Planet Jackson Hole May 31, 2018 by Planet Jackson Hole

JACKSON HOLEâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S ALTERNATIVE VOICE | PLANETJH.COM | MAY 30 - JUNE 5, 2018

CHECK

YES NO OR

CONSENT As adolescents in a small town test the sexual boundaries of themselves and each other, is a risk-prone community failing to teach them the limits?

| PLANET JACKSON HOLE |

2 | MAY 30, 2018

June 2018

St. John’s Calendar of Events Most events are free unless otherwise noted.

Support Groups Teton Parkies (For those affected by Parkinson’s Disease)

Gather for mutual support, discussion of disease and therapies, and more. POWER UP! A Movement & Voice Class to benefit people with Parkinson’s. Mondays, June 4 to July 9 Senior Center, $4 for ages 60 and up;$7 under 60 Contact Elizabeth at 307.733.4966, 614.271.7012, or epgerhard@gmail.com

Children’s Grief Support Program

Weight Management Support Group Open to everyone interested in weight loss and those considering (or who have had) bariatric surgery

Call for updated date and time 307.739.7634

Type 2 Diabetes Prevention Group in Spanish In Spanish! ¡En Español! Zumba with Elvis. Family friendly. Mondays and Wednesdays 5:30 – 6:30 pm Moose-Wapiti Classroom St. John’s Medical Center

For children ages 5 and up. Led by For information, call 307.739.7678 St. John’s Hospice social worker Oliver Goss, LCSW. Tuesday, June 12 5:45-7 pm Jackson Hole Children’s Museum 174 N King St, Jackson

Foundation

To register, call 307.739.7463 by noon on the day of the group.

Teton Mammas For new babies and their families Wednesdays, June 13 and June 27 1 – 2:30 pm Moose-Wapiti Classroom St. John’s Medical Center

For information, call 307.739.6175

Grief Support Group Led by St. John’s Hospice social worker Oliver Goss, LCSW Drop-ins welcome, but please call ahead Wednesdays, June 13 and June 27 Noon – 1 pm

19th Annual Run & Ride for the Cure

5k run and 15k bike to benefit the Foundation’s Cancer Patient Support Fund Sunday, June 3 9 am Wilson Elementary School $20 advance; $25 day of race To register, stop by Skinny Skis or call 307.733.6094

14th Annual Shirley’s Heart Run

Health & Wellness Childbirth Education Class

Behind the Scenes

For expectant parents Saturday, June 2 8:30 am–5 pm

Trends in Hospital Finance Join us for a discussion with CEO Paul Beaupré, MD and CFO/COO John Kren Monday, June 18 7:30-8:30 am and 5:30-6:30 pm Boardroom St. John’s Medical Center

Please register by calling 307.739.6175

Living Center Update A presentation and listening session by AMD Architects on 30% of the schematic design Tuesday, June 5 5:30-7 pm St. John’s Medical Center Lobby

For information, call 307.739.7380

For information, go to ANewHomeForANewAge.org

7th Annual Cognitive Health Speaker Series Featuring author Andrew Budson, MD • What’s Normal Memory, What’s Not, and What to Do About It Thursday, June 14, 5:30–7 pm • How to Maximize Your Cognitive Skills Friday, June 15, 11:30 am–1 pm Both events take place at the Teton County Library Books available for purchase and signing after the talks For information, go to tetonhospital.org/cognitive or call 307.690.5284

Call 307.739.7463

5k race to support the Foundation’s Cardiology Fund Saturday, June 16, 9 am R Park, Wilson $20 registration To register, go to eventbrite.com

Memory Loss Support Group

Artist Talk

For information, call 307.739.7517

For those suffering from persistent memory problems; family members and caregivers welcome Thursday, June 14 Noon – 1 pm

Close to Home Landscape Paintings by Sue Sommers Monday, June 18 noon–1 pm Light lunch provided 555 E. Broadway, Suite 206

Monthly Luncheon

For information, call 307.739.7434

RSVP by calling 307.739.7529

tetonhospital.org/calendar

Auxiliary Evening Social Thursday, June 7 5:30 pm

Spine Classes Information for people considering or scheduled for spine surgery Tuesday, June 12, 3-4:30 pm Monday, June 18, 1-2:30 pm Tuesday, June 26, 3-4:30 pm Physical Therapy Room St. John’s Medical Center

Please register by calling 307.739.6199

Joint Classes Information for people considering or scheduled for joint replacement surgery Thursday, June 7, 8-9:30 am Tuesday, June 12, 4-5:30 pm Thursday, June 21, 8-9:30 am Tuesday, June 26, 4-5:30 pm Physical Therapy Room St. John’s Medical Center

Please register by calling 307.739.6199

The Role of Hospitalists in Health Care, with Matt Niemat, MD Thursday, July 5 noon – 1 pm Moose-Wapiti Classroom

625 E. Broadway, Jackson, WY

JACKSON HOLE'S ALTERNATIVE VOICE

VOLUME 16 | ISSUE 20 | MAY 30 - JUNE 5, 2018

@THEPLANETJH |

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COVER STORY CHECK YES OR NO CONSENT As adolescents in a small town test the sexual boundaries of themselves and each other, is a riskprone community failing to teach them the limits?

21 COSMIC CAFE

REPORTER’S NOTEBOOK

15 NEIGHBORHOOD CREATORS

Service Help | Showroom Assistant

23 ASTROLOGY

THE PLANET JACKSON HOLE TEAM PUBLISHER

SALES DIRECTOR

DISTRIBUTION MANAGER

Copperfield Publishing, John Saltas

Pete Saltas / pete@planetjh.com

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EDITOR

DIRECTOR OF DIGITAL DEVELOPMENT

COPY EDITOR

Christian Priskos / christian@copperfielddigital.com

Andrew Munz

ADVERTISING ACCOUNT EXECUTIVES

CONTRIBUTORS

Dave Alper, Chase Corona

Rob Brezsny, Kelsey Dayton, Clare Eddy

Robyn Vincent / editor@planetjh.com ART DIRECTOR

Vaughn Robison / art@planetjh.com

Helen Goelet, Carol Mann, Sarah Ross, Tom Tomorrow, Jim Woodmencey

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BY METEOROLOGIST JIM WOODMENCEY

The month of May is our wettest month of the year, on average. Average May precipitation is 1.80 inches, which we more than exceeded with the extra rainfall we had over the Memorial Day Weekend. This May we were soaked with nearly an inch more than the average. This excess rainfall this time of year, combined with warm temperatures, acts to accelerate the snowmelt in the mountains, causing rivers to rise and flooding to occur.

Average low temperatures this week are in the mid-30’s and it is now a little safer to start planting your flowers and vegetable gardens, as we head into the first week of June. That is not to say temps couldn’t dip down below freezing and cause some frost, but a hard freeze is now becoming less likely. As a reminder, we had a real hard freeze this week in 1979, with a record low temperature of 16-degrees on May 30th.

HIGHS

This week’s average high temperature is 68-degrees, an almost perfect temperature for just about any outdoor activity, except swimming in one of our recently un-frozen mountain lakes. The record high temperature this week is 92-degrees, from June 3rd, 1988. That would be hot enough that a dip in Jackson or Jenny Lake would feel refreshing. You may recall, that the summer of 1988 was not only hot right off the bat, but went on to become the hottest and driest summer on record.

NORMAL HIGH NORMAL LOW RECORD HIGH IN 1988 RECORD LOW IN 1979

68 34 92 16

THIS MONTH AVERAGE PRECIPITATION: 1.8 inches RECORD PRECIPITATION: 6.02 inches (1980) AVERAGE SNOWFALL: 1 inch RECORD SNOWFALL: 14.5 inches (1942)

Jim has been forecasting the weather here for more than 20 years. You can find more Jackson Hole Weather information at www.mountainweather.com

MAY 30, 2018 | 3

Sponsorship opportunities are available for Planet Jackson Hole’s Almanac. To become a weely sponsor and see your message here, contact 307-732-0299 or sales@planetjh.com.

THIS WEEK

| PLANET JACKSON HOLE |

JH ALMANAC LOWS

MAY 30 - JUNE 5, 2018

17 EAT IT!

AZADI Fine Rugs is hiring the best aplicants for year-round and seasonal work.

Call or stop by in person for more information: 55 N Glenwood Street (Across From the Wort Hotel) (307) 734-0169 ask for Trevor

Cover story graphics by Adrienne Lobl | adriennelobl.com

4 EDITOR’S NOTE

Are you ready to work for a business that cares about you?

| PLANET JACKSON HOLE |

4 | MAY 30, 2018

EDITOR’S NOTE COLE BUCKHART

early three months before the #MeToo movement emerged, Jackson Hole faced its own moment of reckoning. “I had no idea what I wanted, so I didn’t know how to demand it,” reporter Sarah Ross wrote in a July 2017 opinion piece for Planet Jackson Hole. In that article, she exposed the toxic sexual culture that has long fomented among Jackson’s youth. “The boys I was with never asked. They pushed my hands and head where they wanted me to go, and after I had done what they wanted, the night was over.” To be clear, Ross, a 2011 JHHS graduate, was not sexually assaulted while she attended high school. But she “felt constant, nagging pressure” to perform sexual acts, to place boys’s perceived prerogatives and pleasure above her own all before she knew the meaning of sexual coercion or consent. Ross almost didn’t write that piece. “I was scared to be so vulnerable in such a small town, I was scared people would think I was being dramatic, that I misremembered my own life,” she told me. But one local woman inspired her to speak. Ross drew inspiration from Claire Andrews, who at the age of 17 was raped by a classmate. Ross was struck that unlike some of her peers, Andrews somehow found the courage to press charges and speak out. In so doing, however, Andrews paid a price. In August 2015, when the case was in juvenile court, defense attorney Richard Mulligan argued that the assault “didn’t cause any personal injury” because Andrews was not a virgin at the time, Planet Jackson Hole reported. “It was absolutely mortifying to have something like that brought up that

Women and men marching in Jackson during the 2017 Women’s March.

Shedding Fear and Speaking Out In a community where a poisonous sexual culture has thrived, Jackson’s youth seek cultural reformation BY ROBYN VINCENT |

shouldn’t have been brought up in the first place,” Andrews told PJH. “Your sexual history doesn’t matter. It shouldn’t matter.” The two-year case, in which the defendant ultimately received five years of supervised probation, took its toll on Andrews. “Everything in your daily life is affected by it,” she said. “My mental health, my physical health, my learning abilities, everything.” After Andrews risked so much, shining a light on asymmetrical power dynamics among the valley’s youth, Ross decided to sit down and write. After the publication of Ross’s opinion piece (which PJH has republished on the opposite page), an outpouring of residents contacted her. More than 50 people told Ross they too were captives in the valley’s adolescent world of nonconsenual sex, coercion, toxic masculinity and misogyny.

@TheNomadicHeart

The response was so overwhelming, Ross knew her work wasn’t done. But she proceeded with caution. “Some people I grew up with called me a liar and a bitch, questioned my ethics and my memory,” Ross told me. “It devastated me.” Still, Ross saw a responsibility and an opportunity to be a steward of the many stories people shared with her. This week’s 10,000-word cover story is just a modicum of those experiences. It is the result of a five-month reporting project in which Ross interviewed current and former high school students, educators, local and national experts and law enforcement. She parsed research and data and spoke to people positioned within Jackson’s youth cohort to understand what factors have exacerbated a problematic sexual culture. Of course, some of the experiences she writes about are touchstones of

adolescence—awkward moments when young people “didn’t know what to do next,” Henry Sollitt told her. “I didn’t know what the next step was … I had no idea what sex and relationships were supposed to look like.” Other examples, though, point to factors uniquely exacerbated by this area: Jackson’s pervasive drinking culture, its risk-taking proclivities, the fears people confront speaking out in a small town. The latter is why some subjects, years after graduation, chose to remain anonymous for this story. Ross said there were often two particular reasons for their reluctance: either their parents still do not know what happened or they feared their assailants would disregard their stories, deepening the trauma they continue to bear. During high school, young people did not speak out about coercive or nonconsensual sexual experiences because the social stakes were so high, Ross explained. After all, many were friends with the people who violated them. Those stakes persist and make it difficult for survivors to speak today, perpetuating a dangerous cycle. Their fear and reluctance, “by default protects those who have hurt others,” Ross said. But the people Ross interviewed for this story, no matter the depth of their scars, were largely uninterested in pressing charges. “Instead, they crave a community dialogue about what went wrong,” Ross said. “They wish to bring these stories to light so that they, and their community, can begin to heal. They want a safe place where they can receive closure, ask for accountability, and imagine a different future for young people in Jackson.” That future, Ross said, is one where speaking out does not mean you will be called a bitch or a liar. PJH

REPORTER’S NOTEBOOK The Space to Speak

An insidious sexual culture festers among Jackson Hole’s young people and the time to talk about it is now BY SARAH ROSS

[This July 2017 Planet Jackson Hole article and its widespread community response served as impetus for this week’s cover story. –Ed.]

So I could go home To not feel guilty So he would like me Because I’m supposed to Why not? I should be wanting this Because he bought me dinner Because it was easier than saying no – The reasons three 20-something women from Jackson hooked up with boys during high school

“

I became so accustomed to the unspoken expectations that I lost my voice, my feeling of internal validity. I don’t believe myself even as I write this.

