Last week, a NYTimes article by Kate Taylor entitled “Sex on Campus: She Can Play that Game Too” made its rounds throughout the Internet, and especially the University of Pennsylvania community, the backdrop setting for Taylor’s article.
I think both of these articles are necessary and important: necessary for dialogue, necessary for gaining perspective, and important in ushering change to create safer spaces for everyone both at Penn and nationwide.
Having read Jalabi’s piece, grateful for her publicly speaking up and out, I’ve decided to share a statement I wrote last week in response to Taylor’s initial article:
I found Kate Taylor’s article to be everything from triggering, disturbing, lacking sexual diversity, and deeply heterosexist, to necessary and important. I kept thinking about my own experience as an undergraduate at Penn, a four-year period I cherish, during which I built incredible and lasting friendships, learned from awe-inspiring mentors and educators, and solidified my personal and professional passions and dreams.
Yet, my time at Penn was also coated by both traumatizing and empowering sexual journeys. After my first month at Penn, I was date raped on my dorm room floor by a male stranger while I was drunk (a non-Penn student in town visiting a friend on campus); days before graduation, after a year and a half of chosen celibacy to heal from the aforementioned and other traumas, I had a positive and consensual one-night stand with a male Penn student, transitioning me into a sexual narrative that has since remained positive, consensual, and empowering.
Amongst the host of reasons I chose to attend Penn was their Classical Studies department and The Kelly Writer’s House. Others went for Wharton Business School, Penn’s Nursing School, to play basketball, to join an acclaimed performing arts group, or myriad other academic and extracurricular activities, taught and overseen by top notch educators offering world-renowned facilities.
Penn has spent billions of dollars on academic, research, financial aid, scholarship, scholarly, and creative endeavors. I hope that the Penn community - current students, faculty, staff, administrators, alumnae, and alumni - take this article as an opportunity to approach sexual experiences on campus, sexual identity on campus, sexual orientation on campus, heterosexism on campus, sexism on campus, sexual violence on campus, drinking on campus, drugs on campus, and student life on campus with the same care, funding, and seriousness that are given to matters of the mind.
Penn students, faculty, staff, alumnae, and alumni seek to be leaders in world thought, innovation, and change.
So let us.
Let this be an opportunity to embrace dialogue. To wear Kate Taylor’s article vulnerably on our sleeves. To pioneer a revolution awakening from the silence on these matters and the endless oppressions that jeopardize students’ safety and well-being. To ensure the next time someone writes a feature article in the New York Times about female student sexuality on Penn’s campus it lets go of anonymity and includes LGBTQ, male, and other gendered voices, and welcomes perspective from other campus spaces left entirely overlooked.
May we cease to shame others.
May we cease to harbor shame upon and within ourselves.
May we cease to feel threatened by sharing our stories.
May we ignite a dialogue through and with compassion and empathy.
May our bodies receive the same dignity we demand of and for our minds.
Here are some snaps from LA Science Weekend; an event by the New York Times & Atlas Obscura Society.
I was honored to be doing a workshop alongside the Moore Lab of Zoology about taxidermy for research and display. The guests were so fun and had so many great questions!
Also, I love working with the crew from the Moore Lab because it gives me the opportunity to ask my many bird questions to actual scientists. Getting an accurate piece of taxidermy is all about capturing natural behaviors and taxonomy.
Our Hummingbird cases from the Huntington exhibit even got to come out for an evening at the Line Hotel.
Did I mention we got to go to a Dino soirée at my alma mater, the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles?
In 1888 the worst winter storm in the city’s history hit New York City, dumping 22 inches of snow on the Five Boroughs. Over 400 people died and many buildings burnt down from fires. Most notably, the East River froze and New Yorkers were able to walk across the frozen river between Brooklyn and Manhattan.
DID YOU KNOW Herald Square and Times Square are named after the Herald and Times newspapers that located their headquarters there at the turn of the century. The New York Herald newspaper was the first to move in the 1890s, previously the newspapers such as the World, Times, Tribune and Herald occupied a block of today’s Park Row across from City Hall known as Newspaper Row. When the Herald moved to 34th Street, they chose architect Stanford White to design their new headquarters at the intersection of Broadway and Sixth Avenue. The New York Times followed, moving north to the intersection of Broadway and Seventh Avenue to an area known as Longacre Square. When the New York Times Tower opened in 1904 the city renamed the area Times Square.
First illustration assignment of the year with @nytimes ! It was fun to draw all @thebeatles memorabilia as a fan, even though the article is about breaking up with the Beatles. Thanks @jordan_awan !
Send in your resume STAT, The New York Times is looking for an editor to cover gender issues.
Learn
I’ve spent all of my adult life in painting, dance and rehearsal studios. Acquiring online acumen is an ongoing process for me. I really enjoy learning from Paul Jarvis .Super great to find “one of your people” in this realm. Check out his online classes for creatives, freelancers and online businesses - swell podcasts, too. Thanks Paul!
Archtober presents it’s sixth annal month-long festival of architecture and design. Get in on special tours, lectures, films and exhibitions that focus on the importance of architecture and design in everyday life.
Experience
Just learned of Robert Montgomery’s work. This one feels right, right now.
(*his light poem seen up top)
I shot this at Tony Oursler's Imponderalbe at MOMA. His archive of ephemera relating to stage magic, spirit photography, pseudoscience, telekinesis, and other manifestations of the paranormal was truly fascinating. These are Houdini’s handcuffs. His wife would pass him the key with a kiss before he hit the water. (Kate Bush fans - can you hear that song?)
This post originally appeared on my newsletter - to get in on the goodness, hop on here.
John Carlos won bronze in the 200m dash in the 1968 Olympics and, along with with Tommie Smith, protested against racism with a raised fist during the medal ceremony. That iconic protest moment happened this week 49 years ago. The quote is from his 2011 memoir.
