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ifuckinglovestvincent · 4 years ago

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THE FORTY-FIVE: ST. VINCENT

Sleazy, gritty, grimy – these are the words used to describe the latest iteration of St. Vincent, Annie Clark’s alter ego. As she teases the release of her upcoming new album, ‘Daddy’s Home’, Eve Barlow finds out who’s wearing the trousers now.

Photos: Zackery Michael

Yellow may be the colour of gold, the hue of a perfect blonde or the shade of the sun, but when it’s too garish, yellow denotes the stain of sickness and the luridness of sleaze. On ‘Pay Your Way In Pain’ – the first single from St. Vincent’s forthcoming sixth album ‘Daddy’s Home’ – Annie Clark basks in the palette of cheap 1970s yellows; a dirty, salacious yellow that even the most prudish of individuals find difficult to avert their gaze from. It’s a yellow that recalls the smell of cigarettes on fingers, the tape across tomorrow’s crime scene or the dull ache of bad penetration.

The video for the single, which dropped last Thursday, features Clark in a blonde wig and suit, channeling a John Cassavetes anti-heroine (think Gena Rowlands in Gloria) and ‘Fame’-era Bowie. She twists in front of too-bright disco lights. She roughs up her voice. She sings about the price we pay for searching for acceptance while being outcast from society. “So I went to the park just to watch the little children/ The mothers saw my heels and they said I wasn’t welcome,” she coos, and you immediately recognise the scene of a free woman threatening the post-nuclear families aspiring to innocence. Clark is here to pervert them.

She laughs. “That’s how I feel!” From her studio in Los Angeles, she begins quoting lyrics from Jimi Hendrix’s ‘Red House’. “It’s a blues song for 2021.” LA is a city Clark reluctantly only half calls home, and one that is opposed to her vastly preferred New York. “I don’t feel any romantic attachment to Los Angeles,” she says of the place she coined the song ‘Los Ageless’ about on 2017’s ‘Masseduction’ (“The Los Ageless hang out by the bar/ Burn the pages of unwritten memoirs”).“The best that could be said of LA is, ‘Yeah it’s nice.’ And it is! LA is easy and pleasant. But if you were a person the last thing you’d want someone to say about you is: ‘She’s nice!’”

On ‘Daddy’s Home’, Clark writes about a past derelict New York; a place Los Angeles would suffocate in. “The idea of New York, the art that came out of it, and my living there,” she says. “I’ve not given up my card. I don’t feel in any way ready to renounce my New York citizenship. I bought an apartment so I didn’t have to.” Her down-and-out New York is one a true masochist would love, and it’s sleazy in excess. Sleaze is usually the thing men flaunt at a woman’s expense. In 2021, the proverbial Daddy in the title is Clark. But there’s also a literal Daddy. He came home in the winter of 2019.

On the title track, Clark sings about “inmate 502”: her father. He was sentenced to 12 years in prison for his involvement in a $43m stock fraud scheme. He went away in May 2010. Clark reacted by writing her third breakthrough album ‘Strange Mercy’ in 2011; inspired not just by her father’s imprisonment but the effects it had on her life.“I mean it was rough stuff,” she says. “It was a fuck show. Absolutely terrible. Gut-wrenching. Like so many times in life, music saved me from all kinds of personal peril. I was angry. I was devastated. There’s a sort of dullness to incarceration where you don’t have any control. It’s like a thud at the basement of your being. So I wrote all about it,” she says.

Back then, she was aloof about meaning. In an interview we did that year, she called from a hotel rooftop in Phoenix and was fried from analytical questions. She excused her lack of desire to talk about ‘Strange Mercy’ as a means of protecting fans who could interpret it at will. Really she was protecting an audience closer to home. It’s clear now that the title track is about her father’s imprisonment (“Our father in exile/ For God only knows how many years”). Clark’s parents divorced when she was a child, and they have eight children in their mixed family, some of whom were very young when ‘Strange Mercy’ came out. She explains this discretion now as her method of sheltering them.

“I am protective of my family,” she says. “It didn’t feel safe to me. I disliked the fact that it was taken as malicious obfuscations. No.” Clark wanted to deal with the family drama in art but not in press. She managed to remain tight-lipped until she became the subject of a different intrusion. As St. Vincent’s star continued to rocket, Clark found herself in a relationship with British model Cara Delevingne from 2014 to 2016, and attracted celebrity tabloid attention. Details of her family’s past were exposed. The Daily Mail came knocking on her sister’s door in Texas, where Clark is from.

“Luckily I’m super tight with my family and the Daily Mail didn’t find anybody who was gonna sell me out,” she says. “They were looking for it. Clark girls are a fucking impenetrable force. We will cut a bitch.”

Four years later, Clark gets to own the narrative herself in the medium that’s most apt: music. “The story has evolved. I’ve evolved. People have grown up. I would rather be the one to tell my story,” she says, ruminating on the misfortune that this was robbed from her: a story that writes itself. “My father’s release from prison is a great starting point, right?” Between tours and whenever she could manage, Clark would go and visit him in prison and would be signing autographs in the visitation room for the inmates, who all followed her success with every album release, press clipping and late night TV spot. She joked to her sisters that she’d become the belle of the ball there. “I don’t have to make that up,” she says.