MAY 30, 2018 | 5

to hurt the young women in their lives, many of whom had been their friends since childhood. I believe they received the message that their desires were paramount, and it wasn’t wrong to seek the ends to these desires, even if it meant involving an unwilling participant. I still see these boys, now men. I hug them in the grocery store and make small talk. I wonder what they think about growing up in Jackson. I wonder if they felt pressure, or if they felt bad when they responded to “no” with “please, just a little further.” It was in college that I learned about active consent: yes means yes, everything else means no. It’s not OK to ask the same question over and over until someone finally says yes. It’s not OK to sleep with people who are too drunk, or passed out. It’s not OK to threaten to ruin someone’s reputation if they don’t do what you want them to do. Even with this information, I don’t know how to understand my experiences as a high school student in Jackson, and I continue to have a hard time articulating my desires and establishing boundaries. In high school, no one talked about what was going on, and in the dearth of conversation, I responded typically. I fixated on my body, its size, shape and flaws. I wrote down everything I ate and never said how I felt. I became so accustomed to the unspoken expectations that I lost my voice, my feeling of internal validity. I don’t believe myself even as I write this. It wasn’t so bad, right? So many people have had it far worse. Even so, my experiences as a young person in Jackson continue to impact me. Six years after graduating from high school, I am learning to name the patterns and feelings that went unacknowledged for so long. In high school, it felt impossible to talk about any of this, but pain, shame and confusion all thrive on the unspoken, the hidden. It’s time to break the silence. PJH

| PLANET JACKSON HOLE |

interviewees, it wasn’t the concrete moments of pressure or coercion that had the biggest impact. More powerful was the force beneath all of them, the assumption that if a guy wanted to “hook up” (whatever that meant to him) you would do it. It didn’t matter how it felt, as long as you gave him what you thought he wanted. The force I felt is one that Orenstein has identified. According to her research, “women are more likely to use their partner’s pleasure as a yardstick of their own satisfaction. So they’ll say he was satisfied, so I’m satisfied, whereas men are more likely to use their own satisfaction of a measure of their satisfaction.” As young women navigate these unspoken expectations, they face conflicting messages. In high school, I was alternately called a prude and a whore. Someone I’d known since daycare once wrote a Facebook status calling me the school slut. Girls who had sex were alternately revered and disdained. The boys were never talked about. Over those formative years, I didn’t say no. Though I wish I’d had more confidence to avoid or stop these difficult situations, I had little understanding of how to change them. Because at first, I didn’t know I could say no. Then, I didn’t know how to. By the end of high school, I didn’t care enough to try. Words like “assault” or “survivor” have never felt relevant. It’s hard to put words to what was, more than a singular action, a constant, u ncha llenged force that e r o d ed my u nderstanding of myself. I didn’t u nderstand my body or my voice. I had no idea what I wanted, so I didn’t know how to demand it. The boys I was with never asked. They pushed my hands and head where they wanted me to go, and after I had done what they wanted, the night was over. I don’t believe these boys were trying

was 14 when I started dating my first boyfriend. I had no idea how to be a girlfriend, as most of my ideas about romance came from Roger and Hammerstein musicals. I pictured holding hands and maybe kissing—going any further was inconceivable. As a novice to relationships, I sought advice from older friends. They made it clear that I had to go further than I wanted to. “Do you want him to break up with you?” they asked. I didn’t. That was when I learned the lesson that the attention and affection of men is something precious and tenuous. If you don’t give them what they want, you might lose it. If you lose it, there’s something wrong with you. It’s how I ended up at my first Jackson Hole High School party, drinking shots of cheap vodka handed to me by older classmates. I remember being herded into an empty bedroom with my boyfriend. I remember the giggling outside the door. I had no idea what to do, so I asked if he thought I was fat. Afterward, I pretended to be entirely nonplussed by the whole terrifying situation. When you become used to something, you can’t tell if it’s good or bad, right or wrong. This is what I became used to. Over the next four years, I excelled academically. I was in all AP classes, was the president of the Honor’s Society. But there was a part of my life my teachers and parents didn’t know about. The only people who knew were classmates, and

we were in the business of acting like nothing was wrong, like everything made sense, like there was nothing scary or new happening. With handles of hard alcohol, we followed one another into empty homes, rural canyons, and campers outside our parents’ houses, and tried to keep up with unspoken and spoken conventions. I held onto one nebulous statistic propagated by a classmate: if a girl didn’t have sex by the time she was 15, she was a loser. Though parties and boys made me anxious, I wanted to be a part of things. So a few times a semester I would go to these parties. I drank bitter shots and would often end up in rooms with boys. Sometimes these boys were sons of my parents’ friends. Some of them I’d known my whole life. Compared to some of my classmates, I had it easy. At one party, for example, someone I’ve known since kindergarten raped another classmate when she was barely awake. There were hushed conversations about it, but from what I remember, they carried a tenor of admiration and bemusement. No one ever physically forced me to do anything. But I felt constant, nagging pressure. There was the guy who put his sleeping bag in my car at a camping party, told me he had nowhere else to sleep and kept trying to go further even when I said no. There was the family friend who begged me to give him oral sex after I offered him a ride home and it was easier to just say yes. There was a guy who took a compromising photo of me at a party and threatened to send it to every college to which I applied. My experiences were not unique. In Peggy Orenstein’s book Girls & Sex, she documents conversations with young women between the ages of 15 and 20. In a 2016 NPR interview, she says that young people are not having intercourse at a younger age, but they are engaging in other sexual behavior younger and more often. “I would talk to girls about oral sex,” she said, “which was something they were doing from a pretty young age, and it tended to not be reciprocal … it’s considered less intimate than sex.” Orenstein said girls would say it was no big deal, it was something they felt that boys expected. They would do it, she said, to avoid having to have sex. For me, and for some of Orenstein’s

| PLANET JACKSON HOLE |

6 | MAY 30, 2018

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he students at do feel pressure to the Jackson party. These aren’t Hole Middle pr i ncess-t hemed School are studying birthday parties; key problems both they instead have at home and abroad, vapes, juuls and alcohol. People expesuch as the opioid rience hangovers by crisis and children the time they’re in who are used as soleighth grade. They diers. But we have a say things like “You major blind spot: the weren’t there!” or vocabulary we use. “When you’re drinkThe things we say ing it’s so much fun; make light of serious you don’t think about issues, like sexual what could happen.” assault, and are conAlcohol correlates nected to the disrewith sexual assault in spect of women. high school because Later in high the amount students school or college, drink can mess up something that the choices they seems like a joke now ‘Peer pressure is common in my grade,’ seventh grader Clare Eddy said. make. The pressure could actually hapto drink and party pen. I am not saying it could also translate will, but the majority into pressure to have of sexual harassment unwanted sex. Both victims are younger of these things can than 30. Fifteen perlead to unwanted sex cent of victims are high school and if between the ages of A middle school student’s plea for parents, teachers in they aren’t careful, it 12 and 17. Let me draw a and children to talk about consent, sexual assault now can lead to unwanted sex in college or one picture for you to BY CLARE EDDY of the 32,000 rapeexplain: imagine you caused pregnancies are walking down a valuable than any one-month relationhallway in Jackson Hole Middle School. ship where a hug is as far as it gets. This each year. Kids also do these kinds of things There are beige lockers everywhere you highlights that young women’s boundcan look, you hear a cacophony of voices aries are already being disrespected, when spending time with people older yearning for summer, there are teachers which could make more serious issues than them. When high schoolers start hanging out with middle schoolers chatting amongst themselves. In this like sexual assault possible. hallway I am either whispering with my Another example? Many people sometimes things go over the edge. friends, or I am trying to get away from think that dress codes are a good thing, Unfortunately, most kids don’t have my screaming peers. but this is not the case. Dress codes conversations about these topics with a They scream things that should cause encourage disrespecting women. From parent because they’re afraid of getting alarm. They say things such as “You a young age, girls are taught to change in trouble. But I have learned that no bully!” when somebody barely nudg- for boys so boys don’t have to control matter what you do, a parent will always es them, or “Wow, so and so is such a themselves. Instead, young boys should love you. If parents talk to their kids about whore.” Or even when someone is being be taught to respect women, and they tickled: “RAPE!” They think it is casual, should learn that no matter how much topics like this maybe it would be less a joke. No one realizes that being care- skin someone is showing, there has to common. Of course many parents, and less with these expressions dilutes their be consent first. People in my seventh their children, are terrified to do so, meaning. grade class are often “dress coded.” This but talking about difficult topics can Peer pressure is common in my grade. is when a teacher writes you up because strengthen a parent-child relationship. Martin Luther King Jr. once said, It’s almost as if two people are puppets you are showing too much skin. When and the rest of the kids in the grade are someone doesn’t like another person, “There comes a time when silence is pulling the strings. For example, a boy they suggest dress coding them, which betrayal.” There are many ways to apply King’s wisdom to our lives. In the situin my class liked a girl but she didn’t feel is not right. the same way. People were constantly There is also pressure to drink. ations I have mentioned, the silence of telling her that “he’s so nice” and “he’s According to Prevention Management teen problems has gone on for too long a really good guy.” Everyone was asking Organization of Wyoming, 14 percent and it is time we stop it. The first step to her why she wouldn’t go out with him. of Teton County sixth graders report- solving this problem is talking about it. She said that middle school relation- ed using alcohol, and 43 percent of The more we talk about respect and conships only exist to mess up friendships, eighth graders. In eighth grade, people sent the more likely we are to prevent sexual assault. PJH and friendships are so much more

It Begins Before High School

rom the outside, everything looked fine. Perfect, even.

In high school, Bella Wood, class of 2016, was student body president, captain of the Speech and Debate team, a dancer. She got excellent grades, was close to her parents. She was ambitious, smart, talented.

CHECK OR

CONSENT As adolescents in a small town test the sexual boundaries of themselves and each other, is a risk-prone community failing to teach them the limits?

| PLANET JACKSON HOLE |

BY SARAH ROSS

YES NO

MAY 30, 2018 | 7

But that is not always how she felt. Inside, she was losing herself, unraveling. High school was a blur of accomplishments, performances and competitions, but it was punctuated by bad nights. She learned to discern between really bad and a little bad. Really bad: a classmate pushing her up against a car and saying he should rape her. A little bad: a drunken, confused hookup where she remembered walking into a bedroom, getting undressed, and a couple other key moments, but not much else. Wood now brims with confidence and enthusiasm. She laughs loudly, speaks clearly. She does not seem like somebody who would feel voiceless. But she did. In high school, “I lost my Bella,” she said. It took leaving Jackson to regain her sense of self. At the time, Wood did not talk about the bad nights. She had already been assaulted by the time she learned about consent in school. Her boundaries were violated before she had the chance to establish them. Anyway, to whom would she have spoken? Most people she hooked up with she had known her entire life. They were her friends. She felt that she and her peers had been unceremoniously cleaved together. To speak about what she was experiencing would have required rending these bonds, a separation of flesh from flesh that would have been painful and dangerous. She may not have known at the time, but Wood was not alone. Many of her peers, particularly young women, were also having bad nights. They were unknowing actors in a script that was written years, maybe decades, before. It was a script inherited from older peers that established the baseline of “normal” for early sexual experience. The foundations of the script were this: Consent was not a value. Coercion was the baseline. Male pleasure was emphasized. Alcohol was always present. After 13 interviews with students who attended high school between 2005 and 2018, roughly 100 off-the-record conversations, and dozens of texts and Facebook comments and messages, it has become clear that traumatic early sexual experiences are extremely common in Jackson Hole. While some interviewees had positive experiences, did not feel pressured, or were not sexually active, most who participated at all in hookup culture agreed that they have had to heal from, or at least grapple with, their early sexual experiences. Both men and women experienced violations, though women were much more likely to describe them as traumatic. Women were also more likely to later be assaulted in college and beyond. In all cases, nobody talked about what was occuring at the time. Many did not hear about consent or realize they had been assaulted or coerced until after high school. Subjects described being thrust into situations for which they were unprepared, where they felt pressure to keep up. As Cassandra Lee, class of 2008, said, “I was put into situations where I perceived pressure for me to be sexual before I was able to catalyze my own hopes or morals around it. I hadn’t formed a value set before I had to choose my path.”

| PLANET JACKSON HOLE |

8 | MAY 30, 2018

‘I Have to See Him for the Rest of My Life’ Today Wood feels angry at her hometown. She says Jackson’s culture pushed her and her peers into situations for which they were unprepared. As she put it, “Risk is the number one thing we love. It’s like, ‘Wait, so you haven’t done this?’ ‘You haven’t dropped Corbet’s?’ ‘You haven’t done this drug?’ ‘You haven’t sucked his dick?’” Her early sexual experiences required her to negotiate with the idea of what it means to “want” something. More than once, she knew even in the moment, “Oh, this is assault.” While Wood would not share the specifics, she knows what she experienced was assault. At other times, it was less clear. She might not have exactly wanted to hook up with someone, but she wanted the story and the social capital that came with it. In those instances, the guys she hooked up with seemed equally ambivalent. “It was more for the story than for ourselves,” Wood said. “To claim that I didn’t want it was probably not right. It wasn’t fun, but it wasn’t not fun. It wasn’t their fault. It was the fault of the system. We were not equipped with the tools to be doing what we were doing.” Wood was a freshman when she became sexually active. For girls especially, there was pressure to start hooking up at a young age. There was a culture “of pushing, pushing, pushing boundaries,” she said. But, “I had no boundaries … I didn’t even have the time to think about what I wanted to do, what I didn’t want to do.” Wood is not alone. Madison*, class of 2014, rarely visits her hometown, avoids talk ing about high school. (*She and several other subjects chose to remain anonymous. Some have never told their parents about their experiences, others feared retaliation from people who had assaulted them or did not want want to expose such vulnerable information in a small town.) Like Wood, Madison had multiple traumatic sexual experiences while at Jackson Hole High School. She had sex for the first time when she was 14 with a man 4.5 years her senior. “The culture was very predatory toward younger girls,” she said. “Nonconsensual things were happening, but I was so inexperienced with guys, they walked all over me. I had to act like everything was normal and not make a scene.” “There was no regard for consent,” she continued. “There was no regard for you as a person. If you weren’t down to perform ‘X’ sexual task, then what are you doing? … If you didn’t have that social capital

as a sexual object then you were irrelevant because there were other people who were willing.” Jackson primed Madison to accept the unacceptable: “I had very negative experiences in college that I wouldn’t have tolerated if I wasn’t brought up in a community where I was trained to tolerate things in that way.” Both Madison and Wood felt silenced by Jackson’s small town, tight-knit dynamic. It was difficult to stand her ground with classmates “because you have so much time left together,” she said. “I compromised so much not to offend. I felt like if I call someone out, I have to see him for the rest of my life.” Some of the people who violated Madison were lifelong friends. There was nowhere to turn. Parents did not understand. As she put it: “Your parents imagine how people were in third grade.” “To confront these realities in high school would have been world shattering.” Rather than shatter their own worlds, subjects squashed their discomforts and fears, they drank and they hooked up, unsure what was adolescent exploration and what was damaging. In the absence of conversation, these young people adjusted their internal experience to what seemed normal. Maybe it felt weird that a guy asked for oral sex so many times that “no” was eroded to “yes.” Maybe it did not feel right that girls were called sluts and guys were not. But an alternative did not seem available, so the discomfort was numbed, neutralized.

