Substance Spring 2012 Part 1

Page 1

Substance S PRIN G 2012

A MAGAZINE OF THE MT. SAC JOURNALISM PROGRAM

SIREN SONG Music and the Double Standard of Aging

Queer Culture Lesbian Love Boys Gone Wild

ABORTION

OWN IT!

Rediscover your clothing treasures

The Stigma of Choice

WAR ON WOMEN

Sexualized, Brutalized, Dehumanized

Mount San Antonio College Spring 2012

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C O N TEN TS CURRENT 20 31 32 36 41 62

The Right to Choose Blood Phones Why We Hate Women Lez’ Be Honest Bone Thugs Diploma Mills

LIFESTYLE & CULTURE 10 18 26 27 28 30 38 46 48 53

First Wave L.A. Punk 2012: Year of the Mountie Girls Gone Gaming Underground Head The Wild Ones Ebay, Your Way Killer Queens Not Your Average Joe The Recessionista Your Body in the Buff

CRAVE 16 Vegan Pita Pizzas 17 5 Layer Lasagna/Alfredo

PERSPECTIVES 8 12 14 23 42 44 54 56 57 60

In the Darkness The Champ The Modern Native’s Plight A Permanent Memory Paper Pamphlets The Painting From Bruises to Arpeggios At Rehab’s Center Dolphin Daze Politically Incorrect

HUMOR 24 The Call of the Wild 58 Romance In Transit

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Substance S P RI N G 2 012

A MAGAZINE OF THE MT. SAC JOURNALISM PROGRAM

SIREN SONG Music and the Double Standard of Aging

Queer Culture Lesbian Love Boys Gone Wild

ABORTION

OWN IT!

Rediscover your clothing treasures

The Stigma of Choice

WAR ON WOMEN

Sexualized, Brutalized, Dehumanized

Cover Model: Charlie Neff Photography/Creative Director: Aldo Padilla Styling by: Phillip Cao Rouge 30 team Fx/make-up: Saul Gallegos Hair/Beauty: Cat Cordova Location: Santa Fe Arts Colony Substance is a college magazine published by the students of Mt. San Antonio College. The views in this magazine do not reflect the views of the adviser, administration, or the Board of Trustees of of the Mt. SAC District. Substance is a First Amendment Publication. Phone: 909-594-5611 ext. 6123 1100 N. Grand Ave. Walnut CA 91789 Bldg 26D, Room 3220. www.mysubstance.wordpress.com

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IN THE DARKNESS čĔęĔ+ ėĆēĉĔē đĆėĐ

Student almost takes her own life in abusive home

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sat in my room and turned on my CD player. My one true friend, music, was there. In my hand was a knife. On my left arm were the scars from before, to feel the rush and the pain that became so addicting. I heard my brother punch the wall. “Leave me the fuck alone!” he yelled. My mom was coming toward my door. “Get out here you little bitch!” she screamed. My brother yelled back. “Leave my sister alone!” The fighting continued and the cries got louder.

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I’m like a lot of 90s kids. My parents were divorced and I was in the middle of it. But I grew up optimistic, ready to set sail the seas in search of mermaids and charming knights. The world was mine to take advantage of. My mom and I were really close. She was my hero. My dad was a different story. He usually forgot my birthday and my mom usually had me call him for money because she knew he would never say no to me. I didn’t know why my dad never came around. I was rather hurt by it. And then one day, my mom told me to pack my things. We were leaving and I was excited.

“YES! Finally an adventure!” But it turned out to not be the adventure I hoped for. I went from La Puente to Las Vegas. Then from Vegas to a little town in the high-desert called Adelanto. When my brother left for the military I was alone with my mom. I was in sixth grade. I began to see the demon inside her. I saw a beer in her hand more often. I couldn’t blame her. We were poor. There were times when all we had was a bag of rice. If we were lucky, noodles and tomato sauce could make a feast. We used candles instead of electricity and I remember having to ask the neighbors if I could take a shower. It didn’t matter to me how much my mom said I’d be better off with my dad. I could never leave her alone like this. But she began to turn into a real nasty person when she drank. She used beer as an excuse to be cruel. I remember coming home to her calling me a whore and a filthy slut. This was at a time when I wore sweat pants and turtlenecks. I was the biggest tomboy so I just didn’t get it. She would drive home drunk and I remember grabbing the wheel because she fell asleep driving into the Wal-Mart parking lot. It seems funny now but it was all too real and scary then. Things got worse. She began to come at me more aggressively, first with a buckle, then a boom box, and then a knife. Her eyes were nothing like I had ever seen. I would cringe when I would hear that demonic voice scream my name randomly at two in the morning. Her eyes were those of a woman who had nothing to live for, and I began to find out that was the worst kind of person to be around. She became my worst enemy. When I told my family, they didn’t believe me. And I would be damned if I were to ever live with my dad who still kept his record of forgotten birthdays and once a year visits. I felt so angry inside but felt nothing on the outside. At school guys disrespected me left and right and did things I would rather not mention. I became violent, punching guys out and threatening to stab them with my pen if they got any closer. It was life’s game of survival for me. I felt like no matter where I went I had to protect myself. But at home, I was my mom’s property. I had no say. I couldn’t help her or her new mental illness that had many names. And when my older brother and his girlfriend moved in with his five kids, it got much worse. There were three bad tempers under one roof and an alcoholic mad woman who was bipolar and possibly schizophrenic. It got to a point where I became even more depressed because now my nephew and four nieces were involved and I couldn’t protect them. My so-called friends didn’t have the slightest clue what was going on. I would hate when they would mindlessly tell me “I wish I had your life.” I just wanted to slap the crap out of them and tell them to be grateful their life wasn’t in danger every single day. At school one of my teachers had an idea what was going on through one of my poems. The teacher said it was too mature for my age. Cops came knocking on my door. I would turn them away every single time. I couldn’t leave now that my nieces and nephews were there. Until this day. I came home and went straight to my room. I heard the

garage door open. Mom was home. I heard Mana blasting on the stereo. Mom was in one of her moods. I heard her cussing at the new neighbors across the street. I started to feel chills run down my back. And then I heard her trying to break down my brother’s door. Mom was going to attack my brother again. I heard the kids crying and screaming for me. “Auntie! Auntie Kiss!” I stood silent in my room. I couldn’t help this time. They were in the other room and if I got in between it would make my mom even more furious. I heard them screaming and crying. I was scared to death as I heard my mom throw the huge mirror at my brother and heard someone being slammed against the door. The crying continued. I ran out the door and yelled, “Stop it!” But the fighting continued with slugging and blood on the doors and picture frames of our happy family being broken again. I stared down at the knife again. Tears were strolling down my face. Why the hell was I here? To be alone and misunderstood? To be someone’s punching bag? I took a deep breath with the butcher knife raised high in the air, ready to plunge into the body and life I didn’t give a shit about anymore. Suddenly the door flung open. It was dead silent. I dropped the knife. It was my baby niece Roxanne, who I pretty much raised, staring at me and smiling with chocolate all over her face. “Auntie Kiss!” Then it hit me…right before everything could have ended. My niece…my nieces and nephews. Who would understand them? Their favorite Auntie Kiss would not be here anymore. They would have to stare down at their dead auntie and wonder why she left them. I always knew that my life was never about me, but I couldn’t help others until I helped myself. So I stuck it out. My brother moved out and he wanted me to go with him but I knew I had to stay. The next time my mother came at me, this time with two hands ready to choke, I stuck up for myself. I pushed her off and ran to my closet and got out my steel bat. The angry bull backed down and retreated to her lair. Within a few months I reached out to everyone and was taken away from my mom. The only person who was there to take care of me was my dad. And we built a relationship. I have no regrets or anger toward my mom. I still remember those moments of happiness we shared with music and those are the memories I like to keep with me. I don’t hide my past; my scars on my left arm are plain and visible. Sure people judge quickly but I am living for a greater purpose. My love for music has only gotten stronger since that day. My love for life is beyond believable. My spirituality has passed into another life. This is why I latch on to the symbolic phoenix for inspiration. I fell into the ashes of depression and hatred and rose into a person who burns with passion, music, hope and love. I would not be alive today without any of those things. And without a little girl who had just reached two feet tall. !"#$%&'()*+#,-&.-

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FIRST WAVE L.A. PUNK A retrospective

Ä?ĔęĔ+ ĎććĞ ėĊĊĜĒĆē

“A

ccording to the Bible, human history began with an act of disobedience -Adam and Evewhile, according to Greek myth, civilization began with Prometheus’ act of disobedience, it is not unlikely that human history will be terminated by an act of obedience.� (From Erich Fromm’s “On Disobedience�) If Fromm seemed to fear the worst of humankind, he cannot rightly be accused of unfairness. I cannot help but wonder if Fromm, who died in 1980 was aware of the contrarian attitudes being cultivated around the time of his writing this work which reads like an overly punctuated sigh, a posthumously published one at that. I rather think Fromm would have gotten a nice kick out of the first wave L.A. punk scene. He did after all manage to call out a key punk icon and an icon of rebellion in general: Prometheus, righteous thief of fire. The political backdrop was pretty wretched. By the mid 1970s, nearly all of the progressive youth movements had been ravished by COINTELPRO and the shift in consciousness that had seemed possible earlier in the decade didn’t seem as plausible with so many organizers either entrapped, in exile or dead. From a social justice perspective, shit was bleak. In this climate, bands like The Bags, the Weirdos, the Plugz, X, the Mau-Maus, Vaginal Cream Davis, the Screamers, Nervous