There’s an ease to Clark’s interview manner that hasn’t existed before. She seems ready not just to discuss her father’s story, but to own certain elements of herself. “Hell where can you run when the outlaw’s inside you,” she sings on the title track, alluding to her common traits with her father. “I’ve always had a relationship with my dad and a good one. We’re very similar,” she says. “The movies we like, the books, he liked fashion. He’s really funny, he’s a good time.” Her father’s release gave Clark and her brothers and sisters permission to joke. “The title, ‘Daddy’s Home’ makes me laugh. It sounds fucking pervy as hell. But it’s about a real father ten years later. I’m Daddy now!”

The question of who’s fathering who is a serious one, but it’s also not serious. Clark wears the idea of Daddy as a costume. She likes to play. She joins today’s Zoom in a pair of sunglasses wider than her face and a silk scarf framing her head. The sunglasses come off, and the scarf is a tool for distraction. She ties it above her forehead, attempts a neckerchief, eventually tosses it aside. Clark can only be earnest for so long before she seeks some mischief. She doesn’t like to stay in reality for extensive periods. “I like to create a world and then I get to live in it and be somebody new every two or three years,” she says. “Who wants to be themselves all the time?”

‘Daddy’s Home‘ began in New York at Electric Lady studios before COVID hit and was finished in her studio in LA. She worked on it with “my friend Jack” [Jack Antonoff, producer for Lana Del Rey, Lorde, Taylor Swift]. Antonoff and Clark worked on ‘Masseduction’ and found a winning formula, pushing Clark’s guitar-orientated electronic universe to its poppiest maximum, without compromising her idiosyncrasies. “We’re simpatico. He’s a dream,” she says. “He played the hell outta instruments on this record. He’s crushing it on drums, crushing it on Wurlitzer.” The pair let loose. They began with ‘The Holiday Party’, one of the warmest tracks Clark’s ever written. It’s as inviting as a winter fireplace, stoked by soulful horns, acoustic guitar and backing singers. “Every time they sang something I’d say, ‘Yeah but can you do it sleazier? Make your voice sound like you’ve been up for three days.” Clark speaks of an unspoken understanding with Antonoff as regards the vibe: “Familiar sounds. The opposite of my hands coming out of the speaker to choke you till you like it. This is not submission. Just inviting. I can tell a story in a different way.”

The entire record is familiar, giving the listener the satisfaction that they’ve heard the songs before but can’t quite place them. It’s a satisfying accompaniment to a pandemic that encouraged nostalgic listening. Clark was nostalgic too. She reverted to records she enjoyed with her father: Stevie Wonder’s catalogue from the 1970s (‘Songs In The Key Of Life’, ‘Innervisions’, ‘Talking Book’) and Steely Dan. “Not to be the dude at the record store but it’s specifically post-flower child idealism of the ’60s,” she explains. “It’s when it flipped into nihilism, which I much prefer. Pre disco, pre punk. That music is in me in a deep way. It’s in my ears.”

On ‘The Melting Of The Sun’ she has a delicious time creating a psychedelic Pink Floyd odyssey while exploring the path tread by her heroes Marilyn Monroe, Joni Mitchell, Joan Didion and Nina Simone. It’s a series of beautiful vignettes of brilliant women who were met with a hostile environment. Clark considers what they did to overcome that. “I’m thanking all these women for making it easier for me to do it. I hope I didn’t totally let them down.” Clark is often the only woman sharing a stage with rock luminaries such as Dave Grohl, Damon Albarn and David Byrne, and has appeared to have shattered a male-centric glass ceiling. She’s unsure she’s doing enough to redress the imbalance. “There are little things I can do and control,” she says of hiring women on her team. “God! Now I feel like I should do more. What should I do? It’s a big question. You know what I have seen a lot more from when I started to now? Girls playing guitar.”

If one woman reinvented the guitar in the past decade, it’s Clark. Behind her is a rack of them. The pandemic has taken her out of the wild in which she’s accustomed to tantalising audiences at night with her displays of riffing and heel-balancing. Instead, she’s chained to her desk. Her obsession with heels in the lyrics of ‘Daddy’s Home’ she reckons may be a reflection of her nights performing ‘Masseduction’ in thigh highs. “I made sure that nothing I wore was comfortable,” she recalls. “Everything was about stricture and structure and latex. I had to train all the time to make sure I could handle it.” Is she taking the heels off when live shows return? “Absofuckinglutely not.”

Clark is interested in the new generation. She’s recently tweeted about Arlo Parks and has become a big fan of Russian singer-songwriter Kate NV. “I’m obsessed with Russia,” she says. In a recent LA Times profile, she professed to a pandemic intellectual fixation on Stalin. “Yeah! I mean right now my computer is propped up on stuff. You are sitting on The Gulag Archipelago, The Best Short Stories Of Dostoyevsky andThe Plays Of Chekhov. I’m kinda in it.” The pop world interests Clark, too. She was credited with a co-write on Swift’s 2019 album ‘Lover’. At last year’s Grammys she performed a duet with Dua Lipa. It was one of the queerest performances the Grammys has ever aired. Clark interrupts.