around for a while and then began to make out. When Madison did not want to go any further, he became frustrated, said she owed him. He had driven her around, after all. Madison gave him oral sex because that was what was expected. It was the bare minimum of a hookup. It is what nearly all the female subjects of this article did to avoid having sex, to avoid escalating the situation. “It was like some sort of ambiguous currency,” she said. “Like, ‘Oh if I make you go down on me that’s not rape.’” The men seemed to think they were doing the girls a favor: “It was some form of convoluted chivalry, like ‘I won’t force you to have sex, but if you don’t blow me why are you here?’” Madison felt pressure from older guys and abandoned by older girls. She said the older girls were harboring anger or hurt or resentment from their own experiences. Rather than stand up for or check in with younger girls, older girls became victims of their environment, of a toxic cycle. They saw the younger ones as “sluts,” as threats. She remembers mean looks, feeling ostracized, disrespected. More importantly, though, they were also very tolerant of the behavior of men in their grade. Though older students accepted their peers’ behavior, they were also the victims of it. This became clear to Madison when she experienced domestic abuse the summer after sophomore year. She had been casually dating a recent graduate, someone she had been involved with for years. Then one night he blew up. He was screaming, pushing her. Yelling. Throwing things. “My heart was pounding. That was my first panic attack.” After graduating, she learned that a woman several years older than Madison who had dated the same man had experienced the same thing. “I was shocked. I thought it was an isolated incident. I assumed she was the older woman that he respected, that he was just abusive toward me.” The normalization of coercive behavior and assault silenced Madison. She still avoids talking about high school or coming home for too long. She has had nonconsensual experiences in college and was recently diagnosed with PTSD. Her experiences in Jackson, she said, are at the root of that trauma. While Jackson can seem idyllic from the outside, that assumption obscures some of the darker sides of the community. Wood, for example, sees parents who are enamored with this town, who moved here to ski and be outside. They struggle to understand how a culture of extremes has trickled into their children’s lives, a toxic leak that silences young people who feel they are just supposed to be grateful to live here, no matter what. “You will love where you came from,” is the implicit pressure Wood felt. “But what if I don’t? What if I’m mad at where I came from? How do we make change here when

“I had very negative experiences in college that I wouldn’t have tolerated if I wasn’t brought up in a community where I

was trained to tolerate things in that way.”

The Roots of Trauma For many subjects, the trauma crystallized after leaving Jackson. Madison, for example, did not fully comprehend that she had experienced both sexual coercion and domestic violence until she got to college. That was when her freshman year roommate discussed her own sexual assault. “It was this epiphany moment. I thought there was an unspoken rule about just submitting to that kind of thing,” Madison said. In high school, she ended up in situations where she felt tricked, felt she could not say no. Once, a guy asked her to hang out after school. They drove

The Illusion of Choice

When a Friend Assaults a Friend

Nothing ever came of it. The young man faced no academic, social or legal consequences. Much later, the assailant apologized to the victim. Lauren is still friends with him now. “If he settled it with her, I won’t hold a grudge,” she said. “It took a lot for him to own up to it.” She knew what happened was wrong, but high school had numbed her to the severity of the situation. Had everything been a little different, Lauren said, she might not have stopped it: “If I hadn’t known how drunk she was, if I hadn’t already seen her sleeping, I might not have done anything.” It was not until college that she recognized what happened in high school was not normal. When a student filed a Title IX suit against the school for mishandling a sexual assault case, Lauren realized everything the young woman described in that case had happened to Lauren and her peers in high school. “That was very weird for me because I realized that’s actually not right. Those things aren’t supposed to happen and if they do you’re supposed to say something.”

What About the Boys? Talking about women’s trauma is becoming more common, accepted, especially amid the #MeToo movement. As Peggy Orenstein, acclaimed author of Girls and Sex, told Planet Jackson Hole, “We’re more comfortable talking about girls as victims of sexuality than as agents of it.” Men’s behavior and experiences, on the other hand, are more of a mystery. What, for example, motivated the young man who attempted to rape Lauren’s friend? In no other area of his life did he reveal a capacity for violence. After Girls and Sex, Orenstein has turned her focus to young men, trying to understand their side of the story. Surprisingly, a large part of that story is that men also have sex they do not want. Her research has demonstrated that boys are also coerced or pressured into sex, though there is less room in the culture for those experiences. “When boys were saying that they were having experiences that were unwanted or nonconsensual, I almost didn’t hear it,” Orenstein said. “It didn’t compute.” While the young women Planet Jackson Hole interviewed had similar stories—being coerced into oral sex, feeling silenced—young men had a more wide range of experiences.

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Lauren’s suspicions were not wrong. Her senior year, she watched as her peers did “side with the guy.” After freshman year, Lauren had left Jackson for the summer to recover. When she came back, she remembered thinking “I need to be really smart about what I do. I need to hold it together.” She grew up fast, she said, and felt on guard. The rest of high school was easier, but she saw the cycle she had experienced repeating. Other girls became the “slut,” were pressured into sex, drank too much. Then, senior year, she witnessed the culmination of this toxic culture. She was at a house party when she prevented a rape. She walked into a bedroom to check on an inebriated friend and saw a classmate pulling down his pants and undressing a woman, face down and asleep. She pulled him off and punched him. “I don’t remember most of it,” she said. “I remember hitting him.” He was a close friend, so too was the victim. Rather than emphasizing the assault, some classmates made fun of her for punching him. “I was so embarrassed that I lost control, that I hit somebody,” Lauren said. She did not know what to do, who to talk

to.

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That culture of secrecy and acceptance enabled experiences that never should have happened. Lauren*, class of 2012, had some of those experiences. For her, it started with calls. She was a freshman when two guys—friends, ostensibly—started driving to her house late at night, calling, texting nonstop. Their text messages might read, “Come hang out, come give me head.” If she didn’t answer, they would start honking the horn until she came outside. “My option was to sneak out and go with them or have my parents wake up,” she said. It made her anxious, she did not know what to do. Her easiest option, she decided, was to go along with it. She would get in the car, which they sometimes would not start until she agreed to do whatever they wanted her to do—like perform oral sex, for example. Then they would drive around or go to friends’ parties. Lauren hooked up with some of the other guys in that friend group too. The pressure was so intense it did not seem there was another option. “They would say, ‘Everyone else does this’ … they made it seem like if I didn’t do what they wanted, then I would be an outsider.”

It was not just guys who pressured her. Girls wanted to fit in with the guys so they would pressure other girls to do stuff and then turn on them and berate them for it, Lauren said. That was one way girls could signal to guys that they were cool. People from both genders called her a slut. Guys at school started to lie about having sex with her. “It was a disaster,” she said. The expectation that she do whatever a guy wants made Lauren feel dehumanized, silenced. Her worth was measured in giving “great head,” she said. Her voice did not matter. Her worth as a person was not valued. More than anything, though, she felt trapped. Whether it was intentional, young men seemed careful not to cross the line into what might be considered “real” assault. They gave her just enough choice that she was, indeed, making a choice—however impossible. “You get stuck in a situation where [hooking up] wasn’t the only way out, but they made you feel like it was the easy way. The way you wouldn’t be an outsider,” Lauren said. “I remember thinking, ‘I can’t make a scene, they’re going to side with the guy.’” In other words, there was a choice but only one.

people don’t see that change needs to be made? Our parents are not the ones who know.” The discord between what Wood felt and what she thought she was supposed to feel can actually exacerbate the sensation of negative experiences. As John McIntosh, a professor of psychology at Indiana University South Bend, said in an interview about the high rates of suicide in ski towns: “If you live in an environment that’s interpreted and seen as perfect, that may lead you to feel even worse when you don’t feel good in that environment, and you may feel an even greater personal toll as a result.” Sarah Long, PsyD, is a clinical psychologist who, for awhile, treated patients with eating disorders in Jackson. She saw that the forces impacting high school students were the same ones with which their parents grappled. Adults in Jackson also struggled with unnamed trauma, with the pressure to match an extreme culture. To help young people, Long said, “adults have to look at themselves. And they don’t always want to.” Young people and adults alike were resigned to the culture in Jackson, Long found. They did not feel empowered to make change, and therefore internalized their pain, which often manifested in disordered eating. Students would disclose that they’d been assaulted, for example, but “it was like, ‘yeah, this is just how it is.’” The people interviewed for this story demonstrated similar patterns. Women talked about eating disorders as an almost boring and inevitable side effect of being raised in Jackson. “They knew what was happening and that it was affecting their eating patterns, but they were not willing to do anything about it, nor did they feel they had the voice to do anything,” Long said. “There was a culture of secrecy and acceptance.”

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They were more likely than the young women to say that the hookup culture was benign or unmemorable. They were less likely to say they had nonconsensual sex, even though most would say they did things they did not want to do. They were also more likely to assume that sexual experiences should feel pleasurable for them. Still, they often felt pressured, disconnected from their own desires. Jessie Ford, a doctoral candidate at NYU’s Department of Sociology, found that reports of unwanted sex, outside of rape, are actually relatively similar across genders. While women experience more harassment, assault and fear, men also have unwanted sex for similar reasons as women. They are afraid of embarrassing themselves or their partner. “Men consent to unwanted sex because accepting all opportunities for sexual activity is a widely accepted way to perform masculinity,” she wrote. They feel pressure to keep a sexual interaction smooth and fear ridicule for being a “man who declines sex with an attractive woman.” Orenstein has heard stories of men waking up with a condom on the floor but not remembering sex, not sure where they are, not sure who they are with. Some of them become depressed, angry. Others do not think it is a big deal. Most “don’t feel damaged, but they don’t feel great.” “Even if they say it doesn’t affect them, or if they feel like they’re supposed to find it funny, or be happy because any sex is sex,” that does not mean there aren’t insidious consequences, Orenstein said. Young men might be “shaping themselves to the narrative” of being sexually confident and libidinous even if that’s not what they feel inside. Understanding the pressures young men feel and act on is critical to addressing sexual assault, Orenstein said. After all, so much of the consent conversation revolves around teaching men to hear and respect “no.” But “how can you recognize and respect ‘no’ in somebody else if you aren’t allowed to say it yourself?” Orenstein said.

‘It Was Just Fun at the Time’ In high school, Wood, Lauren, and Madison, felt objectified. They felt as though they were valued by their male peers solely for their bodies, their sexual willingness. That was not a misinterpretation on their part. As Trevor*, class of 2011, revealed, some of the young men who attended JHHS truly did treat their female peers as though they existed only for male pleasure. Whether that is actually

how individual men felt, objectifying and demeaning women was one way to prove their masculinity and worth. For Trevor, high school was a blast rather than a source of trauma. “It was a party culture,” he said. “It was like who’s gonna hook up, who’s gonna watch, who’s gonna get wasted. It was just fun at the time.” Sex was the objective of partying. “That was where the fun came from, trying to get some tail, talking about it later on, laughing about it.” Trevor first heard about friends having sex his freshman year. “One of my buddies had sex with one of the seniors … after that, it just turned into, alright, this is the game. I guess I’ll play it.” Unlike most of his friends, Trevor was in a serious relationship for two years. The first time he and his girlfriend had sex, he was 16 and she was 18. They were at a party and “she was wasted,” he said. “I’d had two beers and she was all over me.” He thought she was too drunk, kept saying it was a bad idea. But her friends were pressuring her, pushing the two of them into a bedroom: “They thought it was time for her.” The next day, Trevor said she was “kind of bummed.” At the time, he suspected she might regret it, and he might too. But the pressure had “cramped it.” He wanted to be among the group that could say, “I’ve done it.” He apologized the next day. “It’s not the way I would have done it—with people banging on the doors and trying to break in.” Trevor wasn’t interested in hooking up with people outside of a relationship, but he watched his friends, drank with them, went to the parties, talked about what happened. He recalled the conversations about sex often demeaned women in some way: “It was like, ‘I can’t believe we just took this chick, I banged her and then you banged her!’” They would share their stories, high five. They had nicknames for promiscuous girls. “Meatpocket” is one he remembered. It all seemed in good fun. They assumed the girls had equivalent nicknames for the guys. “There was a sense of pride that came from sexual activity and whoever it was with,” Trevor said. “My friends back then, the way they talked about it, they

were putting girls down. That was fun, it was what we did all the time. We were young and dumb. It’s how we felt better about ourselves.” Girls were judged on what they would or wouldn’t do. “It was like, will she give head? Will she fuck? How far will she go? If you get with this one you’re getting it all the way in.” They didn’t have sex with girls because they necessarily liked or respected them. They did not really care about the girl’s experience. Male pleasure was emphasised. “We would just laugh and giggle when we talked about sex, talk about finishing wherever on her. There was never any talk about her finishing.” Though Trevor said he was mostly outside of hookup culture, that he was “of it, but not in it,” he remembers two notable incidents where he participated in the culture around him that objectified women. The first happened when he was a sophomore. An eighth grader sent him nude photos. She had already hooked up with high school students. “She was just very sexual,” Trevor said. The next day, he went to school and showed everybody. “We all laughed, like she’s in eighth grade and she’s got a great rack.” Trevor sent the picture to two friends, a boy and a girl. From there it “spread like wildfire.” School administrators found out. Trevor and his male friend were charged with permitting obscenities and put on diversion for nine months, which meant that rather than be incarcerated or receive an equivalent sentence, he completed a program that monitored his behaviors, that he did not drink or do drugs. He thought it was “bullshit” that the female student he had sent the photo to did not get in trouble. The next incident happened at the annual senior year camping party. He had been drinking, talking to a cute girl—a friend. He kept asking her if she wanted to go to the car. “That wasn’t me speaking, that was the drinking, the pressure from around me. She didn’t really want to. I wasn’t forceful physically, but I was like, ‘Come on, come on.’ Then I passed out wasted and she went back to the party.” He reflected on both incidents with a level of regret. He knows the girl who sent the photo struggled. “I wonder how much of that comes from me and spreading the photo. I hope I didn’t have a large part in damaging her.” Besides that, though, Trevor says some of what happened was just a part of growing up, not knowing what was normal: “I feel like I didn’t know enough about anything to know what was good or bad or right or wrong … a girl having sex with two different guys in one night, for example, I didn’t know at the time if that was OK.” If he tried to speak out, “my friends would have laughed at me, like it’s no big deal, we don’t mean anything by it,” he said. “It was just us trying to figure it out. That’s just how life is.”