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Gender, the Germs, et al were popping up all over L.A. While punk bands had been forming in every major city in North America and beyond, the variety of punk rock that sprung out of Los Angeles in the late 1970s was marked by it’s theatrical/visual art qualities, social commentary, and tight knit community that soon enough embodied an entire method of cultural production which included everything from music/performance art and dance to ‘Zines, photography, and screen printing. Stage wear for The Weirdos was created using everything from duct tape to house paint, while the stage presence of Tomato du Plenty of The Screamers was so intensely off kilt that audience members often wondered if he was shouting at hallucinations in the room, which definitely lent to perceptions that these west coast first wavers were rootless and came out of nowhere. While this perception is a misguided one, as all movements owe a debt to the ones that proceeded them, these participants can be credited with innovating upon their inspirations to the extent that they were virtually invisible. This level of intensity surrounding creative expression is infectious. In a 2011 interview for Punk Globe, Kembra Pfahler of The Voluptuous Horror of Karen Black revealed the profound effect witnessing these early performances had on her life and work: “These punk artists weren’t interested in reification. Things didn’t have to be in a filing cabinet or in their proper place... it

was the complete opposite. As a young girl, it was life changing to see bands like The Screamers and Diamanda Galas. It made me want to push myself as an artist. I thought to myself that if I came out and did artwork that looked like what Exene Cervenka or Lydia Lunch was doing that they would just kill me. I realized that it was my job to come up with an aesthetic of my own and that I would at least attempt to be original. I invented the terms “Availabism” and “Anti-Naturalism” because I thought that what I was doing should have a title.” While there has been much debate about when punk officially broke, what constitutes true punk as opposed to uptempo rock ‘n’ roll, and then what counts as such and such sub-genre as opposed to counting as some other sub-genre, the consensus seems clear that while L.A.’s first wave was certainly germinating throughout the early to mid 1970s, it didn’t really swell into a proper scene until 1976. There was enough interest in the now abundance of bands filling venues like Madam Wong’s, The Starlight, Brendan Mullen’s The Masque, and Willie Herron III’s of Los Illegals The Vex, one of the last original punk venues in operation. The aesthetic of punk was just as important as the music. The Bags, hence their namesake wore brown shopping bags over their heads in early performances while they worked on their stage personas in relative privacy, paradoxically hidden behind symbols of autonomy. Fortunately for them, there was no Hot Topic profiting off of their desire to fit out and not only were they pushed to utilize their imaginations, but the social statements they were making were at the very least their own. At times aesthetics even proceeded music. The Germs were literally learning to play their instruments on stage. This musical chaos became a part of the performance, creating an atmosphere that defied the probable and the predictable. Well, I tried to ease into that particular hitch gracefully, but as I write my own sense of the probable and the predictable tells me that my reader will likely call bullshit at the very least. “They can’t play! Oh, the outrage!” Right. And for what it’s worth, this incidental little factoid is one of the key qualities that most attracted me to this genre in the first place. Full freedom and headlong into boundary-less exploration, ears be damned. As 19th century French-symbolist poet, Arthur Rimbaud put it in his 1871, Letter of the Seer: “I am obstinately worshipping free freedom.” In a 2011 interview with Alice Bag who is currently touring in support of her memoirs, “Violence Girl: East L.A. Rage to Hollywood Stage, A Chicana Punk Story,” Alice imparted some good ole DIY wisdom: “You don’t have to be a writer to write and you don’t have to be a musician to play. I was talking to some young girls today and they were telling me that they wanted to be in a band but they didn’t know how to play anything. So what! You don’t even have to know chords and sometimes that is the most exciting thing... not playing an instrument in a traditional way.” Alice Bag’s brand of punk was influenced by the glitter rock of Bowie and Elton John and also the ranchera music that her father listened to. She was apparently not alone, as many of these first wavers were similarly influenced by the glitter rock that had proceeded them. Bands like the Plugz, Los Illegals, The Zeros, and later Los Crudos had also been influenced by different forms of Latin American music including the garage rock of bands like

Question Mark and the Mysterians. In many ways this apparent lackluster musicianship can be seen as part of a dialog of criticism and a deconstruction of contemporary music. Remember, this was the 1970s, a decade that seemed to hit many great artists rather hard in regards to seemingly lackadaisical absorption of popular musical stylings as their respective eras shifted, which more often than not ended up in outright horn abuse. And perhaps more than the music itself, but it’s slick over-production were being taken to task by this lo-fi bunch of rag tags and guttersnipes. This may seem an inconceivable complaint by today’s contradictory and polemic standards of music production. While on the one hand, advances in social media have nearly made record companies, agents, and PR people obsolete. Artists can access their fans directly and maintain control of the commerce end of matters and need not be tied to exploitative contractual agreements or fear losing rights to their intellectual property. On the other hand, we now have a slew of American Idol type reality programs that viewers participate in every level of access from the culling process to actually purchasing the music that is churned out of these seemingly uninspired-pop-music-shit-factories. They’re not content with just selling the consumer a handful of polished turds, they’re actually relying upon said consumer to do the polishing. By 1979 the scene was beginning to sour. Skinheads began lurking about in what had once been a multi-cultural and largely Queer community, coupled with the scourge of heroin, and the fact that there were at least two serial killers active in Los Angeles at the time may have been more harbingers that anyone knew how to deal with. The Masque closed it’s doors for good that same year. New bands that were forming, contributed to what is sometimes referred to as the “hardcore invasion.” Black Flag and the Circle Jerks are good bands in their own right, but their arrival along with droves of other groups from the Orange County suburbs, marked the end of the first wave of L.A. punk. Los Angeles photographer Dawn Wirth, who helped to document the first wave had just returned from the UK to find that, “There just weren’t that many people around and it wasn’t the same. A lot of the O.C. bands were coming around and it just wasn’t my thing. They do that thing with their arms... Windmilling. Ug.” By 1980 the scene had shifted so dramatically that Darby Crash’s oft quoted laments in the Penelope Speeris documentary, The Decline of Western Civilization that first wavers like himself were having great difficulty finding gigs to play were accurate. Crash himself was on his way out, or at least nearing canonization. If it seemed too much of a stretch to summon Prometheus into all of this then Saint Sebastian is likely way out of the question, eh? Well, at least the Greeks and the Romans admitted that their mythology was indeed mythology and do not expect us to believe in gravity defying “miracles” and Dickens proportioned apparitions. Though, as the story goes, the archers pumped Sebastian full of arrows and Crash, who had long been channeling his inner cult leader apparently also channeled his inner executioner. For many, Crash’s 1980 death by heroin overdose had something of a religious significance, both earmarking the end of an era and providing an all too realistic illustration of just how fragile both our communities and our bodies truly are. !"#$$%&'())*+,

THE CHAMP

čĔęĔĘ+ ĔėĊĞ ĘĖĚĎěĊđ

A brother’s pride cannot be pinned down There is something about being a big brother that instills a sense of selflessness inside you. All of a sudden you do not seem that important. The day my little brother Zach was born I knew I would have to be there to protect him and help him grow for the rest of our lives. When Zach was about 4, I began to show him the basics on how to throw various types of balls. First came the baseball, then the football, and when his hands were big enough, the basketball. I recall the feeling of pride that aroused within me when he would complete an accurate pass. It made me happier than making a good play myself. Fast forward over a decade and things have changed dramatically. Zach towers over me at around 6’2” and has developed his own passions within sports. We do not share the same favorites in terms of what we like to play but he has become an athletic beast that makes me swell with pride every time I see

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him compete. Zach is now 18 and in his senior year of high school. He lives in Lyons, Oregon, and over the last seven years we have not had much of a chance to spend time together because I live in California. He has been wrestling for quite some time now and up until February of this year I had never seen him wrestle. I wrestled in high school too, and it is about the only sport we share in common. I made the promise to him since he started wrestling that I would make it to one of his matches before his high school career was over. February 2012 was the last month of his wrestling career. I had procrastinated on my promise but made the flight from Los Angeles to Eugene just in time for districts. Districts are the tournaments at the end of the season where every school sends two wrestlers to compete in each weight class for a chance to go to the state tournament. It is extremely difficult to make it to

State in Oregon due to the rich wrestling tradition within the communities. Zach tried to lower my expectations by telling me that he probably would not win and he did not want to let me down. From the bottom of my heart I told him that I could not care less if he won or lost. Seeing him take the mat that first day was a feeling that cannot be described or recreated. I have never experienced such a surge of pride as I did when my brother stepped on the mat. My chest swelled, my hands dripped with sweat, my heart pounded with anticipation, and by the end of the meet, my throat was more scratched than a 1980s CD. When the first match began I found myself screaming uncontrollably at the top of my lungs. The match was like a five-minute panic attack. Zach won his first four matches of districts. In his fifth match he wrestled against a kid from Elmyra High School. The winner of the match would book their ticket to the state tournament—a huge accomplishment. The match came down to the final round with 10 seconds left and Zach was up by two points. “Let’s go Zach! Ten more seconds and you punch your ticket to state!” I screamed. As the clock ticked down 9-8-7-6—my heart pounded; with five seconds left the Elmyra wrestler got a two-point take down on Zach. The two points tied the match. Time froze. My mind exploded. Will the match go to sudden death? What if Zach loses in overtime? What if he misses state? As the final five seconds began to tick off I saw an overwhelming confidence on Zach’s face. His body language was calm and his expression confident. As the last second ticked off the clock the ref blew his whistle, signaling sudden death. At that moment the other referee ran to confer with his

partner. The crowd went from deafening to complete silence in a matter of seconds. The intensity in the gym was immense. After a few seconds, which felt like a few days the ref yelled, “Point!” and motioned towards my brother. The ref walked over to Zach and raised his hand in victory. My brother had scored the winning point in the final second. His opponent was charged with locking hands, his second warning which cost him a point. That single point was enough to secure my brother a spot in the state tournament. Usually when Zach wins a match he shrugs the ref ’s hand off his arm and nonchalantly walks off the mat like it is no big deal, but not this time. He erupted in a victorious roar, his muscles tensed up in a flexed pose of celebration. At that moment all I could think was, “Damn my little brother is a straight stud, a man amongst boys!” It was at that moment that I realized I love my brother Zach more than I love myself and how grateful I am to have him in my life. My brother went on to the state tournament and helped his team win its first state championship ever. He won fourth place for the entire state of Oregon in the 182 pounds weight class. Never again will I feel so proud of another human being. Zach will be going into the marines after he is done with high school this year, a suiting fit for such a beast. He is going to make a great devil dog. I stole his wrestling shirts the day I left Oregon. It makes me feel close to him even though he is a thousand miles away. It is not just a shirt; it is a reminder of how lucky I am to have such an amazing and talented brother. It is a reminder that hard work pays off. I am wearing that reminder at this exact moment. My brother is a state champion. My brother is love. !"#$%&'%()*+,%-