“What about it seemed queer?!”

You know… The lip bite, for one!

“Wait. Did she bite her lip?”

No, you bit your lip.

“I did?!”

Everyone was talking about it. Come on, Annie.

“Serious? I…”

You both waltzed around each other with matching hairdos, making eyes…

“I have no memory of it.”

Frustrating as it may be in a world of too much information, Clark’s lack of willingness to overanalyse every creative decision she makes or participates in is something to treasure. “I want to be a writer who can write great songs,” she says. “I’m so glad I can play guitar and fuck around in the studio to my heart’s desire but it’s about what you can say. What’s a great song? What lyric is gonna rip your guts open. Just make great shit! That’s where I was with this record. That’s all I wanna do with my life.”

More than a decade into St. Vincent, Clark doesn’t reflect. She looks strictly forward. “I’m like a horse with blinders,” she says. She did make an exception to take stock lately when the phone rang. “I saw a +44 and that gets me excited,” she says. “Who could this be?” Well, who was it? “Paul McCartney,” she says, in disbelief. “Anything I’ve done, any mistake I’ve made, somehow it’s forgiven, assuaged. I did something right in my life if a fucking Beatle called me.”

Now there’s a get out of jail free card if ever she needed one.

Daddy’s Home by St. Vincent is out May 14, 2021.

#‘I HAVE NO MEMORY OF IT’#LOOOOOL #WHY ARE U LIKE THIS #st vincent #full of shit #annie clark #Annie Clark on beds #yellow is the color for dull ache of bad penetration?

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dropintomanga · 4 years ago

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Attack on Titan's Ending - We're Now All Free

So this was finally it, huh? A manga that debuted in 2009 which became an anime/manga phenomenon in 2013 and would later still have a significant place in manga history ended this month. Hajime Isayama's Attack on Titan was a title that I liked a lot and while there were some great moments in its final arc, the manga seemed like it tried a bit too hard to emphasize the complexity of human beings. Then again, maybe that's been the whole point of the series.

Spoilers abound after the jump.

I got to read up on the chapters that made up Volume 34. To be honest, it felt like somewhat of a mess. The whole backstory about Ymir Fritz confuses me a bit. I know that I will need to re-read the entire series to get a clearer idea. I got that the series became some kind of commentary on how people are always finding ways to divide one another via their differences.

It's just that I missed the old days, pre-basement. Attack on Titan was labeled as a horror action manga to a certain degree. I recently was reading an article about CM Punk (a former WWE wrestler who was very popular, but left the business after frustrations with management) and he talked about a horror movie he was cast in. Punk was asked about his love of horror and he said:

"I grew up on it, you know? I grew up on it because it was taboo. When things are taboo and you’re told you’re not allowed to watch it, what do you do? You watch it! You watch a lot of it. As you grow older, smarter and get some wisdom about the world, you realize that horror is the genre that tackles, before any other movie genre, the hard-hitting issues. Dating all the way back to George Romero’s Night of the Living Dead tackling racism. I love a great slasher movie, right? Jason Voorhees and some camp counselors. Just let them loose."

As many fans who follow Attack on Titan will tell you, the story takes a huge shift from the days of Titans eating humans and the mystery surrounding them to a world where humanity is actually thriving and politics are a big reason why the events of Attack on Titan are the way they are. I know some people dropped the series after that. I don't blame them because to be frank, the series loses some of its unique appeal as most fans have seen stories of the latter quite often. There were still horror elements (albeit very few), but the tension delivered later on in most scenes weren't ones that gave readers chills down their spines.

I wrote a lot about Attack on Titan. I wrote about Mikasa, Hange, Annie, Eren's stress, Levi's past, etc. But once that time-skip happened, I never felt compelled to write about Attack on Titan much. There was some good exploration about Reiner's guilt about his actions early on. But nothing was super-compelling to talk about honestly to me. I think the time-gap between the 1st and 2nd anime seasons didn't help and so many exciting series (mostly from Shonen Jump) were coming out around that time period.

I did think the ending was okay. I do believe that Isayama was trying to point out that bringing real change in society comes from talking to one another in person despite differences. This was reflected in a campfire scene before the final battle where all of the "good guys" and the "bad guys" sat together to hash it out. You don't have to like one another, but never let differences become radicalized to the point of no return. I'll admit that this isn't easy and these things never are. Plus, talk should mostly be a starting point to get rid of injustice.

What I've learned from my own experiences is that I sometimes get anxious over certain conversations with people that I may not agree with. But once they happen in a safe environment and no one's shouting, I actually learn something and so does the other person. I can't assume everyone who disagrees with me is an awful person. I will never, ever suggest social media as a way to have those kinds of conversations because some people are either too awful or just say well-intentioned things without thinking about the person's true feelings.

And about people I truly dislike, I just look at them with pity because I know they're just being brainwashed by grifters/scammers/cult-like leaders.

