Mass Effect 3, the latest installment of the M-rated Mass Effect video game franchise, has a new feature, which has many video gamers up in arms. What’s the new feature? Players, who play as a male, can have a same-sex relationship with another male. (Same-sex relationships were already allowed when you played as the female Commander Shepard.) While the new feature is included in the game, it is only an option. It isn’t mandatory. Players get to choose their character’s sexual orientation. If you don’t want your character to be gay in the game, then you don’t have to play the game that way.
I love that this new feature integrates lesbian and gay characters into the gaming culture. The creators of Mass Effect 3 are now acknowledging that heterosexual relationships aren’t the only ones that exist. However, comments made by some gamers on the YouTube page of a clip that was leaked before the game’s release are filled with outrage and blatant homophobia. The uproar shows just how unaccepting some people in the gaming community can be. Others, though, think it’s great and they love the idea of a gay character in a video game. I agree with them and think it’s awesome. After all, heterosexual people aren’t the only people who play video games.
The new season of MTV’s 16 and Pregnant kicked off on Tuesday, April 3rd, highlighting the lives of 12 new girls with 12 different stories. One of the first episodes features Briana, a college-bound, high school graduate and teen mom-to-be.
Briana, 18, lives in Florida with her mom and sister. She was afraid of her mom’s reaction when she dropped the news that she was pregnant, and it didn’t help that Briana’s older sister Brittany got pregnant around the same time. Although they were both pregnant, Briana and Brittany made different choices.
Brittany, who had broken up with her boyfriend, decided it was best to have an abortion. She didn’t want to worry about the possibility of raising a child by herself. Later on in the episode, she admits to sometimes wanting to go back and change her mind.
When Briana made her decision to become a teen parent, she was still with her boyfriend Devon. One month and a breakup later, Briana wonders if she made the right choice when she decided to become a parent and tells her sister that she regrets not having an abortion.
This episode of 16 and Pregnant definitely highlighted for me that there are options for girls if they become pregnant. But, it is also easy to see from what Briana and Brittany experience how difficult it may be to make that decision. Abortion is the right choice for some girls, while parenting or adoption is the right choice for others.
In the end, it’s up to the girl whether or not she decides to carry a pregnancy to term or be a teen mom. But, whatever her choice may be, she needs support from loved ones. In Briana’s case, it was clear that both she and Brittany got that from their mom and each other.
Did you know that there’s slavery still going on today? There’s human trafficking going on around the world, including in the U.S. This modern day slavery happens when people control others and use them to profit from their services—usually sexual.
Sex trafficking is when a person is forced into the commercial sex trade, which includes child prostitution and child pornography. Labor trafficking happens in different industries from farming to factories, from nail salons and restaurants to even people’s homes. People who are citizens, in the U.S. without a visa or undocumented workers are all used in labor and sex trafficking. Human trafficking enslaves between 12 and 27 million people across the world.
MTV’s Against Our Will campaign encourages everyone to take action in some way. Some suggestions are spreading the word about human trafficking, becoming an advocate, educating yourself and others, volunteering, organizing, fundraising or reporting any act of human trafficking. These are all ways, big and small, to make a difference.
Few people know that human trafficking is happening, which makes it difficult to get others involved in helping to make a difference. Only seven states have “safe harbor” laws for slavery, and there is limited funding to help the victims of human trafficking. Being informed that human trafficking occurs in the U.S. and around the world really had an impact on me. I am definitely moved to take action, first by spreading the word. What will you do?
Androgynous models—who have a combination of masculine and feminine characteristics—are becoming more and more popular among world-class brand names like Givenchy. Since their gender can be so ambiguous, they can model either men or women’s clothes.
There are, however, significant differences between some of the most well-known androgynous models. For instance, Andrej Pejic is a Serbian gay male, whereas Lea T. is heterosexual and transgender. In 2011, Pejic modeled during Paris Fashion Week for Jean Paul Gauthier in women’s clothing, then for Mark Jacobs in menswear.
But what does it really mean that androgynous models are becoming more popular in fashion? Have we become a more accepting, less homophobic and transphobic society? We have become more accepting of the ambiguity androgyny invites. Fashion may be more about creating a certain aesthetic appeal than challenging stereotypes, but the success of Andrej Pejic and Lea T. shows that the general public is less afraid of blurring gender roles and identity.
Lots of women want to look like those gorgeous models in magazines, but we all know that in reality even models don’t look like the images in these publications. Photo enhancing applications, like Photoshop, are used every day in the fashion industry. Ads that claim to “Get rid of cellulite fast!” have edited out every skin imperfection that a model has and offer empty promises.
Jesse Rosten’s video Fotoshop by Adobé helps us laugh at these ridiculous advertisements rather than get caught up in how our bodies do or do not matchup to the unattainable edited images of models and celebrities. More than that, the video’s satirical tone calls beauty products out on what they’re (not) doing.
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