Saturday, December 30, 2006

Yikes, I'm glad I'm not a pre-adolescent

Part of the pathos here should simply be chalked up to this being Long Island, but sheesh:

They writhe and strut, shake their bottoms, splay their legs, thrust their chests out and in and out again. Some straddle empty chairs, like lap dancers without laps. They don’t smile much. Their faces are locked from grim exertion, from all that leaping up and lying down without poles to hold onto. “Don’t stop don’t stop,” sings Janet Jackson, all whispery. “Jerk it like you’re making it choke. ...Ohh. I’m so stimulated. Feel so X-rated.” The girls spend a lot of time lying on the floor. They are in the sixth, seventh and eighth grades.

As each routine ends, parents and siblings cheer, whistle and applaud. I just sit there, not fully comprehending. It’s my first suburban Long Island middle school talent show.


There is something wrong with our culture and its nonexistent standards when relatives are cheering at this like fools. Kind of makes you wonder whether adolescence was worth defining as a stage of life and whether the sexual revolution has been taken to its most absurd end.

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