“It was like, will she give head? Will she fuck? How far will she go? If you get with this one you’re getting it all the way in.”

A Box to Check

“I thought that if I had conversations about consent or what happens next, I would give away the fact that I had no idea what I was doing.”

“There’s a vacuum of healthy relationships and conversation” to demonstrate alternatives to what was normalized. “It wasn’t in sex-ed, it wasn’t with parents. In the absence of particular conversation, you’re leaving it up to external forces.” The impact can be traumatic, Sollitt said, but that is not always, not often, the intent. Following a template for sexual experiences that does not adjust for individual boundaries, desires, or needs meant that many hookups happened in a grey zone—kind of OK, kind of not OK. This obfuscated what was truly not OK.

Back to that Fateful Night Sollitt was also at the same party where Lauren saw the attempted rape. He too was friends with both the assailant and the victim. He remembered seeing the aftermath, seeing female classmates huddle around the victim, and the offender talking to his male friends. He had no idea how to respond. “It was obviously nonconsensual, it was almost certainly illegal,” he said. But because of his friendship with both the victim and the attacker, he didn’t do anything. “It’s difficult because [he’s] someone I still see, someone I’ve had a relationship with since 1999. I recall almost immediately coming to the defense of the male student, thinking there’s no way he could have done it. I’ve known this person my entire life. They’re not capable of that.” The forces that silenced Madison, Lauren, and Bella Wood—the knowledge that their experiences would be dismissed in order to maintain a social order established in kindergarten—silenced Sollitt, too. To name what happened would require losing a piece of himself, his own childhood, his understanding of who his friend was. The stakes were too high. Because he did not see what happened, because of his friendship, “it was easy to remain willfully ignorant of what might have happened.” The words “assault” or “rape” were not used to describe the incident. “I honestly don’t know who I would have turned to,” Sollitt said. “Going to the police didn’t feel right, we were at a party where everybody is underaged, where there was drinking and drugs. Nobody talked about it even though it was clearly wrong.”

‘I Had No Idea it Wasn’t Consensual’

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The normalization of unwanted or pressured sex and the lack of conversation, communication, and consent set the groundwork for distressing experiences like Lauren’s friend, and for Noah*, class of 2011. For most of high school, Noah did not feel that he was seen as “a sexual figure.” He was a nice guy, friends with everybody, on the baseball team, disinterested in hookup culture. He felt uncomfortable with what was considered normal. His senior year he went to a few parties, saw people drinking and hooking up. It just felt wrong. On the bus to baseball tournaments and in the locker room, his teammates talked about girls, what they would do and what they would not do, showed each other pictures of nude classmates. “It happened all the time,” Noah said.

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the one leading, I didn’t know what to do next, I didn’t know what the next step was … I had no idea what sex and relationships were supposed to look like. In that vacuum, I just continued with what seemed normal.” The young women he hooked up with seemed more sexually experienced than he, and he didn’t want to let on that he felt unsure. “I thought that if I had conversations about consent or what happens next, I would give away the fact that I had no idea what I was doing,” Sollitt said. Hookups followed a template that Sollitt felt obligated to follow. “I wasn’t even targeting my sexual experiences as something that was supposed to be a celebration of a pleasurable thing,” Sollitt said. “It was more like this is step A and this is step B and this is step C.” Men and women alike seemed in agreement about what those steps were. Female pleasure, for example, was not a part of the routine, not discussed. Sollitt did not recall a lot of reciprocation in high school. “You never would have heard, ‘Billy went down on Jenny,’” Sollitt said. Consent also was not discussed. They did not talk to their partners about it, or to one another about the realities of sexual relationships—beyond high fiving when someone lost their virginity. “It wasn’t officially stated in my family, but the expectation was no sex until marriage,” French said. “The expectation was pretty off reality.” In college, Sollitt heard from female friends that every one of them had experienced assault. He now is more aware about gender privilege and understands that girls from high school responded to their own pressures, that they might not have been as willing or confident as they seemed. Many of them may have already experienced nonconsensual sex. Still, it’s complicated, Sollitt said. While it is necessary to name assault and call out male privilege, that’s not what it felt like for him as a high school student. “No 16-year-old kid is engaging in these relationships understanding a power dynamic, the social pressures,” he said. More often, they are following a template—one that emphasises male pleasure and does not encourage communication. “Socially and in the power dynamic I was in control,” Sollitt said. But that’s not how it felt. He felt little agency.

While Trevor revealed one part of young male sexuality—the bravado, the misogyny—men are also hurt by hookup culture and coercive sex. Henry Sollitt and Sam French, 2013, say they experienced pressure in high school, and some of their early sexual experiences they now see as a part of an unhealthy culture. Unlike the young women interviewed for this story, Sollitt, French and some of their male friends had a sexual grace period for the first couple years of high school. While the girls in their grade hooked up with older students—what they referred to as “cradle-robbing” or “freshman-slaying”—the guys mostly just talked about sex. The pressure to hook up started a little bit later for them. They described hookups as casual. Treating sexual relationships or experiences as significant or emotionally important was not part of the culture. “I convinced myself they were very casual,” Sollitt said. “Not all of them were necessarily positive, but they were normal.” In fact, there was huge pressure to be normal. “That was my biggest memory from high school—going into junior year thinking I have to check that box,” French said. Because some of the girls in their grade had already had sexual experiences with older students, “it was a trend in my circle of friends for a guy to lose his virginity to a more promiscuous girl,” French said. That was the case for French and Sollitt and many of their friends. “If you wanted to engage sexually, the best way wasn’t to enter a committed relationship but to go out with certain girls,” French said. They knew who the “slutty” girls were, they knew where to go. “Older guys pursued younger girls who then pursued younger guys,” Sollitt said. It was at a party when Sollitt first had sex. It was with someone he did not know very well. They had not cultivated a physical or emotional connection. It was confusing for Sollitt, because while he wanted to “check the box,” he didn’t initiate the sexual activity. That was the case with other hookups. “I didn’t feel like the driver, I wasn’t initiating relationships. I was being led from one room to the other. I wasn’t

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Sometimes he felt like he had to participate. “If I was ever to say that stuff now, I would be absolutely embarrassed.” At dances, there was pressure to grind—that was the only way people danced. “If you didn’t do that, you were on the outside,” he said. Again, it didn’t feel right but he participated. The pressure to be manly, to be “cool” was intense. The “cool” guys were the ones “who had the freedom to do whatever they wanted to do.” Noah was a “late bloomer,” he lacked that power. This changed at the end of senior year. He developed a relationship with a cool girl, a sexually experienced classmate. “She was in a higher class than me in terms of popularity,” Noah said, “She was talked about by a lot of guys—what she was willing to do. Then I felt the pressure.” He heard about her previous sexual experiences, and guys began to ask, “Bro, are you going to do XYZ with her?” When they started seeing each other, it moved fast. They made out one time at his house, the next time they saw each other they had sex. “My first sexual intercourse is what you’d call rape,” he said. He had gone over to her house, and they were sitting on the couch making out. “It escalated quickly. She pulled down my pants and pulled down her pants, and she put me in her.” It was over quickly, and Noah was in shock. “Everything was confused, it was such a blur, I honestly don’t remember details.” He felt out of control, which, as the man, confused him. He did not know how he could have stopped or slowed down what happened so fast. “I almost felt like the sexual programs I went through in middle and high school weren’t good enough,” he said. They had sex one other time, and it happened the same way. “I felt like I had to since I’d already opened the bottle you can’t re-close.” He didn’t talk about it with anybody. When he got to college, he told people he was a virgin. To this day, no one knows what happened. At the time, he had “no idea that it wasn’t consensual,” but he knew it did not feel right. “I felt pushed to do it for sure. I don’t know what she’d say.” It wasn’t what he’d been expecting—he had been taught that as a man he needed to “ask three times” before doing anything. He did not expect to be in the position of being violated. “Women are always talked

about as the victim,” he said. Noah said he does not know if the experience was traumatizing, but he does know that he reflects on high school differently now. He was pressured into things he never wanted, he felt alienated from himself. Now he feels that resisting that pressure in high school is extremely difficult work, but worth it. “It requires faith in a higher power, faith in yourself as a person, and extreme and unbelievable foresight into who you are impacting now and not just what’s happening.” Older students have a lot of power—if he had seen more upperclassmen modeling healthy relationships, consensual sex and communication, he may have understood there were alternatives, Noah said. Indeed, young people must see alternatives if they are to make more positive choices. To interviewees, for example, it may have seemed that most people enjoyed hookup culture or that it was their only option. In reality, this hookup culture is positive for very few people. According to sociologist Lisa Wade, who spent five years researching college sexual culture, only 15 percent of people truly enjoy hookup culture, though most students assume others enjoy it more, and that other people are hooking up a lot more than they actually are. As Sollitt put it, “All I heard was that sex is something that you shouldn’t be doing at that age, and the idea of relationships was totally excluded. So I had no idea what a sexual relationship should look like. I had no idea what a progression of feelings and physical contact and intimacy should look like.”

Feeling ‘Bold and Brave’

the person was cute. You have the carelessness to do something you don’t want to do.” It also made it harder for interviewees to be clear about what was consensual and what wasn’t. Alcohol being so linked to sex is dangerous for everybody, Orenstein said. “Boys are much more likely to assault when they’re drunk, they’re much more likely to not listen. People are less likely to step in as bystanders. It’s risky for everyone.” That, of course, includes adults. Shannon Nichols is the director of education and outreach at the Community Safety Network. Those who seek out the services of CSN are mostly adults, but Nichols said that in all her years at CSN, “it’s difficult to think of one sexual assault survivor who didn’t have alcohol involved.” “People who have predatory sexual behaviors use alcohol to seek out people who use alcohol because they’re easier prey,” Nichols explained. “It lowers inhibitions, it makes us more aggressive, and it allows culpability to be placed on somebody who is unable to articulate what they want or don’t want.” Though alcohol and assault are related, Nichols said it is a misconception to blame assault on alcohol. Sexual violence does not decrease when alcohol is removed from the equation. It may not change predatory sexual behaviors, including coercion, manipulation and physical force, Nichols said. However, it is easier to manipulate people who are intoxicated, she said. In high school, young people are experimenting both with sex and alcohol: “When people are experimenting with two new things, they are at risk for making bad judgements, or being unclear about their decisions.” As with many aspects of Jackson’s culture, the drinking norms are extreme. And this starts young. Teton County adolescents are drinking, by some measures, at some of the highest rates in the state. According to the 2016 Prevention Needs Assessment, 26 percent of Teton County seniors reported binge drinking within the last two weeks, the third highest percentage in the state. More than 40 percent reported drinking in the last 30 days. Teton County’s sixth, eighth, 10th and 12th graders all consume alcohol at a rate higher than the Wyoming average. Law enforcement data mirrors these numbers. Planet Jackson Hole obtained information from the Jackson Police Department showing that in the years interviewees attended high school, there were 685 Minor in Possession and Minor Under the Influence charges. More than half of those charges occurred in a four-year period between 2007 and 2011 when 527 students attended JHHS. The highest rate of charges was in 2008, when 94 incidents were filed. That represents roughly 18 percent of the student body.

“There is a norm in our town of extreme sports, extreme drinking, extremes in every way. We reward people who have extreme skiing feats. There’s an underlying pressure to take risks and try extreme behavior for adolescents as well as adults.”

Drinking was inextricably linked with Jackson’s youth hookup culture, and blurred the already confused understanding of consent. “Without drinking, none of this happens,” Wood said. Drinking played a few roles in these hookups. First, it facilitated them. “Alcohol isn’t just about loosening inhibitions,” Orenstein said. “It’s the reason to have sex. Not because you like somebody or because you think

“Now, guys will ask but even if you say ‘no,’ they’ll keep pressuring you and they won’t stop until they get what they want. If you say, ‘Not tonight,’ they’ll keep asking all night.”

Persistent Norms

Many of the experiences described in this article are still common. Lily*, a Jackson Hole High School junior, and her classmates have heard a lot about consent, but at least in her friend group, there is still a lot of pressure. “Now, guys will ask but even if you say ‘no,’ they’ll keep pressuring you and they won’t stop until they get what they want. They’ll be like, ‘Not to pressure you, but do you want to hook up?’ If you say, ‘Not tonight,’ they’ll keep asking all night.”