THE MODERN NATIVE’S PLIGHT

A woman’ struggles to keep her identity

Ä?ĔęĔ+ ĎććĞ ėĊĊĒĆē

“D

o you have a casino?� “You’re still around?� “Do you smoke the peace pipe?� These are some of the many questions I encounter when someone finds out that I am a Native American. Sure, these questions are ridiculous but I usually retort with a laugh and politely respond with a “No.� But soon after, those same questions I shrugged off with a chuckle start making my mind race with thoughts and questions of my own. Is this how society looks at my culture? I am proud to be of Native blood. As a member of the Gabrielino-Tongva Nation, along with the Tewa Nation, I have been raised to be proud of who I am and where I come from. The Native American culture is a beautiful thing; the wisdom, the spirituality, and the love of nature and loyalty. But unbeknownst to everyone, a harsh reality lies within my people, a struggle that began when the first European settlers stepped foot on this occupied land. There is a war to preserve what is left of what our culture holds sacred: our identity, our homeland, our very existence. It is no secret that the original inhabitants and the

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descendants of the good ol’ United States of America got screwed over big time. And what is a bigger slap in the face is that our story is usually ignored in our grade school history classes. No in-depth mention in the textbooks of the genocide that took place on the very land you call home. The only spotlight our culture gets in schools is when kindergarteners dress up as Indians for the Thanksgiving pageant. The injustices and ongoing struggles that are going with the cultural misconceptions, the government, and the treatment of our environment are mostly dusted under the table without even a second thought. Being a modern day Native woman, I am realizing that it is becoming harder and harder for the Native community and myself to find an identity in today’s times where everything has been ripped from our hands. And there is ignorance in today’s society of the notion that our problems no longer exist, mostly from the fact they do not know there are still a lot of us here! Land is still being taken away from right under our feet, hidden behind the ugly deceitful mask of policies, treaties, and laws. The environment is being destroyed in the name of resources and greed. Reservations have now taken over the throne of being the poorest areas in America to the point where they make city ghettos look like

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resorts. The Native identity and existence depends on the land. Our creation stories were birthed from this very soil. When the land goes, a piece of us goes along with it. We live in a society where the U.S. citizen’s self-identity involves their pride of where their family came from; the Irish are proud to be Irish. Hispanics express their love through art, music, and other mediums. You get the idea. And along with that, one hopes to visit their homeland to indulge more into their culture. But what happens when one does not have a homeland to go back to? What happens when a group of people, politicians, and leaders do everything they can to take away the very things your culture’s existence depends on? They act as if we did not exist at all. It is so easy to feel lost and concerned about the future of Native Americans and myself as a Native woman. And the misconceptions about Native American culture do not help our cause either. When people think you are rolling in the dough because you are receiving money from the government or that big shiny Native-owned casino in the middle of nowhere (only one percent of Native tribes benefit from casinos, by the way), it is absolutely frustrating and in fact, heartbreaking. When the only attention a Native gets is when it is a character displayed on a sport team jersey or a Native-inspired

name or a “savage” in a motion picture, I cannot help but wonder, when the hell did our society made it okay to treat my heritage as a novelty? We are not a culture that existed only during the early years of the Caucasian self-proclaimed manifest destiny. We are a strong, beautiful culture that is going strong today. But how can we have an identity in our culture when our government is doing littleto-nothing to help the descendants of the original people of this country keep and preserve their culture? When we have to prove our blood degree and obtain papers like an animal to prove who we say we are? These are the many questions I ask every day. We know that it can never be the way it used to be. I shake my head at the misconception that we want revenge or all of our land back. What we want is education. We want to spread the importance of Native American culture and the true history of this land that comes from Native American ways such as the way our constitution was structured, technology, war strategy, agriculture, and so much more. The status of our natural environment and the preservation of natural habitats and global health are main concerns we have. When our land is taken care of, we live on. And from there, our identity is secure. !"#$%&'()*+#

VEGAN PITA PIZZAS

So good....It will leave you craving for more

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efore I was a vegetarian, I had no idea how to cook. I would watch and help my friends cook by chopping ingredients and other preparatory cooking steps. At the time I was a horrible friend. I would pick on them, saying, “Meat or the highway,” and I would not give any thought to the principles and the ideology of being vegetarian. I finally understood vegetarianism after conversing with my friends about them. It was a lengthy conversation that led me to enlightenment. Spending time with them gave me knowledge on cooking vegan food. One of my favorite and most delicious recipes I discovered was the pita pizza. Since mushrooms have a similar texture to meat, the craving for meat in a meal dissipated. My friends always experimented with food and learned through trial and error. This got me to do the same. One day there was a sale on hummus. I bought four pounds of hummus. This is an insane amount! I had to test what hummus would taste good with. I tried to use it as a sauce. To my surprise, it was a great replacement for the most common sauce: tomato sauce. The hummus complemented the other ingredients. The best part of this pizza is that it only takes 15 minutes and it feeds two people. If you are short on time, a vegan, a vegetarian, health conscious or love pizzas, this is for you. !"#$%&$'()*+,)-$

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STEPS TO GOODNESS Step 1: Gather ingredients – red onions, mushrooms (white or cremini), hummus (Cedar’s Garlic Lover), Daiya cheese (optional, only use if you want a cheesy taste), and pita bread. Step 2:: Pre-heat the oven to 450 degrees. Step 3: Chop red onions into slices or small squares (depends on preference). Chop mushrooms into slices. Step 4: Spread the hummus over the pita bread. Make sure it covers the entire top. Sprinkle daiya cheese across the bread over the hummus. Add mushrooms and onions across the pita bread over the Daiya cheese. Step 5: Insert pita bread into the oven. Step 6: Rotate pizza at 7 ½ minutes to cook evenly. Step 7: At 15 minutes take it out. It is done, and ready to eat!

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HOW TO MAKE FIVE-LAYER LASAGNA

grew up in an Italian household where one meal was coveted above all else: my father’s lasagna. It was five layers of noodles, homemade sauce, greatness and enough cholesterol to put you in an early grave. We would serve it alongside our turkey at Thanksgiving dinner; the turkey, however, went largely untouched in comparison. Now that I live on my own, I like to make a ridiculously large amount of something and freeze the leftovers to use when I need a quick meal. Lasagna is an example of savable food that can last in your freezer for months, making it the perfect go-to meal for the rushed college student on a budget. !"#$#%&'()(*+,

am always amazed when I hear someone ask, “What’s the best brand of alfredo sauce?� My immediate response is, “The kind you make yourself.� I grew up in a house where Italian food was not on the menu most nights but I always looked forward to going out and being able to order my favorite; fettuccine alfredo. It wasn’t until much later when I started working for a chain of Italian markets that I found out how easy it was to make myself. An added bonus for a college student like me was how cheap it was. Often these ingredients can be thrown together for less than $10. Here’s how it’s done in just a few easy steps. !"-,..&"-%(."(/##$ Ingredients 1 pack fettuccine noodles, 2 cloves of garlic, 1/2 stick of butter, a pint of heavy whipping cream and parmesan cheese. STEP 1: Heat about 1 tablespoon of butter over a medium flame in a two-quart saucepan. STEP 2: Chop the garlic fine and throw it in. Once the garlic is golden brown, you are ready to add the cream and the rest of the butter. STEP 3: Pour the cream and butter into the pan and continue to warm it on medium heat. STEP 4: Read the directions on the box of noodles and put the appropriate amount of water into a pot. Heat the water on high heat and bring it to a boil. STEP 5: By this time the butter should be melting into the cream. Stir it together and start to mix in 1/2 cup of parmesan cheese. Keep stirring the sauce while you are pouring the cheese in so that it doesn’t clump and melts in evenly. STEP 6 (optional): If you want, you can add some spice to the mix. A little black pepper and some thyme will bring the flavors together well but be careful not to add too much. STEP 7: When the water boils turn the heat down to medium and add the noodles. Cook them until they are soft, approx eight mins. STEP 8: Once the noodles are done pour them into a colander to strain them. STEP 9: Put the noodles in a big bowl, add the sauce and voila! Fettuccine alfredo! If the sauce seems too runny, let it sit. There should be enough for at least six people. You can also add chicken or sausage and peppers but for now stick to the basics. You will be surprised how you can many people you can impress. !"#$%&'()!"#$%&'!()*( !"

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Ingredients: 1 pack of lasagna noodles 2 jars tomato sauce Large amounts of shredded parmesan, romano, and mozzerella cheeses 1 container of ricotta cheese ½ lb. Italian sausage ½ lb. ground beef minced garlic (as much as you want) onions (as much as you want) STEP 1: After preheating the oven to 350 degrees, combine garlic and sauce and cook over low heat. Meanwhile, fry beef, sausage, garlic and onions together until brown. Season to taste. Pat with a paper towel to reduce grease. Stir into sauce. STEP 2: Boil noodles in salted water; once finished, separate the noodles and straighten them on a plate or tray to avoid sticking/tearing. Use cooking spray in a casserole dish and then spread a thin layer of sauce on the bottom. STEP 3: Place a layer of noodles carefully in the casserole dish, spreading a layer of sauce on it. Layer all cheeses but ricotta on top. STEP 4: Apply one more layer of noodles, top with ricotta only (no sauce). STEP 5: Apply another layer of noodles, top with sauce and all cheeses but ricotta. STEP 6: Apply layer of noodles, top with ricotta, no sauce. STEP 7: Layer noodles, top with sauce, cheeses and ricotta. STEP 8: Cover with foil and bake for 45 minutes, and then 10-15 minutes uncovered. Remove from oven and let stand for 15 minutes before serving.