Having those kinds of perspectives really benefited my mental health, so I guess I can appreciate Isayama for highlighting what it means to live among people who I don't always feel comfortable around.

I also love the Ackermans (Mikasa and Levi) for being the ones to take out the end-game threats. They're a family known to be Titan-killers, but there's also some Asian blood within them. I got a funny sense of Asian pride in seeing Mikasa and Levi wreck shit and getting respect for it.

While the ending felt similar to Code Geass, I kind of understand the view point on being the world's enemy to bring the world together. It's just a bit too naive. Even after all that, people are still at conflict with another only without Titans around. Maybe that's the whole point - the fact that self-sacrifice isn't a panacea to life's complexities. Martyrdom is sometimes worshipped a bit too much and there's a good number of disenfranchised young men who fall in love with that idea.

To end this post, I think back to how Isayama came up with the idea of Attack on Titan. He said that the story came to him after seeing a frustrated customer grab him by the collar while working at an internet cafe. Isayama noted how scary the person was and it was hard to communicate with him. The whole point of Attack on Titan is not just freedom, but getting past communication barriers with other people we fear.

When it comes to freedom, a lot of people seem to have a naïve and/or child-like sense of it. I see this a lot during the COVID-19 pandemic. They think freedom is basically the right to do whatever you want and not be punished for it. However, true freedom involves doing as you please and having the ability to be responsible to yourself and other people.

I know this viewpoint irks people, but the whole ending gives off that vibe. I have to respect Isayama for that.

I think that's all I have to say about Attack on Titan. This series played a big part in helping the anime and manga industries post-2008. It also made me see the possibility of a mainstream shonen hit that wasn't from Jump. I was one of the first people to pay attention to the series before it was licensed in English. I even got praise from Kodansha folks saying that I played a huge part in bringing the series over.

So I have a lot of fun memories. One of my personal favorite memories was during NYCC 2013 where a huge gathering of Attack on Titan cosplayers at Kodansha Comics' booth and Japanese news programming was there to film it. I got to witness all of that interaction between Americans and Japanese. I left the gathering thinking that things were really on the up-and-up for anime and manga perception over in the U.S. We're now in a golden age of anime/manga and Attack on Titan deserves credit for bringing us to it.

So thanks, Hajime Isayama, for showing the world what Kodansha stories are all about - inspiring impossible stories.

#Attack on Titan #manga #ending #characters #psychology #mental health

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getting-rid-of-anniex · 3 years ago

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A very belated catch up

Flippin' eck! What a crazy few years since my last post! The post about Annie can wait a bit longer.

Annie X has been having the time of her life. Nothing apparently cheers her up more than a global pandemic, possibilities of yourself or people very close to you being incredibly ill (or even dying) if Covid was caught (before vacines etc), loss of income, working from home (and being my own IT department). Let alone home learning and not completely losing your shit and killing people you're trapped in a house with 24/7.

We're now, thankfully, out the other side. And, in the end we did come out the other side pretty unscathed. We were VERY LUCKY and I know that there are so many who weren't. Yes, there were incredibly tricky and testing moments for us as a family, but life has on the whole been able to return back to 'normal' or at least an new/altered version.

I may as well be starting this blog from scratch (although that's no hardship as I'm only two posts down anyway). ALLLLL the old hang ups/insecurities and worries and more came flying at me over this time. I dealt with the crises by drinking and eating my way through my worries. So, I am now 3 stones heavier (YIKES!), my asthma is scarily awful (and I now snore like an angry dragon), I've developed Pre-Diabetes and my grey hair has decided this is now the time to flourish. So, being heavier than I have ever been, rasping like an old hag who smokes 50 a day and with patchy greys, I feel like a monster. Annie is stronger than ever, sitting on my shoulder being the mega bitch that she is.

So, the promise I am making to myself now, is that I am going to start TRULY looking after myself. I HAVE TO start looking after myself.

I turned 40 during lock-down and it's been a much needed wake up call that life is passing by and I'm not making the most of it (or myself). I really struggled with turning 40, I felt as if I was losing a part of myself. Even basic tasks like hygiene have taken a back seat recently and that's both really scary and gross! I would sit in yesterdays clothes, fill up on crap, do no exercise, wouldn't even contemplate makeup or trying anything with my hair. Friendships have taken a back seat, I've been cancelling seeing those closest to me and dreading meet ups because all I have in my head is a dark cloud, I can't do happy chat. I'm struggling to remember things (and occasionally even speech becomes a bit mumbled and I struggle to find the words I need), and you can absolutely forget about anything happening romantically. My husband must be the most patient person on the planet. He's supported me even without knowing it.

In short, I had basically fallen in to a deep, dark hole of depression with only Annie for company, and for a while didn't know I was there. I've now woken up to the fact that I'm here, in this hole, but instead of sitting down and making a home for myself there, I am trying to figure a way out. (And trying to find a way to ditch off Annie whilst I'm at it.)