MAY 30, 2018 | 13

If adults do not acknowledge the darker side of Jackson’s culture, that makes it difficult for young people to talk about it. Dr. Sarah Long witnessed the consequences of not speaking. Substance abuse, sexual violence—those were not things her patients knew how to articulate. So they turned in on themselves. “When something happens to your body that’s traumatic, you have a sense of loss of control,” Long said. “One thing you have control over is your weight and food intake. It’s how you regain power. Eating disorders are also pretty powerful at shutting down any anxiety or emotion or trauma response.”

up when he has kids, he’ll stop drinking when he has kids … he’ll give 100 percent in your relationship one day.” In her friend groups, Jones has seen imbalances in relationships. The men, for example, tend to have more time to pursue their individual interests. They might have time to get out for a two-hour bike ride, while women stay with kids, get out less. It’s reasonable to expect more from relationships, though, and equitable relationships do exist in Jackson. Jones and her partner have been together for 13 years, partially because Jones has worked hard to create and respect her own boundaries, to make sure her relationship is balanced. She is accustomed to being the one woman in male-dominated, outdoor-oriented spaces. At the Outdoor Retailer Show, for example, she was one of few female founders with a booth for her business Noso Patches. Jones has been struck by the dearth of women in Jackson’s outdoor sphere, though that is changing. “There were not many girls to ski with when I first moved here,” she said. As a Division One collegiate athlete, Jones was eager to break into the sports world, and found that it was very male-dominated. One way to get access to that world was to befriend men, some of whom seemed to only care about skiing and biking. “You can guarantee a 15-minute conversation if you talk about skiing,” Jones said. The problem, though, is that there is a lot more to Jackson than the powder, but some people seemed disinterested in contributing more to the community, or even their relationships. “There are more stories here, more than guys skiing off cliffs.” This culture, which encourages men to pursue their own desires at the expense of others, trickles into the high school. It impacts the behavior rewarded in men and the way that people view women. As Fuller Ross (brother to this author), class of 2015, wrote in a July 2017 article for Planet Jackson Hole, “I can vividly remember sexist jokes being made by coaches, teachers, and other adults about girls’ ability to ski, drive in the snow, play sports, etc. As a boy, I grew up being told Jackson Hole was my playground. This idea translated into a culture of entitlement that spanned from the law to relationships to what we said to and about girls.”

| PLANET JACKSON HOLE |

An Insidious Culture

Long’s clients lived with debilitating anxiety as a result of sexual violence, though many of them, like Wood, appeared as though their lives were perfect. They did well in school, had friends, but inside, they were crumbling. Many Jacksonites have the ability to put on a good front. Residents tend to be high-achieving, fit and ambitious. These characteristics mask pain. “I think in general there were a lot of eating disorders in Jackson, and it goes unrecognized … because everybody is expected to be thin and athletic,” Long said. There are some personality characteristics that contribute to eating disorders “and a few are prevalent in Jackson,” Long said. “There’s this perfectionist piece, for example, being expected to be great at everything, being the best athlete, being smart, being pretty. You see parents struggling with that, and their kids too.” Some of this pressure is gendered. While all residents may feel pressure to fit into Jackson’s culture, women are still less likely to be represented in the outdoors—the arena where Jacksonites are perhaps most respected—and more likely to carry the burden of perfection, being the ideal mother, athlete and partner. Business owner Kelli Jones has been in Jackson since 2002 and has observed how this dynamic exists not just in the schools, but throughout the community, and how it can hurt people. Jones has seen not just how perfectionism is rewarded, but also risk-taking behavior, and how that behavior is associated primarily with men, which allows them to get away with a lot. This is the behavior that young men in town look up to, emulate. In a town where people joke about “Peter Pan Syndrome” and “Never Never Land,” few think about the consequences of men not growing up. Jones said she’s noticed a trend of women in unbalanced relationships, where they work, are primary caregivers to children, manage the homes, and their own health and happiness. Meanwhile, their male partners continue to pursue their own interests with less investment in shared responsibilities. “I find myself giving bad advice to friends, like, go into this relationship with no expectations, he’ll grow

The high rate of alcohol use among local young people may be connected to Jackson’s drinking culture. More than 75 percent of eighth graders in Jackson reported attending a gathering in the last year where large amounts of alcohol were available. More than 70 percent reported attending a community event where they witnessed intoxicated adults. These were the highest numbers in the state. This does not come as a surprise to Trudy Funk, executive director of Curran Seeley. What is considered normal drinking in Jackson, she said, is actually quite high: “A lot of our events in Jackson have alcohol included in them, and unfortunately it’s very often abusive use rather than responsible use.” According to the American Medical Association, consuming three drinks in one sitting can be considered abusive use of alcohol. In many settings, three drinks is the minimum for Jacksonites. Funk sees that the normalized overuse of alcohol is connected to Jackson’s overall tendency to reward risk-taking behavior. “There is a norm in our town of extreme sports, extreme drinking, extremes in every way. We reward people who have extreme skiing feats. There’s an underlying pressure to take risks and try extreme behavior for adolescents as well as adults.” Nichols agreed. “In Jackson, the mentality is go big or go home.” And that pressure is often gendered. Some of the most celebrated people in Jackson are extreme male athletes who young people idolize. Young men in particular see that masculinity relies on risk-taking, being bold and aggressive. Alcohol, Nichols said, is one way men can feel bold and brave.

| PLANET JACKSON HOLE |

14 | MAY 30, 2018

Technically, it’s consensual, “but it doesn’t feel good,” she said. “I don’t think they realize how hard it is when they keep nagging.” It’s the norm to say “yes” when a guys asks. “Throughout the entire school it’s almost like if a guy wants to hook up it’s kind of like you have to.” She and her friends have all experienced pressure, done something they did not want to. But she seems nonplussed, or resigned. Everyone knows it is an issue, but that’s the way it is, she said. “It’s going to be this way, you just have to get used to it.” As in previous years, Lily reported that every single hookup happens under the influence of alcohol. “If we’re sober, this doesn’t happen.” Girls end up taking the brunt of any shaming. This year, a guy hooked up with a girl and told everybody what a certain part of her body looked like, made fun of it. Everybody was talking about it, laughing. The girl was humiliated. Guys will say things like, “she has a great body but her face ruins it.” Within her friend group, Lily and the girls are trying to get through to the guys, to tell them it’s not OK for them to talk about young women that way. The men seem to be listening now more than ever. The sexual pressure the girls feel, though, is not something they have been able to articulate to their guy friends—the same ones pressuring them. Conversations about sex can be somewhat superficial: “It’s less about how it was and more about what you did,” Lily explained. It’s a box to check, not an experience to enjoy. These words were echoed nearly verbatim by Cassandra Lee, who graduated a decade ago. “When we talked about it, we would ask ‘how far did you go?’ not ‘how good did it feel?’” she said.

Jenkins was inspired to create the class when his daughter turned 15, entering “the demographic where one in four women experience sexual assault.” Jenkins hopes to help students see that though the pressures of high school may feel all-consuming, students are still empowered to make choices for themselves. “They need to be able to look at things with a critical eye and ear, no matter what they’re receiving—stories from friends, stories from the media.” These are the conversations Bella Wood says she wishes she could have had in high school. “We didn’t talk about how sex actually feels, what it’s actually like. We watched sperm swimming. I learned about consent senior year, when I’d already been assaulted.” Kids of all ages need to learn about how to set boundaries, how to respect other people, how to create healthy friendships and relationships, Wood said. And, there needs to be an emphasis on men. “Women have dealt with this for a long time. We need men to step up. Every woman I know has been assaulted or harassed, but no guy knows anybody who has assaulted or harassed a woman. Consent needs to be taught in kindergarten,” Wood said. Cassandra Lee reiterated Wood’s words: “I’m still working through what was traumatic and what was just bumbling teens, but the thing that is clear to me is we need to make mutual, enthusiastic consent the focus. I don’t think anyone was available to give consent in those settings, it got so messy.” She imagines a sexual culture where all participants are eager, willing, aware and respectful. Young women, in particular, need to learn that sex can and should feel good, “that it’s OK to say no, and also to say yes.” Jenkins’s class could be helping to shift the culture in this direction but Orenstein wants to see more drastic, systemic changes. She called for a sex-ed system like that of the Dutch. “Doctors, teachers, and parents talk candidly about sex, pleasure, and mutual trust, rather than focusing on just risk and danger.” They see sexuality as a source of creativity, exploration, and emphasise the female experience. “It’s not just that boys have erections and ejaculation and women have unwanted pregnancy. There is more to the female experience than that,” Orenstein said. And, when girls know more about themselves and their own pleasure, evidence shows they are more discerning about their sexual behavior, Orenstein said. The Dutch approach has indeed proven successful. There are lower rates of teen pregnancies, STDs, and rape and both genders report healthier and more positive sexual experiences. Adolescents also have access to free family planning services and low-cost emergency contraception. Meanwhile, the United States has some of the highest rates of teen pregnancy, STDs, and unprotected

“We didn’t talk about how sex actually feels, what it’s actually like. We watched sperm swimming. I learned about consent senior year, when I’d already been assaulted.”

Making a Dent Change may be slow, but it is happening. Jim Jenkins is at the vanguard of shifting the sexual culture at the high school. He is in his second year of teaching Gender in Society Today (GIST), an elective class for sophomores, juniors and seniors that he spearheaded. (It’s worth noting that the majority of students in the two sections of GIST—close to 40 students—agreed that the dynamics described in this article continue to be true for current high school students.) Jenkin’s class goes beyond defining consent. His students have conversations about rape culture, male privilege, porn, alcohol and consent, healthy relationships, confidence and hookup culture. He also teaches the freshman sexual education curriculum. He is bound by the Wyoming Standards, which means that eight of the 25 classes relate to sex-ed, and the focus is on pregnancy, STDs, and decision-making skills. But because of his passion for helping students understand healthy relationships, he also devotes a lesson to consent and victim-blaming.

teen sex in any developed country. According to the Centers for Disease Control, only 22 states mandate sex education, and only 18 require that information on contraception be provided. This lack of education leaves young people without basic information about their bodies. According to 2008 data from the CDC, half of teen girls who became pregnant were not on birth control, and 31 percent said they did not think they could get pregnant at the time. Data from 2015 demonstrated that STDs among young people are at an all time high—1.5 million cases of chlamydia were reported, mostly between people ages 15 to 24. Research suggests this is indeed due to a lack of education. TIME magazine reported that in 2016, 42 percent of adolescents who had sex did not think they were at risk of infection. In the U.S., Orenstein said that “consent has become the end of the conversation. Consent is the absolute baseline, but we need to go beyond that. We need to have a deeper discussion about relationships and physical intimacy with children at a much younger age.”

‘I Can Be Vocal’

Lauren survived being called a slut, stopping a rape, experiencing her own trauma. Now, she has finally discovered her voice and understands her worth. But it took her years to recover from her early experiences in Jackson. In high school, she was afraid to speak out. She saw girls whose lives were made miserable when they did. She made the choice not to, but now she wishes she could have stepped out of the script, to stand up for the younger girls who endured the same treatment she did. Her healing began in college when she started dating someone who showed her what sex could be, what relationships should be. “It took a while for me to realize that being in a relationship where it’s just expected that you give a guy head and they don’t give a shit about how you feel after wasn’t OK, not the norm, not to be expected,” she said. Now she knows her boundaries, and is unapologetic about asserting them. Recently, she was at a bar when a guy approached her, making advances that made her uncomfortable. She reproached him, unequivocally told him to leave her and her friends alone. It a sharp contrast from the 14-year-old Lauren who was too scared to tell her parents that her classmates were harassing her. Now, she is in medical school, and grateful, in a way, for the hard-won lessons. “I can be vocal, I can be appreciated for who I am,” she said. “I have gotten to the point where I do have the confidence to say what I’m thinking and what I’m OK with. I can be vocal about what I want. I’ve made it through this very miserable time and now I can handle myself. No one should have to go through this, but until things change on a larger scale, I’m grateful I can hold my own.”

PJH

NEIGHBORHOOD CREATORS

One man is set on ensuring these colors don’t run.

Reveling in Local Pride Jackson will see its first ever gay dance party during LGBTQ Pride Month

BY KELSEY DAYTON |

WIN A TRIP FOR 2 TO BARCELONA, SPAIN! T i c k e t s a r e $ 1 0 0 a n d o n ly 1 5 0 t i c k e t s w i l l b e s o l d Trip includes 7 days/6 nights for two at five-star hotel, with a tapas walking tour, photography tour, and a flamenco show.

Call PAWS at (307) 734-2441 to purchase raffle tickets. Drawing to be held at PAWS Tuxes & Tails Gala on June 22. Need not be present to win.

Trip details and restrictions: pawsofjh.org

MAY 30, 2018 | 15

a new annual event. He has organized the inaugural JH Pride Dance Party Saturday, June 9, at the Pink Garter Theatre. LGBTQidentifying individuals and allies are invited to celebrate Pride Month while dancing to pop music by DJ Londo. There will be an opportunity to show off more than your moves, too. During the evening, Luke Zender donned in his drag persona “Ranch” will host the Ultimate Lip Sync Battle for the title of Lip Sync Qween 2018. “We get to transform Jackson’s biggest party house into a gay party house for a night and that’s a feat in itself,” Munz said. The event is meant to offer a safe space for people in Jackson’s LGBTQ community to let loose and enjoy the type of night out straight people take for granted. “I can’t even just walk up to someone at the Wort and ask them to dance,” Munz said. “That’s not possible here. We don’t know who is going to be accepting and who is not going to be. I don’t see that as safe from a gay perspective. That

| PLANET JACKSON HOLE |

hen Andrew Munz was 11 and living in Jackson, Matthew Shepard, a gay student at the University of Wyoming, was beaten and murdered a few hundred miles away in Laramie. “I was just understanding what it meant to be gay and things were starting to click into place at a very basic level,” Munz said. “When that happened, it drove a stake through me. Suddenly I realized I was not just different, but that difference could get me killed. This thing that was a part of me, I could get murdered for. I could be killed for being myself.” That hate crime shook Munz. He didn’t come out to anyone until he was 21—and at first he only told a few people. Today, 20 years after Shepard’s murder, Wyoming does not have a hate crime law on the books even though his killing spurred national legislation. Nor does Wyoming have a gay bar or nightlife scene for LGBTQ folks, even in seemingly liberal Jackson. But Munz wants to change that with

@Kelsey_Dayton

| PLANET JACKSON HOLE |

16 | MAY 30, 2018

MAY 29-31

This Week at The Wort

THURSDAY, MAY 31 TASHA & THE GOODFELLOWS FOLK/ROCK/COUNTRY/SWING FRI & SAT, JUNE 1 & 2 JACKSON 6 ROCKIN’ SWING BAND TUESDAY, JUNE 5 BLUEGRASS TUESDAY WITH ONE TON PIG Full music schedule at worthotel.com 50 N. Glenwood St. • 307-732-3939