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NINE STEPS TO FETTUCINI ALFREDO

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2012 THE YEAR OF

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Track and field athletes from all across the globe unite at the Mt. SAC relays to battle it out for first place in their respective events The Mt. SAC Relays is an annual track and field event that is held at Hilmer Lodge Stadium on the Mt. SAC campus. The relays are held in April each year, and were started by then track coach Hilmer Lodge in 1959. The Relays invite all levels of competition from high school to Olympic. There has been as many as 9,000 participants in the Mt. SAC relays. The stature of the Mt. SAC relays has grown since the start in 1959. The slogan of the Mt. SAC relays is, “Where the world’s best athletes compete.” This year, Mt. SAC placed in the top five in 21 out of 39 events. The relays distinguish Mt. SAC from every other community college by continuing to provide a true display of excellence from the athletes it invites to compete year in and year out. Excellence cannot be described in one or two words, but rather by the tradition cemented into the lives and workout routines of athletes and coaches who compete. !"#$%&$'()*+$,

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THE RIGHT TO CHOOSE A woman’s tale of condemnation

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bortion. I am fully aware that this is a touchy subject, but I have come to realize that everyone has their own opinion as well as their own ideas on who and what circumstances a woman should be in when making this decision. I had mine too, but trust me—opinions and ideas change when it happens to you. And abortions happen. A lot. And although our society has changed its views on birth control and now teach sex education in school, society still views abortion as an extremely shameful act. I never planned on being pregnant. I also never planned on having an abortion. But sometimes these things happen even when you are playing it safe. I remember staring at that tiny little plus sign on that tiny little pregnancy test. I stared at it for so long, in shock, thinking how this one little stick brought out so many emotions. I took another one, and stared at the new stick just as long, in disbelief. I felt like a failure. Immediately my mother’s words played over and over again. “My girls have never gotten pregnant or have been drug addicts...” This was how she started off conversations when bragging about my sister and my academic achievements. I thought about how disappointed my entire family would be when they heard the news. I was terrified and felt alone. I started to think about work, school, and my friends. I started to think about life in general. Everything I wanted to do, everything I wanted to see. Everything that I had worked so hard on up to

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this one point in my life. And then I thought of him. I knew I was not ready for a child and definitely was not ready to go through the birth and just give my child away. I made the decision to terminate the pregnancy but I did not tell anyone that I was pregnant or what I had decided to do about it. I could not concentrate at work or school. I now understood exactly what it felt like to carry the world on your shoulders. The worst thing about it was that people noticed my mood change and always asked me what was wrong. And every time they asked that question, I wanted to cry. I was depressed, moody and distanced myself from everyone I knew. I felt like a bad person. I felt like this was all my fault and that I deserved to feel miserable. I felt selfish. One day my friend sat me down and grilled me with questions until I finally burst into tears and told her how I messed up and had gotten pregnant. I told her everything. How I felt about it and how I felt like I was the worst person to ever walk the earth. She is older than me and I had come to her before with problems. And then she told me something I will never forget: I should never think that I messed up. She also told me that she had two abortions. This woman who had overcome so many hardships in her life but still turned out to be successful in motherhood, marriage and career was telling me how she had gone through the same thing. She has two kids! She talked to me for a long time about her decision. She told me how she felt, which was almost identical to the way I was feeling. She hugged me and told me that everything would turn out fine, and whatever decision I made make was going to be the right decision for me. I didn’t feel so alone anymore. And today, as I hear about all these anti-abortion laws and restrictions that have passed, I get angry. After being pregnant and having the abortion, I feel for the women in these states. Abortion is a constitutional right, and a state cannot take away a national, widespread law. But these states are. The 18th Week Bill now makes it illegal for a woman to have an abortion after the eighteenth week of pregnancy in Arizona. But these weeks do not start at conception; the current bill starts counting the weeks from the first day of a woman’s last period. And if a woman does choose to have an abortion within the legal time limit, the bill is accompanied by a mandate which states that the doctor must conduct a sonogram and the woman is forced to see the fetus and hear the heartbeat. Nebraska, Alabama, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Oklahoma and Wisconsin are all states that have these laws. Arizona governor Jan Brewer had this to say about the new laws: “This legislation is consistent with my strong track record of supporting common sense measures to protect the health of women and safeguard our most vulnerable population–the unborn.” But it is the women having abortions that are actually vulnerable. An unwanted pregnancy is already scary, and whether you agree or disagree with abortion, taking away a woman’s right to choose is just plain ignorant and cruel. This new law will leave no choice for many women but to go through an unwanted

pregnancy, and condemns those who opt for an abortion. But now other questions start to rise. Why did I feel ashamed? I remember feeling miserable, as if the act of having an abortion was going to forever be emblazoned on my chest for everyone to see like a giant scarlet letter. And then I remembered how I felt when I was actually able to talk about it with someone. I no longer felt ashamed and I no longer felt like I was condemned. So I started talking about it. I told all of my friends. And then they started to tell me their stories. This happened to many people I knew and they told me they felt that they could never talk about it. Their stories were similar to mine. But then I realized why we felt we could not talk about it. Why we all felt ashamed and had to hide in the dark. The society we live in tells us that we are wrong. They condemn us and make us feel like it has to be a secret; they make us feel ashamed of our decision. But they do it indirectly. We are constantly hearing stories of how women get pregnant and keep the baby. Pictures of happy mothers holding their babies in their graduation robes are everywhere you look. Even the popular TV show “16 and Pregnant,” which claims to show teenagers how hard it is to have a baby, does the exact opposite. The women on this show are glamorized and have become reality show celebrities. Laws are being passed that prevent non-surgical abortions and limit what doctors can do. Women are bombarded by pictures of ripped fetuses and told they are going to hell when walking into an abortion clinic. Maybe we should condemn those that choose to keep an unwanted pregnancy. Maybe we should picket outside of hospitals and tell women that they are making a mistake. Maybe we should show pictures of happy women without a child in a graduation robe. Maybe it is time to show the positive, not only the negative. A woman can have an abortion and still be successful. “When you have a baby, you should be available emotionally and physically forever,” said Lisa, a 30-year-old nursing major and mother of two. She has had two abortions. Lisa was taking care of her first-born when she became pregnant again. She decided to terminate the pregnancy. It was her first abortion. “There was just not enough time in the day, and sometimes birth control does fail,” she said. Lisa said she was lucky because she had support for her decision. “I cried and felt crappy but I knew I did the right thing.” Her son was 11 at the time and she had started her nursing program. “Looking back, I couldn’t even imagine having another baby while going to nursing school, I couldn’t commit to both,” she said. “That decision alone has allowed me to give myself and my children a better life.” Lisa has recently gotten her degree and is now a registered nurse. “At the time I felt very vulnerable and ashamed but now I don’t regret it at all. Everything really does happen for a reason.” For Jessica, a 27-year-old paramedic major, she simply was not ready to become a mother. “I couldn’t believe it, I didn’t think it was real. I was crying a

lot and I had a job and was going to school. I knew I wasn’t ready for it. I knew instantly I didn’t want to be a mom.” Jessica’s boyfriend wanted her to have the baby. “He told me that if I got the abortion then he wouldn’t be with me and I knew that his family would help support the baby,” she said. Jessica added that her boyfriend was the wrong man. “I wanted my kid to have a life better than I did and I knew the environment I was in would not be okay to raise a baby.” She had the abortion without him knowing and they broke up. “I know people think abortion is wrong, but when you become pregnant, every situation crosses your mind whether you are pro-choice or not,” she said Jessica is working two jobs to put herself through the nursing program and has already completed her paramedic courses. She has no regrets. “I don’t regret anything. I know that I can do anything I want to but if I had the baby, I don’t think I would have been able to do as much.” Jeremy, a 25-year-old psychology major, said when his girlfriend got pregnant he just wanted to support her as much as possible. They had been on and off for about five years now and when she called him to tell him she was pregnant he was shocked, nervous and scared at the same time. “We immediately went over every option. I also wanted to wait a few days to let it really sink in and make sure that we took time to make the right decision. I didn’t want to have an abortion but I also didn’t want to have a baby.” Jeremy said the most important thing was what she wanted to do and how she felt. She had decided that she wanted to have the abortion. “I just wanted to make sure that she was 100 percent okay with her decision. I wanted to support her no matter what she wanted to do even though I was always taught that life is precious and abortion is wrong.” When Jeremy thinks back on it, he thinks that it was the smart choice. A few of his friends had unplanned pregnancies and he says that some are married and happy, some have no part in their child’s life and some are financially unstable. “I just wasn’t ready. Living the life I am I just couldn’t imagine taking care of a kid.” Vanessa, a 23-year-old public relations major, did not question what to do when she became pregnant by a guy she was having a casual relationship with. “I immediately knew what I wanted to do and I scheduled it that day,” she said. when she told him, he quickly agreed. They both knew that there was no future between them. “I think that abortion is still collectively viewed as negative. The only people I didn’t want to tell was my family because both sides are extremely Catholic.” Vanessa said that she was more worried about walking around with a pregnant belly than the actual abortion. “That baby was not a blessing, it was a drunken, irresponsible choice to have unprotected sex and I do not regret

my decision one bit.” Vanessa is pregnant again and is terminating the pregnancy. She is graduating in June and has several job interviews with public relations firms lined up “I feel more physically and mentally attached this time,” said Vanessa. “I was very selfish when I was 20 and had the first abortion. I never gave it a second thought. But now I am with someone who I love and we have a history together.” Vanessa and her boyfriend considered keeping the baby. “We talked about every option. What we could do for work. Where we would live. Keeping the baby. Adoption.” In the end they both decided that abortion would be the best option. “This is our firstborn. I keep thinking how I wish this could just happen to me a year from now, after I graduated and settled into my new job.” The decision to have a second abortion has taken an emotional toll. “The first time I didn’t feel anything, it was like pulling off a band-aid. This time is different. I keep thinking I should keep it, but I know I shouldn’t, I just can’t.” She says this time she feels really guilty. “Not the act itself but because it’s with Brandon [her boyfriend]. Marriage and children is something we’ve talked about.” For Eva, a 26-year-old psychology major, getting pregnant at 16 was devastating. “I didn’t know how to feel, I was confused and I had mixed feelings and I was completely angry at myself,” she said. Abortion was not an option for Eva. She had her baby but said that raising a child makes everything more difficult. “I don’t condone [abortion] but now I see that with certain situations it’s hard to do the things you need to do with another life,” she said. Eva, now 26, is ready to transfer to Cal State Fullerton. While the circumstances for all these women are different, they all agree on one thing: women should have access to a safe abortion if that is what they choose. “Nobody should take away your rights or tell you which decision is better for you,” said Vanessa. Lisa said she believes that abortion has such a negative stigma. “This idea that abortion is wrong is such a Neanderthal way of thinking. People picketing outside, doctors receiving death threats; it is something so deeply rooted in our culture. A woman should always have a right to her choice without feeling like the world is against her.” And although Eva may disagree with certain procedures involving abortion, she definitely believes that certain situations call for that option. “I don’t believe in using as a form of birth control but I also don’t believe in taking away the option of having one [an abortion].” Some of the sources interviewed for this story have asked that their last names not be used. !"#$%%$&'#%"()*