I'm still struggling with my identity currently. I think this is also down to being bigger than I want, that I feel like I've lost myself. I have no self confidence and I don't like who I see in the mirror. However, saying that, I can't continue to talk to myself in the way I have been over the past year. I caught myself calling myself a fat cow (I probably even described myself in even viler terms, but can't remember what those words were), ugly, and stupid. Annie eagerly whispered words of encouragement into my ears. Feeding me hateful lines. Why would you ever talk to yourself in such a way - why listen to Annie (she's a nasty, nasty shadow)? It's a cliche but if you wouldn't say it to your friend why would you say it to yourself?

So it's time to pull up my big girl knickers and start the heavy graft of working my way to a happier, healthier version of myself. I'm not planning on becoming a super slinky sex kitten, but I DO need to lose weight, I DO need to improve my relationships, I DO need to improve my health (with both exercise and food) and I DO need to find a way to take pride in myself, my appearance and general self. And I really need to first off quieten Annie's voice and then find a way to end our relationship.

So here's to new starts and a sprinkling of positivity.

Be kind and take care. R and Annie

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sinceileftyoublog · 4 years ago

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JOYFULTALK Interview: Planetary Polyrhythms

Photo by Annie France Noël

BY JORDAN MAINZER

Earlier this year, Nova Scotia composer Jay Crocker released his most sprightly, ambitious, and Steve Reich-like album yet as JOYFULTALK. Made with homemade instruments and a score based on a musical notation of his own invention, A Separation of Being is a three-piece suite of bouncy arpeggios and polyrhythms and lush strings arranged by Jesse Zubot. Its song titles are evocative of the different parts of the score and the feelings and images they exude. No pun intended, it’s a joy to listen to.

I caught up with Crocker over email to ask him a few questions about the record. Read our conversation below.

SILY: How would you qualify A Separation of Being as different from your past releases?

Jay Crocker: A Separation of Being had a completely different compositional process than previous releases. I used a scoring system I created called "the planetary music system" to compose this music. Although I have been using this system for the last few years, ASOB is the first full scale piece I've created with it. It is a system that is based on gear sets which creates a sort of time signature independence between instruments. The system is graphic so the structures drawn on the score totally inform the structures of the music.

SILY: Does A Separation of Being have a lighter feel than your previous releases?

JC: I guess it is "lighter in a way." I was definitely focusing on having a more relaxed and soothing color and feeling to the music. I guess that's how I was feeling at the time...pre-pandemic.

SILY: Can you describe some of the instruments you made for the record?

JC: I use mostly samples of home of my home-built instruments. Homemade drum machines and synths and stuff. There are also a few other non-homemade synths and things in there. I use all hardware stuff.

SILY: Did you know what the string arrangement was going to sound like before it was recorded? Had you always had Jesse in mind to play the strings?

JC: I composed the strings early on in the composition, and I had a definite vision for what I wanted. I had Jesse in mind to play the parts for sure. He did a great job...he rules.

SILY: What’s the inspiration behind the record title?

JC: I have been exploring the idea of how many different perceptions and personalities we experience from one moment to another. I guess it's an exploration of that idea through sound...maybe?

SILY: Why did you want to express the song titles as parts 1, 2, and 3? What about the song titles after the part--were you trying to evoke what the songs sound like?

JC: It's based on the score. The score is divided into 3 movements--hence the 3 parts. The titles are there to give more imagery or explanation of what each movement represents.

SILY: What’s the story behind the cover art?

JC: The score is 5' x 10'. The cover art is a small sample of the final score.

SILY: Do you have any plans for live streams or rescheduled live dates?

JC: Nothing yet. I still don't feel like traveling too far from home I have only performed one live stream early on during the pandemic but haven't felt compelled to explore that medium yet. I was never really a huge fan of the live concert video format.

SILY: What have you been reading, listening to, or watching lately?

JC: As serious as your life by Val Wilmer. Really like the latest Childish Gambino and revisiting some of Chris Corsano's discography. Watching The X-Files seasons 1-5...so good. Mark Snow's soundtrack work on that show is amazing.

#interviews #joyfultalk #constellation records #constellation #jesse zubot #a separation of being #annie france noël #jay crocker #steve reich #the planetary music system #As serious as your life #val wilmer #childish gambino #chris corsano #the x-files #mark snow

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kristablogs · 5 years ago

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Thirteen free online resources to educate and entertain your kids

A little homework never hurt anybody. (Annie Spratt / Unsplash/)

The COVID-19 outbreak has deeply changed our lives over the past few months. You’re not only confined to the limited living space of your own home, you’re confined to your own home… with your kids.

It doesn’t matter if they’re energetic preschoolers or brooding teenagers—it’s hard to keep them entertained while you work or check items off your daily to-do list. Add the challenge of continuing their education at home, and things may start to spiral out of control.

Some good news though: You can find reinforcements online, and we’re not talking about hiring a tutor off Craigslist. As a way to collaborate with parents as we wait out the pandemic, a handful of online platforms, services, and publishers have made their content available to keep students learning while in lockdown. Some have even created material specifically to guide parents and teachers during the transition to homeschooling. Best of all, they come with no price tag attached.

But first, some words of wisdom

Using online resources to help your kids learn at home doesn’t mean you get to press “play” and let the magic happen by itself. The 21st century version of hiding comic books behind a biology one is way more elaborate—changing between tabs and desktops on a laptop takes less than a second—so you’ll actually need to get involved and monitor what they do.