TUESDAY, MAY 29

n Hummingbird Yoga 6 a.m. Hummingbird Yoga, n Tuesday Yoga Level 1 at The Wellness Center 9 a.m. Huntsman Springs, n Intermediate Tai Chi classes 10 a.m. n Open Gym - Adult Basketball 12 p.m. Teton Recreation Center, n Teton Valley Food Pantry drop-off 12 p.m. n Tech Time 1 p.m. Valley of the Tetons Library, n Read to Rover, Driggs 3 p.m. Valley of the Tetons Library, n App Time - Computer Lab 3 p.m. Teton County Library, n Tuesday Couples Nine and Dine 4:30 p.m. Huntsman Springs, n Cultured AF Trivia Night 6 p.m. Pink Garter Theatre, Free, n Special Town Council Meeting: D3-6 Zoning/Parking 1st Reading 6 p.m. n Open Gym - Adult Volleyball 6:30 p.m. Teton Recreation Center, n Bluegrass Tuesdays with One Ton Pig 7:30 p.m. Silver Dollar Showroom, Free, 307732-3939 n Wednesday Workout All Day at The Wellness Center Huntsman Springs,

WEDNESDAY, MAY 30

For all MEETING AGENDAS AND MINUTES WEEKLY CALENDAR JOB OPENINGS SOLICITATIONS FOR BIDS PUBLIC NOTICES AND OTHER VALUABLE INFORMATION

Visit out our website website Visit

tetoncountywy.gov TetonWyo.org The public meeting agendas and minutes for the Board of County Commissioners and Planning Commission can also be found in the Public Notices section of the JH News and Guide.

n Hummingbird Yoga 6 a.m. Hummingbird Yoga, n Wednesday LADIES DAY 9 a.m. Huntsman Springs, n Toddler Gym 10 a.m. Teton Recreation Center, n Read to Rover 3 p.m. Valley of the Tetons Library, n VITA 2018 Free Tax Prep 3 p.m. Teton County Library, n Fun with Library Staff: Miss Beth - Youth Auditorium 3:30 p.m. Teton County Library, n WPR’s Melodie Edwards: Trials of Wildlife Reporting 6 p.m. Teton County Library, n Open Gym - Adult Basketball 6:30 p.m. Teton Recreation Center, n Sound Bath 7:45 p.m. Dancers’ Workshop, $12.00, 307-7336398

THURSDAY, MAY 31

n Hummingbird Yoga 6 a.m. Hummingbird Yoga, n Sneak Peek 11 a.m. National Museum of Wildlife Art, Free, n Open Gym - Adult Basketball 12 p.m. Teton Recreation Center, n Baby Time 12 p.m. Alta Branch Library, n Theater Thursday, Victor 3:30 p.m. Valley of the Tetons Library,

For more listings, visit www.pjhcalendar.com.

gamble is so big and it kind of infests everything you do.” Munz wanted to create a party-scene similar to what he finds in cities like Denver and Chicago. He wanted it to be a place for adult members of the LGTBQ community to meet each other and let loose. The thespian, writer and PJH columnist has lived in Jackson since he was seven years old and doesn’t know many other people in town who are gay. People travel in their own social circles and there aren’t places where they all gather. It makes it difficult to date. When Munz’s straight friends lament Jackson’s dating scene, he can’t help but think they at least aren’t in physical danger if they flirt with or hit on the wrong person. “Yes, Jackson is a liberal town, but the LGTBQ community is trying to find their footing in a place where gay is definitely not the norm,” he said. Anne Marie Wells, who happens to identify as queer, helped Munz with some of the party organizing. She immediately wanted to get involved when she heard about the party. “There’s not just a lack of serious resources like support, but a lack of places where you feel welcome and safe to be your true self” in Jackson, she said. “There is no place that is for queer people where they feel safe and normal.” Wells moved to Jackson about four years ago. She has lived around the world in places like France, England, Portugal and also Detroit, Michigan, and Boulder, Colorado. In urban areas it never felt that unusual to be queer, she said. There were gay night clubs, but also gay book clubs and bridge clubs, she said. People in her social circle when she moved to Jackson still used the word gay as a pejorative. She had a boss ask her if she found men attractive, why not just date them to make life easier. Walking around town square and holding hands with a woman, she heard a man yell, “please kiss, please kiss.” Most of the comments and conversations Wells had—and still has—are not malicious, but it’s hard to not have people she can talk to who understand what it’s like to be anything other than straight in Jackson. “I’m constantly educating the cis-gender straight world about queer issues in Jackson,” she said. “I’m happy to be that person, but it’s also just exhausting when it happens all the time.”

She wants to connect with people who know what it’s like to come out to family or co-workers, or who understand dating someone in the closet or who can relate to the fear that just being out with someone you love can offend someone else. She knows of other queer people in town, but she hasn’t met many. Munz wants the dance party to foster a stronger sense of community. He wants to make sure people, including himself, don’t feel alone, and have a network of friends. Even five years ago Munz would not have been comfortable putting together an event like this; he might not have even attended if someone else planned it. “I have never felt good enough in my own skin to be that open and present and be that LGBTQ voice in this community,” he said. “The fear does still exist. But because I am more comfortable in my skin, I am ready for backlash. If someone wants to try to stifle this expression of love, I welcome it. That will add to the discussion and bring more people out in support.” If even one person who feels like Munz once felt, alone and like he didn’t always belong, comes and has a good time, it’s worth it. “We’ve been scared for such a long time, and still are, because Wyoming does not have a solid reputation when it comes to acceptance,” he said. Wells shared Munz’s hopes for the event, but also has a more tangible goal for the night. “I would love to get a date out of it,” she said. “That’d be awesome.” Munz hopes to make the party an annual soiree. “But this four-hour event is for us,” Munz said. “If you want to come support us, be there and dance with us.” Straight allies need to understand that every bar in Jackson is a straight person venue that queer people enter, Wells said. “This is going to be a queer club that straight people can enter.”

JH Pride Dance Party, 9 p.m. to 1 a.m. Saturday, June 9 at Pink Garter Theatre, $10 at the Rose or pinkgartertheatre. com; 21 years and older. Ticket proceeds will benefit PFLAG (Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays). Its annual pride picnic is schedule for June 23. Munz’s event is separate and in addition to the picnic. To reserve a spot in the lip sync battle, contact Andrew Munz at 307-220-1815 or munzofsteel@gmail.com.

ROBYN VINCENT

Sanchez has been remodeled into San Juan, a veritable sit-down restaurant where the veggie and fish tacos are still a must-order.

From Sanchez to San Juan One of Jackson’s best overlooked restaurants has expanded with brighter digs and a breakfast menu buy his restaurant and become business owners. As luck would have it, the neighboring jewelry store on Pearl Avenue had just shut down, opening up one of Jackson’s last standing historical log cabins. When the landlord offered them the space, they pounced. With new ownership came incremental changes, starting with the restaurant’s name. “‘Sanchez’ doesn’t have meaning to us,” Aviles explained. “I am from San Juan, and we wanted to make this place ours.” The biggest alteration would be their expansion into the newly acquired

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officials pulled the breaks. They came by and said a partition wall needed to be moved a few inches before passing code inspections. Back to work they went. Three months ago, their tenacity paid off and the doors to San Juan finally opened for business. Another change? Breakfast is now on the menu. Arriving at 7:30 a.m. to open at 8, they serve food all day long, going home to their children at 11 p.m. five nights a week. (The restaurant is open until 4 p.m. on Saturdays and closed on Sundays.) Long hours are a price the couple is

MAY 30, 2018 | 17

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property, knocking down the dividing wall and renovating the old retail space into a bright, airy dining room. Little did they know the rigmarole their renovations required. “We payed a lease for two years for nothing,” Aviles said, “but we didn’t want to lose the space to someone else before we could renovate.” The pair learned just what it takes to own a business in Jackson—they paid a fee for employee housing and acquired and paid for an alcohol license that they could not use for one year until the new addition was ready. When they thought they were finished, town

| PLANET JACKSON HOLE |

igoberto Sosa and Maria Carlos Aviles’s story encapsulates the American Dream. Born in San Juan, a small town in the state of Guerrero, Mexico, Aviles came to the United States at the age of 14. She met her husband, Rigoberto, while living in Idaho Falls, and the pair moved to Jackson in 2003 to work at Sanchez. It was one of Jackson’s favorite unsung Mexican eateries but lacked seating and space. In 2016, Sanchez owner Salvador Zarate offered them an opportunity that would change their lives (and the lives of their four children) forever: to

BY HELEN GOELET

EAT IT!

| PLANET JACKSON HOLE |

18 | MAY 30, 2018

LOCAL & DOMESTIC STEAKS SUSTAINABLE SEAFOOD OPEN 7 DAYS A WEEK @ 5:30 TILL 10 JHCOWBOYSTEAKHOUSE.COM 307-733-4790 The Mexican decor at San Juan pairs well with its authentic Mexican food, shrimp tacos included.

willing to pay: “I want my children to have the opportunities we didn’t and for them to go to college,” Aviles said. It’s a team effort. Sosa, along with another Sanchez veteran, cooks up some of the best Mexican dishes in Jackson while Aviles serves them to hungry patrons. Sanchez amassed a reputation for its tortas (massive Mexican sandwiches) and burritos, which are still highlights of the menu. But San Juan’s tacos are not to be overlooked. As a good taco should, the protein is the highlight, but is given a fresh boost from crunchy onions, tart lime and sweet cilantro. The grilled shrimp tacos are cooked perfectly and served with just enough guacamole to accompany the shellfish without drowning it. And don’t be squeamish, order some tender, rich

Mangy Moose Restaurant, with locally sourced, seasonally FRESH FOOD at reasonable prices, is a always a FUN PLACE to go with family or friends for a unique dining experience. The personable staff will make you feel RIGHT AT HOME and the funky western decor will keep you entertained throughout your entire visit. Reservations at (307) 733-4913 3295 Village Drive • Teton Village, WY

www.mangymoose.com

Local is a modern American steakhouse and bar located on Jackson’s historic town square. Serving locally raised beef and, regional game, fresh seafood and seasonally inspired food, Local offers the perfect setting for lunch, drinks or dinner.

Lunch 11:30am Monday-Saturday Dinner 5:30pm Nightly

HAPPY HOUR Daily 4-6:00pm

307.201.1717 | LOCALJH.COM ON THE TOWN SQUARE

Open nightly 5:30pm

733-3912 160 N. Millward • Reservations recommended Reserve online at bluelionrestaurant.com

lengua (beef tongue) tacos. Served with their house green or red salsa (a top-secret family recipe), an order of three will sate your hunger and taste buds. Though the menu hasn’t changed much since becoming San Juan, Aviles hopes to bring classic dishes from Guerrero, where Spanish, French and the indigenous flavors of Mexico coalesce. Already, San Juan is serving the breakfasts Aviles grew up with: jalapeno and cheese or pork tamales with champurrado, a delicious Mexican take on hot chocolate; huevos rancheros; chilaquiles and burritos. Of course, when discussing San Juan’s space, one cannot overlook the outdoor seating. Tall shrubs have created a lovely enclave for diners while they sip on margaritas and cervezas. PJH

3 BU Featuring dining destinations from breweries to bakeries, and continental fare to foreign flavor, this is a sampling of our dining critic’s local favorites.

ASIAN

TETON THAI Serving the world’s most exciting cuisine. Teton Thai offers a splendid array of flavors: sweet, hot, sour, salt and bitter.All balanced and blended perfectly, satisfying the most discriminating palate. Open daily. Located at 7432 Granite Loop Road in Teton Village, (307) 7330022 and in Driggs, (208) 787-8424, tetonthai.com.

CONTINENTAL

VIRGINIAN SALOON

THE BLUE LION A Jackson Hole favorite for 39 years. Join us in the charming atmosphere of a historic home. Serving fresh fish, elk, poultry, steaks, and vegetarian entrées. Ask a local about our rack of lamb. Live acoustic guitar music most nights. Open nightly at 5:30 p.m. Reservations recommended, walk-ins welcome. 160 N. Millward, (307) 733-3912, bluelionrestaurant.com

LOCAL

LOTUS ORGANIC RESTAURANT Serving organic, freshly-made world cuisine while catering to all eating styles. Endless organic and natural meat, vegetarian, vegan and gluten-free choices. Offering super smoothies, fresh extracted juices, espresso and tea. Full bar and houseinfused botanical spirits. Serving breakfast, lunch & dinner starting at 8am daily. Located at 140 N. Cache, (307) 734-0882, theorganiclotus.com.

MANGY MOOSE

SNAKE RIVER BREWERY & RESTAURANT

America’s most award-winning microbrewery is serving lunch and dinner. Take in the atmosphere while enjoying wood-fired pizzas, pastas, burgers, sandwiches, soups, salads and desserts. $9 lunch menu. Happy hour runs from 4 - 6 p.m., including tasty hot wings. The freshest beer in the valley, right from the source! Free WiFi. Open 11 a.m. - 11 p.m. Loacted at 265 S. Millward. (307) 739-2337, snakeriverbrewing.com.

JOIN US ON THE ‘HOF DECK THIS SUMMER DAILY BEER & APP SPECIALS BREAKFAST, LUNCH & DINNER DAILY

ITALIAN CALICO

A Jackson Hole favorite since 1965, the Calico continues to be one of the most popular restaurants in the Valley. The Calico offers the right combination of really good food, (much of which is grown in our own gardens in the summer), friendly staff; a reasonably priced menu and a large selection of wine. Our bar scene is eclectic with a welcoming vibe. Open nightly at 5 p.m. Located at 2560 Moose Wilson Rd., (307) 733-2460.

MEXICAN

EL ABUELITO

Serving authentic Mexican cuisine and appetizers in a unique Mexican atmosphere. Home of the original Jumbo Margarita. Featuring a full bar with a large selection of authentic Mexican beers. Lunch served weekdays 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Nightly dinner specials. Open seven days, 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. Located at 385 W. Broadway, (307) 733-1207.