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AStudent’s PERMANENT MEMORY tattoo is evidence of a painful past convinced me to tattoo his name on my left arm, which turned out to be one of the biggest mistakes of my life. Several months later he was stationed in Virginia. He called to tell me to get ready to move. I was so happy that we would finally have a place of our own. I moved to Virginia and that’s when everything changed. Jajuan was a totally different person. He turned into a passive aggressive type a guy. He often spoke to the mother of his two-year-old son. I was fine with this until he told me I could not tell anyone that we had gotten married. Things worsened as the days went by. My self-esteem was low. I cried myself to sleep night after night. He stopped paying attention to me. I finally snapped and decided to tell his family and his son’s mother. This created a lot of problems for Jajuan and me. He would come home from work, eat dinner, watch television and go to sleep. He stopped showing me any affection. It seemed like yesterday that we were getting along and singing karaoke songs. And then one day he looked in my eyes and asked me if I was happy. I said, “Yes.” I told him that I wanted to work things out. I pleaded with him, but he interrupted me and said that he was not ready to be married. He said he wanted to be just friends. A few weeks later he told me he was going to visit California but was not taking me with him. I was alone in Virginia with no family or friends. My world came crashing down. I moved back to California and he dropped off my things at my sister’s house and left. I was tired, ashamed and blinded by what I felt in my heart was true love. We had our marriage annulled and I haven’t looked back, except when I see his name on my shoulder. !"#$%&'()*!$+,%!"#$%&'()"#$%&'(")*+) !"

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thought I was the luckiest girl alive. I was 18 and about to graduate high school. Jajuan was 21. We started dating and after nine months, he joined the navy. Before he left, he told my mom that he wanted to marry me. My mother disapproved. She thought it was too soon. I wanted to get married after he finished training. He was concerned, and at the time, I didn’t know why. When he was about to leave for boot camp, there was a red flag on his application. He had to be married to go to the military because he already had a child with another woman. He convinced me to marry him. We met with a priest who said we were too young to marry. He put both of us in separate rooms and asked us questions about each other. He asked me if I was ready to be married and I said, “I don’t think so. I am nervous.” He brought Jajuan back and told both of us we were not ready to marry. Jajuan with the help of his recruiter looked for another priest. The recruiter found someone to marry us but I was still nervous, even after hearing about all the benefits and money that I would get as his dependent. We married at the priest’s house, and that same night he left for boot camp in Chicago. I was sad that he was leaving but happy that I was married to such an awesome man who would care for me for the rest of my life, “till death do us part.” Boot camp lasted two months. During that time, I was preparing to graduate from Covina High School. I was excited, in love, and ready to support him. After graduation, I visited him in Chicago and he bought me a beautiful ring in the Mall of America. We stayed in a nice hotel and I remember feeling sad, yet excited. I visited him in Mississippi a few months later. There, he had my name tattooed on his chest. He

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THE CALL OF THE WILD My night with a cougar

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GIRLS GONE GAMING Kicking ass in the boy’s realm

t encompasses politics. Big business. Advertising. Professional sports. Accounting. Technology. Law. Practically any impressive cash-cow of a job is run predominately by men leaving the ladies to do girly, socially acceptable things, like makeup or professional shopping. Even the majority of the cool hobbies are dominated by the male species. Skateboarding. Rapping. Guitar. Football. But now, thanks to shifting attitudes regarding what exactly a proper young lady should or should not spend her time doing, there’s one shining beacon of hope in this testosterone-laden world, one area that’s no longer solely considered a “Boy’s Club.” Video games. Sweet, sweet video games. When you try to conjure the image of a gamer in your head, it usually falls into one of two archetypes: The fat guy camped in front of his PC and eating Doritos off his belly, or the overzealous frat boy, purple-faced and screaming at his television because he either messed up a pass in Madden or was shot by friendly fire in one of the various Halo installments. Fact of the matter is, however, that women make up 35-40 percent of the gaming community. A lot of girls have the misconception that because their boyfriends or brothers devoted gamers that she will look like a complete noob, and decide that it isn’t even worth bothering to learn. However, these are not the days of old, where women had different expectations put on them and the market was aiming mostly for male entertainment. They made their money off of assuming that women would never be interested in anything involving dragons, guns or spaceships. “The greatest games were geared towards a male audience, few to family, and practically none towards women,” explained Alex Kchouri, video game columnist for the Mountaineer. “Women who decided to pick up the controller were looked down upon as clumsy, childish, and ill-knowledgeable,” Kchouri said. While the female presence has certainly grown, that

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mentality is still ingrained in the minds of many girls today, causing them to shy away from a pastime that they feel they may genuinely enjoy. “I know some girls don’t want to try to learn how to play with their boyfriends or guy friends,” said 22-year-old Ivana Sarmiento, an avid Halo fan. “They’ll usually get crushed right away and give up because they’re discouraged. But I have girl friends come to me and actually ask me to teach them how to play so they won’t be embarrassed in front of guys when they’re just starting out.” So ladies, just remember. Sure, he may laugh at you now when you pick up that controller and he hands you soul-crushing defeat. But he won’t be laughing once you’ve practiced enough to kick his ass in front of his friends. While the market has expanded to accommodate more feminine tastes, most are finding that even the most violent, immersive of games have a huge female following. “I love anything that has to do with Star Wars, because I’m a huge sci-fi nerd,” said 20-year-old psychology major, Megan Seco. “And probably anything that has to do with shooting, because I’m really good at them. I love first person shooters.” The love of the adrenaline these games can send rushing through the body isn’t all violence or story based, mind you. Some people are just as interested in the tactics, and this sentiment is not lost on Sarmiento. “Say you’re playing Halo,” she said. “You’re thinking ‘okay, so where do I throw this grenade so that it’ll bounce of the wall and hit the guy that’s on the other side?’ It just makes you think. It’s all strategy.” Whether it’s to zone out, cool off or blow off some steam, girls can love video games as much as any guy. And, yes, is she is still a girl when she’s playing video games. The newfound freedom that came with the last decade has allowed them to not only bring a feminine touch to the gaming community, but to begin to call it their own. !"#$#%&'()*+*,

UNDERGROUND

HEAD Anticon manager spins his way through hip-hop’s LA scene

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at the shop. How are you gonna beat that? I was no competition obviously.” Koplow said. “If anything I would have prevented him from selling shit, because I would just be like, ‘You’re gonna buy that?’” Rob led him to the initial meeting of Koplow and the original founders of anticon. “Rob knew I was a huge anticon fan, and the first time I came home from Berkeley, he told me to come to the shop. Four of the original anticon dudes and him were hanging out. I was super shy and super nervous,” said Koplow. “I introduced myself, hung out, and told them I wanted to intern. I was in the right place at the right time.” Noah Cunningham, known as DJ Dials, a DJ and promoter of the largest club in San Francisco, 1015 Folsom, is a friend and colleague of Koplow. Cunningham described anticon as, “a record label that popularized ‘nerd rap.’ Recently they’ve put out some great artists like Baths, Montcrief, Tobbaco, and Serenghetti. They are known for weirdo/strange rap music from people like Dose One and Sole.” Koplow also spends his time deejaying under the name, Sodapop. Koplow’s alias comes from his past, wanting to write “Soda” as a graffiti name, his initials, SPK, and also from Sodapop Kid from The Outsiders. “I picked Sodapop and it stuck, I’ve never liked it. It’s not Gaslamp Killer, it’s Sodapop. It’s almost like calling myself a bitch or something,” said Koplow. Koplow loves living in L.A. because of the community, shows, art museums, the many places to camp, and most importantly, Dublab, an online radio station based out of Silverlake. “People ask me what keep’s me in LA, and a large part is Dublab. It’s the one thing I see uniting these micro movements, we all have this common bond,” said Koplow. Koplow has a dj spot on Dublab once a month. “He’s a lab rat, he has a monthly show on the fourth Friday of the month at noon,” said Jake Jenkins, a volunteer for Dublab, and acquaintance of Koplow. Eating, watching Netflix with his cat, and going to shows where he knows 50 people, are some of Koplow’s favorite things. “It’s weird, I’m the most social antisocial person you’ll ever meet,” said Koplow. —!"#$%&'(&#)$%!*