If you feel unprepared for this challenge, don’t worry—COVID-19 didn’t give anybody time to do research ahead of time, so your wavering confidence is not only normal, but expected. Fortunately, we have some tips to help you cope.

Be flexible

There’s a lot of pressure to be productive in lockdown—people are posting on social media about taking the quarantine as an opportunity to learn new skills and languages, and how you should do the same. But these are stressful times, and just as you may not feel like teaching yourself how to play guitar, students need a little leeway too.

“We have to be realistic, and it's important that parents be sensitive to kids,” says William Jeynes, a professor of education at California State University, Long Beach, and an expert on homeschooling. “This is not the time to be a helicopter parent.”

Jeynes underscores the importance of remembering that kids are under a lot of stress right now—like you, they’ve had their routines interrupted and may be scared of what’s to come. He recommends parents step back a bit and, instead of trying to get their kids to cover as much material as they normally would in school, look for assignments that are not quite as demanding.

Find a schedule that works for your kid

One of the first things your child may have lost was their schedule. Maybe they’re now going to bed late at night and waking up at noon. That’s normal, and if you want them to keep studying or doing homework, it may not necessarily be a bad thing.

“It’s good to have a discussion and give the child room to say, 'It’s too much for me,’” says Jeynes.

Having realistic expectations is especially important if your child was preparing for a standardized test, like the SAT, that has been canceled. If that’s the case, try to balance test prep with their schoolwork so they don’t get overwhelmed.

Listen to your kids and ask them directly what works for them—some may not be at their best in the afternoon or may concentrate better in the evening. Once you agree on a schedule you both can work with, try to stick with it, but don’t be strict about it—these are not normal times.

In general, stress makes it harder for kids to pay attention and move from one activity to the next. The unexpected change of being locked down at home, plus the uncertainty of living through a global pandemic, will definitely affect their learning process. Be patient—the fact your kids are not playing Animal Crossing all day is already a huge win.

Parents of the world, unite

When you’re in lockdown, you may feel your whole world has been reduced to the space within the four walls of your home, but know that you’re not alone. Lots of parents are freaking out and may be asking the same questions you are.

It’s time to team up. Organizing with the parents of other students in your kid’s class, or anybody with children the same age as yours, can facilitate not only moral support, but actual, practical help.

Once together, you can allocate responsibilities like researching and sharing the best educational resources. Other parents might also be able to relieve you from homework duty every night. Jeynes suggests that if one or more parents are fluent in different languages or particularly well-versed in history, math, or any other subject, they could make themselves available in shifts to help children with their homework over platforms such as Skype or Zoom.

Try it out and see what works best for you and your children. If you need even more help, well, look no further.

New York Public Library

Sadly, there's still no way to make the NYPL main reading room available online. (Calvin Uy / Unsplash/)

Content appropriate for: all ages

What’s available: free audiobooks, online live homework help (in English and Spanish), and more

Even if you don’t live in New York, the state’s library system has made some of its remote learning resources for kids and teenagers available online, including practice tests, video readings, and certain databases. These have always been accessible to anyone with a NYPL card, but after the COVID-19 outbreak, some are now available to non-members.

All content has been sorted by grade for easy navigation—from pre-K to high school—so you can immediately see what material will suit your kid’s needs and education level. One of the most interesting services on offer is one-on-one live tutoring for homework help. It’s available for both English- and Spanish-speaking students on weekdays from 2 to 11 p.m.

Khan Academy

Content appropriate for: all ages

What’s available: guides for students, parents, and teachers available in 40 languages, daily livestreams on Facebook and YouTube, plus schedules for students of all ages

Khan Academy is a renowned educational resource for students worldwide learning a wide range of subjects, from math to languages. On top of the educational content they already offer for free, Khan Academy has posted guides and FAQs to help parents and teachers during the COVID-19 outbreak. The site also offers live webinars with education professionals every day.

One particularly useful resource is the set of daily schedules designed by experts for students from pre-K through 12th grade. If you’re worried about maintaining structure during lockdown, following one of these schedules is a great way to avoid one day blurring into the next.

The Audubon Society

Young kids can learn about birds' migration patterns with the game Migration Stories. (Screenshot/Audubon Society/)

Content appropriate for: elementary and middle school students

What’s available: bird guides, craft and art projects, and outdoor activities

The Audubon Society is a nonprofit organization dedicated to the conservation of birds in America. Its website now features educational material specifically designed to help young kids explore birds and nature from the safety of their homes during the pandemic. That includes birding guides and projects that range from learning how to draw a bird to identifying and appreciating city pigeons.

Scholastic

Content appropriate for: first- and second-graders

What’s available: videos, activities, and books with read-alongs

The publishing house that brought you Clifford the Big Red Dog (a classic) has also made some of its content available online for free. The material covers subjects including science, math, reading, and writing, and is indexed according to age. Every day, the platform offers two readings on the same subject with difficulty levels that match your child’s reading level. When that’s done, your kid can apply what they’ve learned by completing a matching activity. The daily curriculum also includes one project in Spanish.