FAMILY FRIENDLY ENVIRONMENT PIZZAS, PASTAS & MORE HOUSEMADE BREAD & DESSERTS FRESH, LOCALLY SOURCED OFFERINGS TAKE OUT AVAILABLE Dining room and bar open nightly at 5:00pm (307) 733-2460 • 2560 Moose Wilson Road • Wilson, WY

A Jackson Hole favorite since 1965

PINKY G’S

The locals favorite! Voted Best Pizza in Jackson Hole 2012-2016. Seek out this hidden gem under the Pink Garter Theatre for NY pizza by the slice, salads, strombolis, calzones and many appetizers to choose from. Try the $7 ‘Triple S’ lunch special. Happy hours 10 p.m. - 12 a.m. Sun.- Thu. Text PINK to 71441 for discounts. Delivery and take-out. Open daily 11a.m. - 2 a.m. Located at 50 W. Broadway, (307) 734-PINK.

MAY 30, 2018 | 19

Mangy Moose Restaurant, with locally sourced, seasonally fresh food at reasonable prices, is a always a fun place to go with family or friends for a unique dining experience. The personable staff will make you feel right at home and the funky western decor will keep you entertained throughout your entire visit.

Come down to the historic Virginian Saloon and check out our grill menu! Everything from 1/2 pound burgers to wings at a great price! The grill is open in the Saloon from 4 p.m.-10p.m. daily. Located at 750 West Broadway, (307) 739-9891.

| PLANET JACKSON HOLE |

Local, a modern American steakhouse and bar, is located on Jackson’s historic town square. Our menu features both classic and specialty cuts of locally-ranched meats and wild game alongside fresh seafood, shellfish, house-ground burgers, and seasonally-inspired food. We offer an extensive wine list and an abundance of locally-sourced products. Offering a casual and vibrant bar atmosphere with 12 beers on tap as well as a relaxed dining room, Local is the perfect spot to grab a burger for lunch or to have drinks and dinner with friends. Lunch Mon-Sat 11:30am. Dinner Nightly 5:30pm. 55 North Cache, (307) 201-1717, localjh.com.

Serving authentic Swiss cuisine, the Alpenhof features European style breakfast entrées and alpine lunch fare. Dine in the Bistro for a casual meal or join us in the Alpenrose dining room for a relaxed dinner experience. Breakfast 7:30 a.m.-10 a.m. Coffee & pastry 10 a.m.-11:30 a.m. Lunch 11:30 a.m.-3 p.m. Aprés 3 p.m.-5:30 p.m. Dinner 6 p.m.-9 p.m. For reservations at the Bistro or Alpenrose, call (307) 733-3242.

T AT

MOE’S BBQ

Home of Melvin Brewing Co. Freshly remodeled offering modern Thai cuisine in a relaxed setting. New tap system with 20 craft beers. New $8 wine list and extensive bottled beer menu. View our tap list at thaijh.com/brews. Open daily for dinner at 5 p.m. Located downtown at 75 East Pearl Street, (307) 733-0005, melvinbrewing.com.

ALPENHOF

A PIN

Teton Village, (307) 733-4913, mangymoose.com. Opened in Jackson Hole by Tom Fay and David Fogg, Moe’s Original Bar B Que features a Southern Soul Food Revival through its award-winning Alabama-style pulled pork, ribs, wings, turkey and chicken smoked over hardwood served with two unique sauces in addition to Catfish and a Shrimp Moe-Boy sandwich. A daily rotation of traditional Southern sides and tasty desserts are served fresh daily. Moe’s BBQ stays open late and features a menu for any budget. While the setting is familyfriendly, a full premium bar offers a lively scene with HDTVs for sports fans, music, shuffle board and other games upstairs. Large party takeout orders and full service catering with delivery is also available.

THAI ME UP

CKS

| PLANET JACKSON HOLE |

20 | MAY 30, 2018

SUDOKU

Complete the grid so that each row, column, diagonal and 3x3 square contain all of the numbers 1 to 9. No math is involved. The grid has numbers, but nothing has to add up to anything else. Solve the puzzle with reasoning and logic. Solving time is typically 10 to 30 minutes, depending on your skill and experience.

L.A.TIMES “EMERGENCY ROOM STAFF” BY MATT MCKINLEY

SUNDAY, JUNE 3, 2018

ACROSS

1 Garments with hooks 5 Metro regions 9 Complaint 13 Metals industry acronym 18 Ocular cleaning brand 19 Hilarious type 20 Lewis lion 22 Destined (to) 23 Proposed explanation for oversize British sausage? 26 One in a newsstand stack 27 News agcy. 28 Like rainy London skies 29 Zagros Mountains country 31 Stack 32 Rap sheet list 35 Scotland, in Scottish Gaelic 38 Spanish hillsides 40 Highly regarded speakers 41 Kiss in the rink? 46 Germane 47 Name of two 134-Acrosses 49 Dupe 50 U.K. governing body 52 Vital conduits 54 Self-serve fast-food item 56 Farming prefix 59 Greener Living org. 62 Screwballs hanging out at the end of the block? 66 City on the Orne 67 “The first thing you must know ... ” 69 “You __ on My Mind”: 1965 hit 70 Reducing big-time 72 DuPont acrylic 73 Outer __ 75 Near the hour 76 Summer time? 80 Slate, for one 81 Greet warmly 83 Ferrara family name 84 Dollhouse porch chair? 87 “Kidnapped” monogram

88 Country suffix 89 Reason for an R 90 Prime minister after Begin 92 Stigmatic fictional symbol 94 Ham it up 98 Expiate 102 “Mad Men” network 104 Lackadaisical soccer shot? 107 Diminish slowly 108 Wild Blue Yonder seller since 2003 110 Quiet time 111 Gives rise to 113 Canadian tank fillers 114 Marine predator 117 Bounce 120 No and Phil 121 Ballet attire 123 Dark ale expert? 129 Brand for pain 130 Baking staple 131 Ballet bend 132 Picked do 133 What bait does 134 Religious leader 135 Door sign 136 Like eyes “you can’t hide,” in an Eagles hit

DOWN

1 Texter’s “Need a short break” 2 Portuguese king 3 Distress 4 Order in the court 5 Keats subject 6 TV’s Mrs. Peel 7 Orange Free State settler 8 Hot time 9 Rats relative? 10 Saskatoon-to-Winnipeg dir. 11 Fair-haired sci-fi race 12 Castmate of Alda and Swit 13 Rev (up) 14 Quantum events? 15 Dive at the governor’s mansion

pool? 16 Pool unit 17 Immobile 21 New York City suburb on the Hudson 24 Fresh __ 25 Perry who created Madea 30 “’Sup, Juan?” 32 Lunchbox staple, casually 33 Kanga’s kid 34 Gless of “Cagney & Lacey” 36 Playoffs privilege 37 Kindle download 39 Mound meas. 42 Strange 43 Extended family 44 Celestial bear 45 “Order up!” callers 48 Pennsylvania’s __ Mountains 51 Mother of Joseph 53 Finalizes, with “up” 55 Dover’s st. 57 Enterprise offering 58 Closely watched bars 59 Eats into 60 Strict observer 61 Fishing pro? 63 Turn back 64 Bowling unit 65 Aptly named Renault 68 Dawn-of-mammals epoch 71 Recipe words 74 They may clash on the lot 77 “The Fantasticks” narrator whose name translates to “The Rooster” 78 Atlantic resort city 79 Kilmer’s famous last words? 81 Glide on blades 82 Computer’s abun-

dance 85 Holiday hire 86 Libya neighbor 91 Common HMO requirement 93 U.K. military award 95 Olive not found in martinis 96 Cal. column 97 Conger catcher 99 Fake 100 Atypical 101 Hi-__ image 102 Perfumery compound 103 Enterprise helmsman 105 Old West brothers

106 109 112 115 116 118 119 122 124 125 126 127 128

Fearless Fosdick’s creator “__ grown” Altar promise Clever maneuver 2012 Best Picture “The Handmaid’s Tale” airer Bluesy Redding French possessive Wire intrusion Ode preposition Sneaky laugh __-tip: beef cut “Round __ virgin ... ”

COSMIC CAFE

‘Someone’ is Behind Those Chance Moments

STATE OF WYOMING COUNTY OF TETON )

) ) SS

2018 PRIMARY ELECTION PROCLAMATION TETON COUNTY

OFFICE OF THE COUNTY CLERK TO THE VOTERS OF TETON COUNTY, WYOMING:

Understanding your spirit guides and being open to their direction

IN COMPLIANCE WITH SECTION 22-2-109 STATUTES, STATE OF WYOMING ELECTIONS LAWS, IT IS HEREBY PROCLAIMED THAT A PRIMARY ELECTION WILL BE HELD THROUGH THE 18 ELECTION DISTRICTS AND PRECINCTS OF SAID TETON COUNTY ON TUESDAY, AUGUST 21, 2018. THE NAMES OF ALL OFFICES TO BE FILLED AT SAID ELECTION AND THE NUMBER OF PERSONS REQUIRED BY LAW TO FILL SUCH OFFICES ARE AS FOLLOWS:

BY CAROL MANN

OFFICES TO BE ELECTED AT THE PRIMARY ELECTION

Who They Are

Très Cool Example I made a reservation online to rent an apartment for a visit to Paris. The woman who owned the apartment emailed me clear instructions where she would leave the key. My flight landed in Paris at night. I took a taxi to the address of the apartment, and the key was not there. It was a very uncomfortable situation. It was nighttime in Paris and I found myself standing outside the building with a suitcase and no key. I asked for my guides to please help. Suddenly, I just knew what to do. I went to a specific café across the street. Not knowing why or what would be there, I went in and walked right over to a friendly-looking bartender. In my best French, I asked if by chance he knew the woman (I said her name) whose apartment I was about to rent across the street. “Oh!” he exclaimed in French. “You must be the American who is renting from her. She had an emergency and had to leave in a hurry, so she left the key with me!”

They Are Here For You

Carol Mann is a longtime Jackson resident, radio personality, former Grand Targhee Resort owner, author, and clairvoyant. Got a Cosmic Question? Email carol@yourcosmiccafe.com

TITLE: REPUBLICAN PRECINCT COMMITTEEMEN AND WOMEN DEMOCRATIC PRECINCT COMMITTEEMEN AND WOMEN

TERM: 2 YEARS 2 YEARS

1 1 1 1 3 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1

TETON COUNTY ASSESSOR TETON COUNTY ATTORNEY TETON COUNTY CLERK TETON COUNTY CLERK OF DISTRICT COURT TETON COUNTY COMMISSIONERS TETON COUNTY CORONER TETON COUNTY SHERIFF TETON COUNTY TREASURER UNITED STATES SENATOR UNITED STATES REPRESENTATIVE STATE SENATOR, DISTRICT 17* STATE REPRESENTATIVE, HOUSE DISTRICT 16** STATE REPRESENTATIVE, HOUSE DISTRICT 22*** STATE REPRESENTATIVE, HOUSE DISTRICT 23**** STATE OF WYOMING GOVERNOR STATE OF WYOMING SECRETARY OF STATE STATE OF WYOMING AUDITOR STATE OF WYOMING TREASURER STATE OF WYOMING SUPERINTENDENT OF PUBLIC INSTRUCTION

PARTISAN OFFICERS TO BE NOMINATED BY EACH PARTY AT THE PRIMARY: 4 YEARS 4 YEARS 4 YEARS 4 YEARS 4 YEARS 4 YEARS 4 YEARS 4 YEARS 6 YEARS 2 YEARS 4 YEARS 2 YEARS 2 YEARS 2 YEARS 4 YEARS 4 YEARS 4 YEARS 4 YEARS 4 YEARS