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rip-hop, back-pack hip-hop, ambient, acid jazz, chill wave, and trill wave, are just a few of the many micro sub genres in Los Angeles’s music scene. Local Angelino Shaun Koplow, DJ, and food junkie, has worked his way from intern, to label manager at anticon, one of Los Angeles’s wellknown labels the underground scene by the age of 28. “I was a huge anticon fan, and I had started interning for them during my first semester at Berkeley in 2001,” Koplow said. Koplow’s internship turned into a part time position after Koplow was offered a job with Mush, another independent Los Angeles label. “I went to the anticon guys and was like, ‘Hey, Mush wants to hire me.’ They had this weird, unspoken rivalry, because some of our artists were fucking with them. It was a competition, so I basically convinced them to hire me part time,” said Koplow. Koplow worked his way up, but becoming the manager for one of his favorite labels was not always Koplow’s plan. “I went to Berkeley for legal studies, thinking I was going to go to law school, because that’s you know, what your parents tell you to do.” Koplow got his degree in art, and received an honor’s studio that only eight students at a time can receive. “The most they can give it to you is for two semesters, I had it my last two semesters,” said Koplow. Before living in the Bay Area, Koplow grew up in West LA and the Valley. Koplow spent a lot of time at a hip-hop record shop called The Basement. “I would be there all the time arguing with people about which hip-hop was better than other kinds of hip-hop. I was super into backpack hip-hop and shit,” said Koplow. According to Urban Dictionary, back-pack hip-hop is a “derogatory term for underground fans who are generally snobby.” “Backpack hip-hop wasn’t always snobby but there was some air of pretension to it. Everyone was wearing a backpack at these shows,” Koplow said. “It was stupid, but it was my adolescence. I got out of that, and into indie rock. I went from wearing baggy clothes to wearing my ex-girlfriend’s clothes.” Koplow became friends with the owner of The Basement, Rob. “Rob became a mentor for me,” Koplow said. Rob told Koplow he would hire him, but never did. “He’d always get these really fucking cute girls to work for free

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THE WILD ONES Ä?Ä”Ä™Ä”Ä˜ÇŚ ĎććĞ ėĊĊĒĆē

Knights in shining black leather

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Opposite page: Jacob Prieto Top (left to right): Thomas Joseph Tomlinson, Josh Carillo, Jacob Prieto, Ian Gercheque playing pool. Bottom left: Jacob Prieto. Bottom right: Josh Carillo and Jacob Prieto. All photos taken at The Eagle LA.

eBAY, YOUR WAY

How to turn your extra junk into bucks

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y parents always complained about my messy room. They wanted me to throw away all the stuff I didn’t use. I usually replied with a remark along the lines of, “It’s worth something!” They thought I was going to be a broke hoarder, but I proved both of

them wrong. I learned how to sell my stuff on eBay. I was tired of my room being messy with stuff I do not use, and I was tired of being broke. I self-taught myself, but for those of you who are not tech-friendly, it is not as hard as it sounds. Here are the steps” Step 1: Set up an eBay account – Go to www.ebay.com and set up a username and password. Fill in some simple questions like address, date of birth, and email address. All of these are relevant to your future eBaying needs. Step 2: Set up a PayPal account – Go to www.paypal.com and set up a PayPal account. You could use your credit/debit card on eBay, but PayPal is the easiest, safest way to do it. You set up an account (just like eBay), but instead, add your credit/debit card information. Link it to your eBay account and you are almost set to go. Step 3: Take pictures of what you want to sell – Get a Smartphone or a digital camera and upload it to your computer or the eBay app (if you are on a Smartphone). Step 4: Check for shipping – Depending on whether you are using UPS, FedEx, or the regular US Postal Service, shipping will vary. You usually want to put in the shipping price, how much the

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fee is to ship plus how much you have to pay for the packaging it is being shipped in. Step 5: Set up a listing – Go to “Sell” and click “Sell an Item.” You will find everything eBay has to offer to help describe your item and let everyone know everything about it. Upload the picture you took earlier, and add the shipping price and an estimate of how long it will take to arrive. Set the price you want the bid to start off at, set it to “buy now” and put the price you want for it, or do both. Then, put a time on the listing for when the billing will end. Step 6: Ending and getting paid – Once the bid ends, wait up to two days for someone to pay. Sometimes people need to get the money, or are just busy with whatever they are doing to pay right at that second. MAKE SURE YOU DO NOT SHIP BEFORE THE PERSON PAYS! After they pay, go to your local shipper, ship the item, and ask for a tracking number to give to the buyer. The tracking number is so the buyer can track where the package is and is just a nice thing to do when selling. Step 7: The buyer has received shipping confirmation– After the package has been sent, they will, if they don’t forget, leave feedback on your eBay account. Depending on how accurate your information was, you should receive five stars on all categories, get a positive plus, and get a comment about how well you did. To be nice, leave them feedback on how quickly they paid too. Step 8: Repeat. Soon enough, your life will be wealthier and cleaner. !"#$%&'()$*+,

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The dark side of high tech I found out by reading the article was that Apple’s products are often not assembled by Apple at all. Foxconn Technologies was supplying not just Apple, but many of the world’s biggest names in tech. Toshiba, Dell, Nintendo, Hewlett-Packard, I.B.M., Intel, Lenovo, Motorola, Nokia, Sony, these are just some of the names on Foxconn’s client list. Apple isn’t the only one benefitting from out of house assembly lines, many companies jump at the prospect of outsourcing their code of conduct. Looking further into what goes into cell phone production I found out that it goes much deeper. In each device are countless capacitors, which store an electric charge. Each capacitor contains a material called columbite-tantalite, or coltan. While coltan is mined legitimately in many countries around the world, the demand for the material has driven the marketplace into lesser-established countries like the Democratic Republic of the Congo, or DRC. The civil war that has been going on in the DRC has been criticized by news sources like CNN and the Christian Science Monitor for both its toll on the civilian population, and the use of diamonds to fund it. In 2001 BBC Africa reported that coltan could be helping to fund the conflict there, and more recently, with the advent of tablets and smart phones, the trade has skyrocketed. The DRC, as reported by friendsofthecongo. org, holds 64 percent of the worlds known coltan supply and its refined capacitors have been traced to companies such as Nokia, Motorola, and Sony Ericsson. With pressure from groups like SACOM some companies have started making improvements, but there are still reports of employee mistreatment. According to SACOM’s website, http://sacom.hk/, there are still frequent reports of exposure to hazardous working conditions. With the growing demand for high-tech gadgets in today’s world it may be hard to imagine things getting better for the workers who make them possible, but hopefully awareness can lead to improvement in the industry. !"#$%%&"#'(%"()**+ !"#$%&'()!"#$%&'!()*( !"

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ince the birth of the Smartphone, Techies have been dazzled with devices that can handle text messages, voice calls, send multimedia emails, and connect to the Internet via Wi-Fi. With every new version, a consumer frenzy is created and users flock to be the first one on their block to get it. However, these devices hold a dirty secret. While all those people stand in line waiting to get their hands on it, nobody thinks about how an item of such vast popularity is mass produced. The question of whether or not I was buying a Smartphone “ethically� never occurred to me until I read the Jan. 25 New York Times article by Charles Duhigg and David Barboza entitled “In China, Human Costs Are Built Into an iPad.� The article told of substandard conditions for workers putting together Apple products in China. According to the article workers routinely worked six days a week and often worked 12 or more hours in a row. At work, employees are exposed to harsh chemicals like the ones that injured 137 workers in 2010; explosions are also a danger, like the ones that collectively killed four and injured 77 in 2011. During peak production periods workers may be forced to work two shifts back-to-back or work extra days. Their living conditions are poor, crammed in dorms supplied by their employer, in some cases with 20 people to a three-bedroom apartment. According to Bill Weir of Nightline, after a stint of suicides in 2010, Apple’s then COO, Tim Cook, went to visit the factories. The team of experts he put together suggested installing suicide nets on the outside of the buildings among other things, but according to the group Students & Scholars Against Corporate Misbehaviour (SACOM), conditions inside would remain largely unchanged. I was shocked at all of this because I thought that like many other companies in the electronics industry, Apple had posted a code of conduct that promised to consumers that its products are assembled ethically and its workers are treated fairly. What

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WHY WE HATE WOMEN

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How media has raised a violently misogynistic and sexist culture

Various advertisements with themes of violence against women and Rihanna’s face after being beaten by Chris Brown.

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t is a tale as old as time: girl meets boy. Boy turns out to be a violent psychopathic beast, but she loves him anyway. In the end, the purity of her love transforms the beast into the prince charming that he really is. It makes for a great fairy tale but in real life the girl usually ends up getting hurt pretty bad. Or killed. Domestic violence is probably not the first thing that comes to mind when watching the Disney classic, Beauty and the Beast. It is also not the first thing that is thought of when listening to music or when driving by a billboard or flipping through a magazine ad. The truth is, not many people think about the subliminal messages that we subconsciously consume through the various forms of media that are encountered everyday. Mindless consumption of this media is harmful for everyone, but it is especially harmful to women. In spite of the women’s movement, our society is not as egalitarian as believed. Women are still objectified, sexualized and subordinated in media, especially in advertising. Oftentimes, blatant violence against women is even glamorized in the imagery. Never one to shy away from controversy, PETA recently came under fire for their “Boyfriend Went Vegan” ad campaign that launched in February 2012. The campaign aims to promote veganism and how a vegan diet reduces impotence in men. It features a commercial that satirizes domestic violence, opening with a shot of a girl in a neck brace with a black eye. Actor Kevin Nealon narrates her story, saying that she suffers from “BWVAKTBOOM” a fictional condition called “Boyfriend Went Vegan And Knocked The Bottom Out Of Me.” The thirty second spot concludes by revealing that after her boyfriend went vegan, he can “suddenly bring it like a tantric porn star” and their sex is so wild that she gets hurt in the process. On the campaign website, videos of other people who have suffered from BWVAKTBOOM are featured, all of which play on the theme of domestic violence that was depicted in the original ad. A quick look at ad campaigns for each season of major fashion houses such as Dolce and Gabbana and Calvin Klein will bring to mind glamorous shots of men surrounding a single female model, reminiscent of orgies and gang rape. Most of the world does not even bat an eye; instead, they wonder, how much are those shoes? Women have always been sexualized and objectified in advertising, but the sex is more blatant than ever and has also made its way into music and television. “Sexuality in general is more overt now,” said psychology of women professor, Rose Preciado, 61. Preciado grew up during both the civil rights movement and women’s movement and has personally seen how our society has changed. “When I look back even as a kid in the 50s and in the 60s the media was not as sexually explicit as it is now. I almost want to say it was kind of naïve; it was benign sexism often. It’s not what you see now—the trivialization, the Victoria’s Secret type ads. Now it’s commonplace to see scantily clad women. One doesn’t even think twice about that,” she said. Advertising itself does not cause violence against women, but it also does not help to prevent it. Rather, the constant

