yesterday has claimed the lives of 82 yoots--mostly boys, natch--since 1995.
While it's tempting to say that anyone who would choke themselves to the point of unconsciousness solely for the split-second "high" of hypoxia is committing auto-evolutionary selection, there is one thing no male under the age of 25 possesses in any quantity, and that's fucking common sense*. As anyone who has or has been a young male can tell you, they bore easily, and will do damn near anything to relieve themselves of that boredom, and no, "talking with friends" doesn't cut it.
It's like the inversion of the Angry Old Man skit on SNL: Back when our fathers were boys, they had bud, Bud, Marlboros, airplane glue, firecrackers, BB guns, pocket knives, bicycles, the occasional schoolyard rumble, and if all else failed, dipping the ponytail of the girl ahead of you in class in the inkwell to relieve themselves of the infinite existential angst of puberty. Now you can't buy controlled substances from sketchy adults, ride a bicycle without a helmet, possess anything more weapon-like than a jelly dildo on your person, throw a punch at a guy who talks @#$! to you without facing expulsion on the first offense, and you daren't display any aggressive/angry tendencies lest you get sheep-dipped in Ritalin and Xanax. So, boys today have nothing left with which to amuse themselves but their own two hands, so they choke themselves--and they like it!
Therefore, I await with bated breath the Harvard School of Public Health's recommendation that boys be fitted with locking mittens from the age of 11 on. Naturally the age when they come off is up for debate, given the epidemic of sexual harassment some might suggest they be made permanent. ¶ 9:23 AM
Every few years a new story comes along to remind us of the fact that the younger generation is composed entirely of lascivious thugs. A decade ago it was casual blowjobs on the school bus, followed shortly thereafter by sex bracelets. To this we can now add "space monkey," AKA The Choking Game, aka Michael Hutchence disease, which the CDC announced yesterday has claimed the lives of 82 yoots--mostly boys, natch--since 1995.
While it's tempting to say that anyone who would choke themselves to the point of unconsciousness solely for the split-second "high" of hypoxia is committing auto-evolutionary selection, there is one thing no male under the age of 25 possesses in any quantity, and that's fucking common sense*. As anyone who has or has been a young male can tell you, they bore easily, and will do damn near anything to relieve themselves of that boredom, and no, "talking with friends" doesn't cut it.
It's like the inversion of the Angry Old Man skit on SNL: Back when our fathers were boys, they had bud, Bud, Marlboros, airplane glue, firecrackers, BB guns, pocket knives, bicycles, the occasional schoolyard rumble, and if all else failed, dipping the ponytail of the girl ahead of you in class in the inkwell to relieve themselves of the infinite existential angst of puberty. Now you can't buy controlled substances from sketchy adults, ride a bicycle without a helmet, possess anything more weapon-like than a jelly dildo on your person, throw a punch at a guy who talks @#$! to you without facing expulsion on the first offense, and you daren't display any aggressive/angry tendencies lest you get sheep-dipped in Ritalin and Xanax. So, boys today have nothing left with which to amuse themselves but their own two hands, so they choke themselves--and they like it!
Therefore, I await with bated breath the Harvard School of Public Health's recommendation that boys be fitted with locking mittens from the age of 11 on. Naturally the age when they come off is up for debate, given the epidemic of sexual harassment some might suggest they be made permanent. ¶ 9:23 AM