NON-PARTISAN OFFICERS TO BE NOMINATED AT THE PRIMARY 2

COUNCIL MEMBERS FOR THE TOWN OF JACKSON

4 YEARS

*SENATE DISTRICT 17 INCLUDES DIST. AND PREC. AS FOLLOWS: 1-1 SOUTH OF JACKSON; 1-2 MID-EAST JACKSON; 1-3 SKYLINE/HI-COUNTRY/GROS VENTRE/ELK REFUGE; 1-4 NORTH JACKSON; 1-5 MID-WEST JACKSON; 1-6 COTTONWOOD PARK; 1-7 RAFTER J; 1-8 EAST JACKSON; 1-9 WEST JACKSON; 1-11 INDIAN TRAILS; 2-1 KELLY/ TETON VALLEY HIGHLANDS/MOOSE/AIRPORT; 3-1 MORAN/YNP; 4-2 MOOSE/WILSON RD WEST; 4-4 TETON VILLAGE/ MOOSE-WILSON RD; AND, 5-1 ALTA. **HOUSE DISTRICT 16 INCLUDES DIST. AND PREC. AS FOLLOWS: 1-2 MID-EAST JACKSON; 1-5 MIDWEST JACKSON; 1-6 COTTONWOOD PARK; 1-8 EAST JACKSON; AND, 1-9 WEST JACKSON. ***HOUSE DISTRICT 22 INCLUDES DIST. AND PREC. AS FOLLOWS: 1-10 SOUTH HOBACK; 4-1 WILSON SOUTH; AND 4-3 WILSON NORTH IN TETON COUNTY, AND PARTS OF LINCOLN COUNTY AND SUBLETTE COUNTY. ****HOUSE DISTRICT 23 INCLUDES DIST. AND PREC. AS FOLLOWS: 1-1 SOUTH OF JACKSON; 1-3 SKYLINE/HI COUNTRY/GROS VENTRE BUTTE/ELK REFUGE; 1-4 NORTH JACKSON; 1-7 RAFTER J; 1-11 INDIAN TRAILS; 2-1 KELLY/TETON VALLEY HIGHLANDS/MOOSE/AIRPORT; 3-1 MORAN/YNP; 4-2 MOOSE/WILSON ROAD WEST; 4-4 TETON VILLAGE/ MOOSE-WILSON RD; AND, 5-1 ALTA. AUGUST 6, 2018 LAST DAY TO REGISTER WITH THE COUNTY CLERK BEFORE PRIMARY ELECTION DAY. YOU MAY STILL COME TO THE ABSENTEE POLLING SITE WITHIN THE 14 DAY REGISTRATION CUT OFF PERIOD TO REGISTER, BUT YOU MUST BE PREPARED TO VOTE BY ABSENTEE AT THE SAME TIME. VOTER REGISTRATION IS ALSO PERMITTED AT THE POLLS ON PRIMARY ELECTION DAY. AUGUST 21, 2018 – PRIMARY ELECTION DAY VOTE CENTER LOCATIONS: TETON COUNTY LIBRARY 125 VIRGINIAN LN, JACKSON, WY, TETON COUNTY/JACKSON RECREATION CENTER 155 E. GILL AVE., JACKSON, WY, OLD WILSON SCHOOLHOUSE COMMUNITY CENTER 5655 MAIN ST., WILSON, WY, TETON COUNTY WEED & PEST BUILDING 7575 US-89, JACKSON, WY, ALTA BRANCH LIBRARY 50 ALTA SCHOOL RD, ALTA, WY 83414 FILING FOR OFFICES AND DATES: MAY 17 THROUGH JUNE 1, 2018 – DATES FOR FILING APPLICATIONS FOR NOMINATION OR ELECTION. WS § 22-5-209 FEDERAL AND STATE CANDIDATES FILE WITH THE SECRETARY OF STATE. WS § 22-5-206 COUNTY AND PRECINCT PEOPLE FILE WITH THE COUNTY CLERK. WS § 22-23-302 MUNICIPAL CANDIDATES FILE WITH THE CITY CLERK. WS § 22-23-302 FILING DATES FOR SCHOOL BOARD CANDIDATES, HOSPITAL BOARD CANDIDATES, CONSERVATION DISTRICT BOARD CANDIDATES WILL BE AUGUST 8 THROUGH AUGUST 27, 2018. DEADLINE FOR INDEPENDENT CANDIDATES TO FILE WILL BE AUGUST 27, 2018. THESE OFFICES WILL BE ELECTED AT THE GENERAL ELECTION ON NOVEMBER 6, 2018. CANDIDATES MUST FILE A STATEMENT OF CONTRIBUTIONS BY AUGUST 14, 2018 AND A STATEMENT OF CONTRIBUTIONS AND EXPENDITURES BY AUGUST 31, 2018. STATE AND FEDERAL CANDIDATES FILE WITH THE SECRETARY OF STATE, COUNTY AND MUNICIPAL CANDIDATES FILE WITH THE COUNTY CLERK. A CANDIDATE WHO FAILS TO FILE THE STATEMENT OF CONTRIBUTIONS REQUIRED BY THE SEVENTH DAY BEFORE THE ELECTION SHALL HAVE HIS NAME PRINTED ON A LIST DRAFTED BY THE APPROPRIATE FILING OFFICE SPECIFIED UNDER 22-25-107. THE LIST SHALL IMMEDIATELY BE POSTED IN THE FILING OFFICE AND MADE AVAILABLE TO THE PUBLIC. A CANDIDATE WHO FAILS TO FILE A FULL AND COMPLETE ITEMIZED STATEMENT OF CONTRIBUTIONS AND EXPENDITURES MAY BE CHARGED WITH A MISDEMEANOR AS PROVIDED BY WS § 22-26-112. NOVEMBER 6, 2018 – GENERAL ELECTION DAY ATTEST: SHERRY L. DAIGLE, TETON COUNTY CLERK

May 15, 2018

MAY 30, 2018 | 21

We all have access to loving, abundant support from many guides waiting for us to ask for their assistance. Spirit guides can steer us to the best opportunities and teachable moments for our evolution and our greater good. If you like, create a quiet time to close your eyes, take some deep breaths, focus your awareness on your physical heart, and ask for guidance from your angels, love ones no longer alive, or higher Beings of Light. Be curious and aware of what presents itself. How will you know this is from your Spirit Guides? There are two ways. 1. It has to feel loving. 2. You’ll just know. PJH

NO. 44 62

| PLANET JACKSON HOLE |

Some of our spirit guides are the souls of people no longer alive whom we have loved and who have loved us. In the afterlife state, they have access to levels of wisdom, awareness and perception beyond their earthly repertoire. They are eager to assist us. You might feel/ sense their familiar energetic presence when they are around you. Some people even catch an uncanny whiff of a loved one’s perfume or their grandfather’s pipe tobacco. “What if they have already reincarnated?” you might ask. The soul is analogous to the “cloud” for a computer. The soul is a living library of all of its experiences, all of its identities and roles throughout all time and space. You are calling in the specific incarnation of the soul when they were your beloved person. That aspect of their soul is always available to you even when they reincarnate. We also have guides whose souls we knew and loved in past lifetimes. And we have loving guides in other realities whom we have never experienced in this physical reality. They too are there for us. Last and not least, there are Higher Beings of Light whose enlightened

guidance is available to everyone. These include angels, ascended masters and enlightened teachers from across the ages. Their advanced consciousness operates out of time and space, allowing them to guide vast numbers of people in different locations at the same time.

he understanding across cultures and throughout history is that there are loving, intelligent beings in many other realities who are not typically visible to our physical senses, and who can guide us to choices and actions for our highest and greatest good. Although they are not permitted to interfere directly, they nudge us in many different ways. Sometimes it’s in the form of a hunch or a sudden change of plans. Other times it is a message contained in your deams, an inspired idea, an amazing synchronicity, even an urge to pick up the phone and call a specific person, or to stop at a different grocery store and make an unexpected personal connection there. Sometimes we are aware of urgings from our guides and sometimes we are responding to those signals without even being aware of the source. And sometimes we choose to ignore the cues.

| PLANET JACKSON HOLE |

22 | MAY 30, 2018

WELLNESS COMMUNITY

Your one-stop resource for access to Jackson Hole’s premier health and wellness providers. DEEP TISSUE • SPORTS MASSAGE • THAI MASSAGE MYOFASCIAL RELEASE CUPPING

Fran Dotson

SUMMER RISING PARTY FRIDAY, JUNE 1 5 - 7:30 PM on the Lawn of Akasha Deals! Music! Food and drink! Community! EVERYONE IS INVITED! 150 E HANSEN AVE - CORNER OF HANSEN AND WILLOW WWW.AKASHAYOGAJH.COM

Oliver Tripp, NCTM

Craniosacral therapy

307-690-7853

Professional and Individualized Treatments • Sports/Ortho Rehab • Neck and Back Rehab • Dizziness • Jaw Pain • Incontinence Training • Pelvic Pain Rehab 2 Jackson Locations • 1090 S Hwy 89 and Legacy Lodge of JH • 3000 W Big Trail Rd 307-733-5577 Alpine Location • 46 Iron Horse Rd 307-654-5577

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No physician referral required.

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To join Planet Jackson Hole’s Wellness Community as an advertiser, contact 307-732-0299 or sales@planetjh.com

To ease pain and promote wellness.

FREE WILL ASTROLOGY

BY ROB BREZSNY

GEMINI (May 21-June 20) On February 17, 1869, Russian chemist Dmitri Mendeleyev had an appointment with a local cheese-making company to provide his expert consultation. But he never made it. A blast of inspiration overtook him soon after he awoke, and he stayed home to tend to the blessed intrusion. He spent that day as well as the next two perfecting his vision of the periodic table of the elements, which he had researched and thought about for a long time. Science was forever transformed by Mendeleyev’s breakthrough. I doubt your epiphanies in the coming weeks will have a similar power to remake the whole world, Gemini. But they could very well remake your world. When they arrive, honor them. Feed them. Give them enough room to show you everything they’ve got. CANCER (June 21-July 22) Ninety-five percent of your fears have little or no objective validity. Some are delusions generated by the neurotic parts of your imagination. Others are delusions you’ve absorbed from the neurotic spew of other people’s imaginations. What I’ve just told you is both bad news and good news. On the one hand, it’s a damn shame you feel so much irrational and unfounded anxiety. On the other hand, hearing my assertion that so much of it is irrational and unfounded might mobilize you to free yourself from its grip. I’m pleased to inform you that the coming weeks will be an excellent time to wage a campaign to do just that. June can and should be Fighting for Your Freedom from Fear Month.

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22) Everyone has a unique fate that’s interesting enough to write a book about. Each of us has at least one epic story to tell that would make people cry and laugh and adjust their thoughts about the meaning of life. What would your saga be like? Think about what’s unfolding right now, because I bet that would be a ripe place to start your meditations. The core themes of your destiny are currently on vivid display, with new plot twists taking your drama in novel directions. Want to get started? Compose the first two sentences of your memoir.

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18) When I was a kid attending elementary schools in the American Midwest, recess was a core part of my educational experience. For 45 minutes each day, we were excused from our studies so we could indulge in freeform play—outdoors, if the weather was nice, or else in the gymnasium. But in recent years, schools in the U.S. have shrunk the time allotted for recess. Many schools have eliminated it altogether. Don’t they understand this is harmful to the social, emotional, and physical health of their students? In any case, Aquarius, I hope you move in the opposite direction during the coming weeks. You need more than your usual quota of time away from the grind. More fun and games, please! More messing around and merriment! More recess! PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20) For many years, actor Mel Blanc provided the voice for Bugs Bunny, a cartoon character who regularly chowed down on raw carrots. But Blanc himself did not like raw carrots. In a related matter, actor John Wayne, who pretended to be a cowboy and horseman in many movies, did not like horses. And according to his leading ladies, charismatic macho film hunk Harrison Ford is not even close to being an expert kisser. What about you, Pisces? Is your public image in alignment with your true self? If there are discrepancies, the coming weeks will be an excellent time to make corrections. ARIES (March 21-April 19) A critic described Leonardo da Vinci’s painting the Mona Lisa as “the most visited, most written about, most sung about, most parodied work of art in the world.” It hasn’t been sold recently, but is estimated to be worth hundreds of millions of dollars. Today it’s kept in the world-renowned Louvre museum in Paris, where it’s viewed by millions of art-lovers. But for years after its creator’s death, it enjoyed little fanfare while hanging in the bathroom of the French King Francois. I’d love to see a similar evolution in your own efforts, Aries: a rise from humble placement and modest appreciation to a more interesting fate and greater approval. The astrological omens suggest that you have more power than usual to make this happen in the coming weeks and months.

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SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21) You have waited long enough to retaliate against your TAURUS (April 20-May 20) adversaries. It’s high time to stop simmering with frus- These days, many films use CGI, computer generated tration and resentment. Take direct action! I suggest imagery. The technology is sophisticated and efficient. you arrange to have a box of elephant poop shipped But in the early days of its use, producing such realistic to their addresses. You can order it here: tinyurl.com/ fantasies was painstaking and time-intensive. For examElephantManure. Just kidding! I misled you with the pre- ple, Steven Spielberg’s 1993 film Jurassic Park featured ceding statements. It would in fact be a mistake for you to four minutes of CGI that required a year to create. I hope express such vulgar revenge. Here’s the truth: Now is an that in the coming weeks, you will summon equivalent excellent time to seek retribution against those who have levels of old-school tenacity and persistence and attenopposed you, but the best ways to do that would be by tion to detail as you devote yourself to a valuable task that proving them wrong, surpassing their accomplishments, you love. Your passion needs an infusion of discipline. Don’t be shy about grunting. and totally forgiving them. Go to RealAstrology.com for Rob Brezsny’s expanded weekly audio horoscopes and daily text-message horoscopes. Audio horoscopes also available by phone at 877-873-4888 or 900-950-7700.

WINDSHIELD

| PLANET JACKSON HOLE |

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22) “Dear Oracle: I find myself in the weird position of trying to decide between doing the good thing and doing the right thing. If I opt to emphasize sympathy and kindness, I may look like an eager-to-please wimp with shaky principles. But if I push hard for justice and truth, I may seem rude and insensitive. Why is it so challenging to have integrity? - Vexed Libra.” Dear Libra: My advice is to avoid the all-or-nothing approach. Be willing to be half-good and half-right. Sometimes the highest forms of integrity require you to accept imperfect solutions.

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19) I bet you’ll be offered at least one valuable gift, and possibly more. But I’m concerned that you may not recognize them for their true nature. So I’ve created an exercise to enhance your ability to identify and claim these gifts-indisguise. Please ruminate on the following concepts: 1. a pain that can heal; 2. a shadow that illuminates; 3. an unknown or anonymous ally; 4. a secret that nurtures intimacy; 5. a power akin to underground lightning; 6. an invigorating boost disguised as tough love.

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22) During the next four weeks, I’ll celebrate if you search for and locate experiences that will heal the part of your heart that’s still a bit broken. My sleep at night will be extra deep and my dreams extra sweet if I know you’re drumming up practical support for your feisty ideals. I’ll literally jump for joy if you hunt down new teachings that will ultimately ensure you start making a daring dream come true in 2019. And my soul will soar if you gravitate toward the mind-expanding kind of hedonism rather than the mind-shrinking variety.

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21) Marketing experts say that motivating a person to say yes to a big question is more likely if you first build momentum by asking them smaller questions to which it’s easy to say yes. I encourage you to adopt this slant for your own purposes in the coming weeks. It’s prime time to extend invitations and make requests that you’ve been waiting for the right moment to risk. People whom you need on your side will, I suspect, be more receptive than usual—and with good reasons—but you may still have to be smoothly strategic in your approach.

Terry Winchell and Claudia Bonnist P.O. Box 3790 . 375 S. Cache Street . Jackson, Wyoming 83001 307-690-2669 or Toll Free 866-690-2669 Fax 307-734-1330 Email: TW@fightingbear.com Website: www.fightingbear.com

ENJOY YOUR FLOAT, BUT DON’T ROCK THE BOAT.

24 | MAY 30, 2018

| PLANET JACKSON HOLE |

Respect our community!

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Per Town of Jackson municipal code: No trespassing on private lands Open alcohol containers are strictly prohibited on Flat Creek. Dogs are prohibited in public parks. No dogs at large. Public urination is prohibited.

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Please respect private property at all times. Utilize designated public access locations when accessing Flat Creek. Be considerate of neighbors and environment by limiting noise and disturbance to riparian habitat. Respect wildlife. Glass containers are prohibited. Please dispose of garbage in designated receptacles. Float at your own risk – no safety personnel present. Dangerous and swift flowing cold water, low clearance bridges and shallow water occur in some locations. For additional information and maps of public access points the Town of Jackson or the Parks and Recreation Department: www.townofjackson.com or www.tetonparksandrec.org