bombardment of this imagery is making many of us indifferent to violence because it is now a normal occurrence in our day-to-day lives. One of the most prominent studies on the effects of advertising on women is the work of Dr. Jean Kilbourne. Her work that started in the 1960s is considered groundbreaking and even her earliest findings are still relevant today. Preciado said that Kilbourne, who is known for her “Killing Us Softly” documentary series, “really educated a lot of individuals to what the media does to women in terms of holding this figure up of how we are supposed to look, how we are supposed to walk, talk, etc, so much so that the feminist mantra has always been that women have always been oppressed suppressed depressed and have never been allowed to express themselves as individuals.” In her latest film from the series (which was completed in 2010), Kilbourne reported that the average American is exposed to over 3,000 ads a day and will spend an average of two years of their lifetime to advertising. She stressed in all her films that, “Ads sell a great deal more than products. They sell values, images, and concepts of success and worth, love and sexuality, popularity and normalcy. They tell us who we are and who we should be.” And right now, ads are telling women that they are not good enough, that they are imperfect and incomplete in some way. The ultimate goal of advertising is to sell a product, and no one is going to buy anything if they feel fulfilled. The advertising business thrives on low self-esteem and is a $250 billion a year industry. Kilbourne’s films also provide a look at how advertising’s image of women has evolved in the last forty years, and she has noticed some major trends. For instance, the image of ideal beauty is a tall thin White woman, which can be seen as racist and a far cry from reality. “What concerns me a lot is that young women, the young women in my classes in their late teens and early twenties, still buy into that,” Preciado said. “Even if they are women of color it’s still a matter of having to wear the same kind of clothes, even though our body types are very different; to look the same even though again we don’t. I often will talk about the proliferation of cosmetic surgery for Asian women and other women of color. That’s the stuff that really concerns me, that we continue to mutilate our bodies in order to fit this ideal.” Kilbourne also noted that women are submissive and vulnerable whereas men are depicted as macho and hypermasculine. And women are still objectified and sexualized. In the forty years that she has been raising awareness on this issue, Kilbourne said in her latest film that things have gotten worse. With our technology we are now able to manipulate images so that women are now the objects. “It’s a familiar theme, the idea of women being sexual objects,” Preciado said. “If you treat them as anything other than, that means you have to extend equal rights, you have to extend respect, you have to extend a different way of seeing women. That no longer sells. That no longer is going to enable the media to make a profit if you just see women as people.” Kilbourne warns that this is dangerous because objectifying and dehumanizing women makes it easier to commit acts of

violence against them. Another disturbing factor is the sexualization of violence. “I teach human sexuality and there is one thing in particular that I am aware of that is very disturbing,” said Dr. Gene Ano, professor of psychology of sexuality. “A lot of the current vernacular descriptions of outlandish sex acts today, all of them by far always involve violence against women.” Ano said that he does a discussion in his class about them and that he finds it disturbing when some of his students laugh about these outlandish sex acts. “It’s just very disturbing that they even exist,” Ano said. “And then you kind of think, ‘do people actually do this?’ I’m sure somewhere in the world they do, they didn’t pull it out of nowhere, you know?” The combination of sex and violence is a dangerous one and the formula is evident in all media. In the 1999 documentary “Tough Guise”, Dr. Jackson Katz explained that one of the most common places where sexualized violence is blatant is the slasher film. “You often have scenes for example of girls undressing or taking a shower or wearing sexy low cut dresses, sometimes removing clothing at opportune moments or being positioned in sexually provocative camera angles deliberately designed to arouse straight boys,” Katz said in the film. “And then at the moment the boys are aroused is when the girl is assaulted. So what’s happening is boys are being sexually charged and turned on when the murder takes place.” Ano agreed. “I think it’s absolutely true. What that is sort of tapping into is a psychological phenomenon known as classical conditioning and so what happens is when you are pairing a naturally occurring stimulus that would naturally produce arousal with something that typically might not, that thing that typically might not originally produce arousal will start taking on the power of the other thing. So now violence itself is becoming arousing.” Even when violence is not sexualized, it is glorified in such a way that even some women are enjoying the violence. “I think the industry glamorizes violence in general,” said Cynthia, an actress and activist who does not want to disclose her last name. “If you look at the movies that are playing and what they’re about, they’re all about war and fighting and violence. From serial killers all the way to aliens coming and trying to destroy us so we have to fight.” She explained that in these kinds of films, the enemy forces are always dehumanized or demonized, thereby justifying the violence against them. “We’re not really killing other people, we’re killing aliens from outer space. So then it makes sense and it’s actually beautiful to go to an extreme, beautiful to see how strong and brave people and Americans in general can be in the face of such adversity.” Cynthia said that children can pick up on that glorification and will want to aspire to that hero complex, and in turn it breeds a culture of violence. She admitted that she herself has enjoyed watching some of the violence in movies. “When you can make violence feel good like that, that’s

glamorizing violence I think,” Cynthia said. After the sexual revolution sexual imagery became more apparent and socially acceptable in our society. It is everywhere in modern society and it has grown increasingly pornographic. Pornography is already constantly criticized for its demeaning views of women, and the sex depicted is becoming increasingly violent. Dr. Thomas Keith’s documentary, “The Bro Code: How Contemporary Culture Creates Sexist Men”, cites that pornography is essentially the sexual education for most American boys, and the average age that they are exposed to porn is between 12 and 13 years old. The porn industry is very lucrative and mainstream media has taken note. Hollywood no longer has to rely on a wellmade film to draw in box office revenue. If they have the right amount of sex appeal and violence, they are sure to bring in the big bucks. The music industry has also taken a turn for the worst in this violent and sexual downward spiral. “It just boggles me. It’s unthinkable what is actually said and then sold as music and is purchased and makes these individuals multimillionaires,” said Preciado. Women in music embody the sexualization that has entered every other facet of media. Sex appeal is a requirement of being a successful pop star. Look at the careers of some of the biggest female music artists—Gaga, Beyoncé, Rihanna, Britney, Christina— their hypersexualized image and appeal is a major component of their public persona. According to the 2008 documentary, “Generation M: Misogyny in Media and Culture”, the strong sexual energy of female pop stars is viewed as empowerment, and this is the message that is marketed to the young girls who look to these pop stars as role models. The film acknowledges that while sexuality is indeed empowering, it is just one facet of what makes a woman. This sends the message that the only way for women to have any kind of power is to use their sexuality and looks, thereby reinforcing the advertising industry’s message that women need to fix themselves or they will be undesirable. And yet, in reality, hypersexual women are pegged with terms like ‘slut’ and ‘whore’ for expressing their sexuality. What gives? There is also a rampant problem of misogyny in the music industry, and it has been a subject of debate for well over two decades. In the 90s and 2000s gangsta rap came under fire for it’s violent and misogynistic lyrics and it’s near pornographic music videos. Rapper Eminem has been criticized heavily for his views on women and violence against women is a major theme in his music and music videos. He is also in a unique position because as a white rapper, he never makes racial epithets about people of color in his music and has never used the n word unlike Black hip-hop artists. In “Generation M”, Dr. Thomas Keith pointed out that our society does not have the same repercussions for verbally bashing women as there are for making comments about people of color. He posed the question that if Eminem is conscious enough to not make racist comments, why does he feel that it is okay to spew demeaning and violent words towards women? Worse yet, Eminem is marketed as a “sexual icon” to women and young boys aspire to be like him. Ano said that he thinks that society has gotten better about

policing misogyny and violence against women. “Whenever I see violence depicted against women in the media I also see it as not tolerated,” he said. “With the whole Chris Brown and Rihanna thing, Chris Brown’s reputation was tremendously affected by that in a negative way. Everybody made fun of him, a lot of people have risen to the occasion to say ‘hey this isn’t appropriate.’” However, Ano said that he does not follow pop culture closely, and while it is true that Chris Brown’s career was affected by his actions, there were a few women who defended him. Twitter exploded with tweets criticizing Rihanna for pressing charges against Brown after he violently beat her back in 2009. “I’d let Chris Brown beat me up anytime” one woman tweeted, and followed it with the hashtag “#womanbeater” Another girl tweeted, “Not gonna lie..I think I’d let Chris Brown beat me,” and followed it with the hashtags “#sosexy #lovehim #awkwardtweet #dontevencare” “It’s constant, constant bombardment that this is what you should look like, this is how you should be treated; it’s okay to treat you like that,” said Preciado. And the reality of a violent relationship is not something to be callous about. For Lily*, 20, an English student, violence began in her broken home at the hands of her father. Then she met her now exboyfriend Adam* and started dating him the summer before high school, eventually moving in with him when they were 16. A year into their relationship, Adam revealed his dark side. “It started out with a controlling abuse. He wouldn’t let me wear certain things; he wouldn’t let me see certain people and that escalated,” she said. “I wasn’t allowed to leave the house. He threw away most of my clothes and then he started emotionally abusing me. He would call me things like cunt and slut and all kinds of terrible things.” Lily said that Adam was spoiled and doted on by his parents, and he was used to having his way and did not like to be told no. Guys like Adam are also vulnerable to the effects of media. Kilbourne and Keith explain that American media reinforces the patriarchal tradition of hypermasculinity and machismo. Qualities attributed to this definition of masculinity are aggression and control and this is what Adam exhibited. Eventually, Adam’s aggression manifested into physical violence. He kept Lily isolated, so much so that she had no access to a car or cell phone, and had no communication with her friends. In an attempt to communicate with her friends, she created a Facebook profile. When Adam discovered her profile he snapped. “He came in the room, started yelling, grabbed me by my hair, dragged me out, put me in front of the computer and started saying that I needed to log in so he could read everything,” she said. Lily complied. He read everything, then grabbed her by the neck and threw her on the floor and pinned her. She struggled and he hit her in the face. He kept holding her down until she stopped struggling. “That was one of the bad ones. There were a couple of other ones.” Lily said there were times that she knew she should have broken up with him, but she could never bring herself to do it.