Mission US

Each decision you make while playing Mission US can affect your character and the people around them. (Screenshot / Mission US /)

Content appropriate for: middle school and high school students

What’s available: a role-playing game that teaches US history

Mission US is a free online role-playing game and a fun way for kids to experience important moments in US history. There are five missions, each designed to depict events such as the Great Depression and the start of the American Revolution, through the eyes of an adolescent protagonist. As each story progresses, players will have to make decisions that have real consequences as they navigate those difficult times. A single mission can keep a player entertained for at least a couple hours, and if you choose to accompany your kid on their journey, you might get hooked too.

PBS for Kids

Content appropriate for: children in pre-K and elementary school

What’s available: videos, activities, and a daily newsletter for parents

PBS for Kids has a handful of tools to keep your little ones entertained and learning. You don’t need to have the PBS channel to access their platforms—only the live TV features. Their online educational material covers art, science, math, and literacy, and comes in the form of videos, exercises, and games.

To make your life easier, you can subscribe to a daily weekday newsletter with various and cohesive sets of activities for kids ages 5 to 8.

Radiolab for Kids

Your kid has questions. Radiolab for Kids probably has answers. (Screenshot / Rabiolab for Kids/)

Content appropriate for: all ages

What’s available: a selection of Radiolab’s family-friendly episodes

One of the longest-running podcasts out there, Radiolab is a true institution when it comes to scientific on-demand radio content. To help parents keep their children entertained during the outbreak, the team behind the show put together Radiolab for Kids: a deep dive into the podcast’s archives that gathers episodes that appeal to younger audiences.

The selection includes the answers to questions such as: “Is laughter a human thing?” “What is the purpose of mosquitoes?” And “How global is tic-tac-toe?”

Club SciKidz

Content appropriate for: elementary and middle school students

What’s available: daily science lessons and activities for kids

Club SciKidz offers science camps, but these days their blog also features daily activities with videos and experiments that children and teens can conduct at home. All of them focus on chemistry, physics, astronomy, and other scientific disciplines, and come in different levels (primary and intermediate) so kids of all ages and backgrounds can feel comfortable.

Mathgames

If we'd learned multiplication with cats playing tug of war with a sausage rope, maybe we'd be able to calculate tips without our phones. (Screenshot/Math Games/)

Content appropriate for: pre-K to eighth-grade students

What’s available: games (free and paid) for different math skills and levels

This is a simple platform that lets kids choose the kind of game they want to play and learn with. You have to pay for some of them, but most are free and allow users to choose not only the difficulty level, but also what skill they want to practice, from simple counting to mixed equations.

Hippocampus

Content appropriate for: all ages

What’s available: quick videos, simulations, and varied content on several subjects

Hippocampus is an open-source project that aims to gather and make all kinds of educational material available for kids and teenagers. The platform has a great amount of multimedia content—videos, simulations, and graphics—covering subjects like math, science, English, history, social science, and religion. It’s absolutely free and there’s no login required.

Google

"Hey there, you wouldn't happen to have more bamboo, would you?" (Sandra Gutierrez/)

Content appropriate for: all ages

What’s available: 3D animals, virtual tours, and more

It may not be news to you, but Google offers a lot more than searching. These days, people online are having fun with the 3D animals feature, which allows you to see life-size tigers, lions, and panda bears, among others, in augmented reality.

If you have a virtual reality visor—and even if you don’t—the Expeditions app (available for iOS and Android devices) is a fun way for kids to explore places around the world, such as the Roman ruins in Italy and the American Museum of Natural History in New York City.

Rosetta Stone

Content appropriate for: students from kindergarten to 12th grade

What’s available: three months of free language lessons (available in 24 languages)

Rosetta Stone is a well-known web platform for learning new languages, and in the midst of the pandemic, they’ve given students three months of lessons for free. Students can choose languages common in US schools, such as Spanish (from either Spain or Latin America), French, and German, but also Persian, Hindi, and Polish. To sign up, you’ll need to provide a parent’s name, email address, and the name of the school your child attends.

Beanstalk

Content appropriate for: kids ages 18 months to 6 years old

What’s available: three months of live and on-demand science and art lessons, and varied activities

This platform (currently in its beta version) aims to give kids “healthy screen time” by proposing real-life movement and activities. Here you’ll be able to find live and recorded classes for young kids, some of them with projects you can make at home. Beanstalk is available on desktop, mobile, and smart TVs, and to help parents during the COVID-19 outbreak, it now offers three months of free lessons.

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scootoaster · 5 years ago

Text

Thirteen free online resources to educate and entertain your kids

A little homework never hurt anybody. (Annie Spratt / Unsplash/)

But first, some words of wisdom

Be flexible

Find a schedule that works for your kid

“It’s good to have a discussion and give the child room to say, 'It’s too much for me,’” says Jeynes.

Parents of the world, unite

Try it out and see what works best for you and your children. If you need even more help, well, look no further.