They stayed together for four and a half years . “I would look around and I would see that so many people go through this and they don’t have a problem with it.” Ironically, Lily found comfort in Eminem’s song, “Love The Way You Lie”, which Rihanna is featured on. “I would just put it on after I got hit, sit in my room, listen to it for a little while and think ‘she sounds like she’s still in love. It’s crazy and it’s passionate and it’s dangerous but it’s love.” Knowing what she knows now, she knows that what she had with Adam was not love. “I used to convince myself that I couldn’t leave him because he loved me, and that if I were to find someone else that would love me they would treat me the same way. But he didn’t love me. He was obsessed with me. He was obsessed with control, he was obsessed with having me, but I don’t think he ever really loved me. Because I don’t think you could do that to someone that you love.” Adam was never disciplined for his actions, even by his parents. They would tell Lily that she should break up with Adam, but would never take it upon themselves to help her. Cynthia also experienced this when her relationship with her former boyfriend became violent. “My own father knew that I was in an abusive relationship and we just didn’t talk about it.” She is now creating a theater piece on domestic violence to raise more awareness on the topic. In much the same way that women are ostracized for not conforming to the feminine ideal, men’s masculinity are policed when they do not exhibit aggressive and dominant attitudes. Dr. Keith explained in “The Bro Code” that misogyny is so ingrained in our culture that one of the most common ways to insult a man is to feminize him in some way. Kilbourne’s research also supports Keith’s assessment and adds that this illustrates just how much our culture has contempt for all things feminine. And the problem has only gotten worse although more people are aware. Preciado instructs her students do a media analysis in her class to develop their media literacy. They are asked to look at advertising and recognize the underlying messages in them. However, she said that only 20 to 25 percent of the population has a college degree of some sort, which means that a majority of our country is not exposed to this understanding of media literacy and is not engaged in critical thinking. “They don’t get that. So that is the public out there that continues the traditional pink and blue, the traditional ‘men are aggressive, women are subservient; men are leaders, women are followers’,” Preciado said. “We are just constantly bombarded with media messages that definitely are influencing our values,” Ano said. “And so what I do is really just talk about the importance of understanding where you develop your beliefs from whether its conscious or subconscious and really getting people to stop and think about the impact of media on their lives.” !"#$%&'() *Names have been changed to protect the identities of individuals.

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Debunking misconceptions about lesbians

esbian stereotypes can be seen in movies, on television shows, and in real life. From the “power lesbians” in Sex and the City to the “Women and Women First” in Portlandia, to Rosie O’Donnell’s portrayal of the lesbian mother of Jack McFarland’s son in Will and Grace, lesbians are most often portrayed in the media as dykes, lipstick lesbians, athletes, PE teachers, and femmes. These portrayals of lesbians have been so ingrained in our culture that it is hard to recognize these stereotypes as misconceptions. The most common portrayal of lesbians are two categories: “Lipstick” and “Butch.” It is what you see most in Hollywood movies with the one “lesbian role.” The girl who is cast is usually portrayed as excessively masculine, or extremely feminine. It is also what is heard most when a girl identifies herself as gay. “Any time I ever mentioned that I had a girlfriend to someone new, I always got that first question: ‘Are you the girl or the guy?’”

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said Jenny Thompson, a 19-year-old undecided major. She said that it is a ridiculous assumption to assume that there has to be a “girl” and a “guy” in every relationship. “Isn’t that kinda the point of being a lesbian, that there isn’t a guy?” Thompson said. Lauren Montgomery, a 21-year-old child development major, agreed that categorizing lesbians is wrong. “These stereotypes are only true for some people. I don’t feel that I belong in either category because most people can tell that I’m a lesbian, but I don’t look girly and I definitely don’t look masculine,” Montgomery said. Kristina Gonzalez, 22, and her girlfriend Vivian Lopez, 21, appear to be a stereotypical femme and butch couple. “They never think she’s a girl, they always think she’s a guy and when we go out a lot of people stare,” Gonzalez said of her girlfriend. In spite of their appearance, neither one conforms to the butch femme dichotomy. “It’s funny because she looks like she’s this tough butch, this

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tough dyke—that’s what people call her—but actually she’s a softie. She doesn’t like scary movies, she’s scared of them, and I’m the tough one. I think it’s funny because I’m the femme, I’m the girly one,” Gonzalez said. Josh Dawson, a 23-year-old education major, questioned the idea that women can be in a relationship because they are too “emotional.” “You’ve got to have a male lead in a relationship, to make all the logical moves, you know. Two girls together? Seems like it would be a nightmare to me,” Dawson said. Montgomery said it is quite the opposite. “Being a woman, I know that I’ve sometimes taken things to heart or overthought things. And yes, most women are emotional,” she said. Montgomery said that women in relationships understand each other better. “This doesn’t mean that two women can’t work it out together and actually, we understand each other better than men get us, so sometimes it actually helps,” she said. Another misconception is that girls are just experimenting or do not really know what they want; that it is a phase. Thompson said that after coming out to her parents, they did not believe she was gay. “They didn’t even seem bothered by it, which I was excited about, until I realized it was because they didn’t believe me,” she said. She said her parents did not give merit to her sexual orientation, which was very hurtful. “It takes a lot to come out, so to have someone just write it off as another teen experiment, especially someone you care about, hurts,” she said. Montgomery agreed. “Being gay is not a phase, and it’s something that annoys me when I hear it,” Montgomery said. “For most people in general, sexual orientation is fixed.” There is also a presumption among some men that lesbians can be converted to straight. Montgomery said she finds this offensive. “These statements annoy the fuck out of me. It’s like a lot of guys that tell me this see me as a challenge, like something they can eventually attain. I’m a woman, not a piece of meat,” she said. “I don’t care what my sexual orientation is, if I tell you that I’m not attracted to you, it means I’m not attracted to you.” She added, “When a straight guy tells me I should try to have sex with a guy, I tell him I will do it if he does. That usually throws them off and they tell me it’s not the same but I say it is.” Even worse is the portrayal of lesbians in porn films. Most adult films feature two straight or bisexual women with long nails, hair extensions and stiletto heels performing what most lesbians might call ridiculous acts. Women are seen sucking on strap on dildos, having “scissor sex,” with their heads on opposite ends of each other, and jamming fingers with acrylic fingernails inside of each other. Gonzalez said that she doesn’t like how porn continues to create misconceptions about lesbians, and how it trivializes lesbian sex. “What upsets me about lesbian porn is that guys think that girl on girl action is really sexy and they think that it’s a turn on,” Gonzalez said. “But why is that when you see gay porn it’s a turn off for them? A girl knows what a girl wants and it makes me upset that men think that we’re just objects.” Montgomery added that some people think lesbian sex is

not real sex. “A lot of people say, ‘You’ve never had a penis inside you so you’re a virgin,’ or ‘You don’t use toys or dildos so how is that sex?’” Montgomery has her own definition of sex between two women. “I think when it comes to women, sex is physical and emotional. If they don’t feel the intimacy, it’s not really sex,” she said. An article that appeared in a September 2011 issue of Maxim magazine titled “The Super Hot Secrets of Lesbians,” reported that most men have the wrong idea when it comes to how lesbians have sex. “Jane,” a 28-year-old photographer interviewed in the article, said that the biggest misconception about lesbians is that they scissor each other, heads at opposite ends, vaginas squishing each other. She said that what really happens is they “dry hump,” which according to her is a fundamental of lesbian sex. The article also reported that lesbian sex is all about the foreplay and very little about toys. A 30-yearold marketing major interviewed in the article said, “all lesbians own a vibrator” and added that most lesbians “break out the toys when they want to spice it up.” Brian Sanchez, a 26-year-old pre-law student, said that one thing comes to mind when he thinks about lesbian sex. “Really pretty disheveled women on pink sheets laying on the bed horizontal scissoring,” he said. While Sanchez said he has never witnessed two women having sex in real life, the idea has crossed his mind. “Me and my friends have had a meeting of the minds of how we are going to get both our pretty girlfriends together, just for the visual,” Sanchez said. Sanchez added that two women having sex is “hot.” The article also reported that straight men should not assume that lesbians want to have sex with their girlfriend, even if it is their own personal fantasy. Sanchez recalled an incident when a very “dikey” lesbian tried to pick up on his girlfriend. “I felt uncomfortable, like it was another guy trying to scoop her,” Sanchez said. However, he added that had the girl been extremely hot, he would have “been so down with it.” Montgomery agreed that this perception is the norm. “I do believe that when people talk about how hot lesbians are, they usually only refer to femme on femme couples. But when they get grossed out or say bad things, they usually only refer to butch lesbians.” Suzy Valenzuela, a 21-year-old English major, said she has tried to convince her boyfriend to let her bring a girl home. “He feels threatened. He thinks that I’ll like her more,” Valenzuela said. Some women who are in lesbian relationships, do not identify themselves as lesbians. Valenzuela said she does not like to label herself. “I like who I like, it doesn’t matter if they have a dick or not,” Valenzuela said. Montgomery added that lesbians are no different than any other sexual orientation. “Not all gays and lesbians are the same, just like not all straight people are the same. Another thing is that there is way more to a lesbian (or anyone else, for that matter) than just what kind of sex she’s having or what she looks like on the outside.” —!"!#$%&#$$#''#

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