New York Public Library

Sadly, there's still no way to make the NYPL main reading room available online. (Calvin Uy / Unsplash/)

Content appropriate for: all ages

What’s available: free audiobooks, online live homework help (in English and Spanish), and more

Khan Academy

Content appropriate for: all ages

What’s available: guides for students, parents, and teachers available in 40 languages, daily livestreams on Facebook and YouTube, plus schedules for students of all ages

The Audubon Society

Young kids can learn about birds' migration patterns with the game Migration Stories. (Screenshot/Audubon Society/)

Content appropriate for: elementary and middle school students

What’s available: bird guides, craft and art projects, and outdoor activities

Scholastic

Content appropriate for: first- and second-graders

What’s available: videos, activities, and books with read-alongs

Mission US

Each decision you make while playing Mission US can affect your character and the people around them. (Screenshot / Mission US /)

Content appropriate for: middle school and high school students

What’s available: a role-playing game that teaches US history

PBS for Kids

Content appropriate for: children in pre-K and elementary school

What’s available: videos, activities, and a daily newsletter for parents

To make your life easier, you can subscribe to a daily weekday newsletter with various and cohesive sets of activities for kids ages 5 to 8.

Radiolab for Kids

Your kid has questions. Radiolab for Kids probably has answers. (Screenshot / Rabiolab for Kids/)

Content appropriate for: all ages

What’s available: a selection of Radiolab’s family-friendly episodes

The selection includes the answers to questions such as: “Is laughter a human thing?” “What is the purpose of mosquitoes?” And “How global is tic-tac-toe?”

Club SciKidz

Content appropriate for: elementary and middle school students

What’s available: daily science lessons and activities for kids

Mathgames

If we'd learned multiplication with cats playing tug of war with a sausage rope, maybe we'd be able to calculate tips without our phones. (Screenshot/Math Games/)

Content appropriate for: pre-K to eighth-grade students

What’s available: games (free and paid) for different math skills and levels

Hippocampus

Content appropriate for: all ages

What’s available: quick videos, simulations, and varied content on several subjects

Google

"Hey there, you wouldn't happen to have more bamboo, would you?" (Sandra Gutierrez/)

Content appropriate for: all ages

What’s available: 3D animals, virtual tours, and more

Rosetta Stone

Content appropriate for: students from kindergarten to 12th grade

What’s available: three months of free language lessons (available in 24 languages)

Beanstalk

Content appropriate for: kids ages 18 months to 6 years old

What’s available: three months of live and on-demand science and art lessons, and varied activities

0 notes

bonniejstarks · 5 years ago

Text

How Schitt’s Creek and Annie Murphy Turned A Little Bit Alexis into a Certified Banger

When Schitt’s Creek airs its season finale next week, it will leave behind not a singular legacy, but a collection of indelible marks on pop culture: the inimitable Moira Rose and her singular accent. David and Patrick’s understatedly groundbreaking love story, immortalized on billboards and magazine covers alike. And a pair of wildly different songs that took on a life well beyond the show. One is a heartfelt cover of a classic that became a talisman for Schitt’s Creek’s most beloved relationship. The other is a frenetic, frothy synth-pop creation plucked from the ether that is Alexis Rose’s past.

It’s been just over a year since “A Little Bit Alexis” first entered our collective consciousness, in a season five episode that finds Alexis auditioning for the town’s unforgettable performance of Cabaret. “I have chosen to perform the title track off of my critically-reviewed, limited reality series, A Little Bit Alexis,” she proclaims proudly to a bewildered Moira and Jocelyn. “Feel free to sing along if you know the words!” Though that request is ignored on the show, in the real world, Alexis would find a lot of takers. Ever since the full track was released last year, a gradual snowball effect has taken “A Little Bit Alexis” from a fun character note to a bona fide hit that can be heard in gay clubs nationwide.

Over the past few weeks, as the coronavirus pandemic dramatically transformed daily life across the globe and sent millions of people into lockdown, “A Little Bit Alexis” took yet another new lease on life as a viral TikTok sensation. Dozens of quarantined fans across the world are, probably right at this very moment, trying out Alexis’s deranged dance moves as a means of staving off cabin fever. As Alexis herself would doubtless say: yum!

The appeal of “A Little Bit Alexis” only grows as you discover more about its creation: Murphy herself wrote those ingenious lyrics while enlisting two musicians—her husband, Menno Versteeg, and his former bandmate Nick Boyd—as her collaborators. Below, the full story of how “A Little Bit Alexis” was conceived, created, and shaped into a phenomenon, as told by Murphy, Schitt’s Creek co-creator Dan Levy, and the entire musical creative team.

Dan Levy: From the first few days my dad and I spent brainstorming about what the show could be, I had come up with this little detail from Alexis’s past: She had a very short-lived, critically reviewed reality show called A Little Bit Alexis. It’s one of those things you write down as context for the character without knowing whether it’ll make it into the show. Four seasons later, Alexis auditioning for Cabaret felt like the perfect opportunity to hear the title track.

Annie Murphy: We were at the table read and I saw in the script, “Alexis performs ‘A Little Bit Alexis,’” and that’s all it said. I was both inspired by and jealous of Noah Reid in the previous season, when he did his own beautiful rendition of “Simply the Best.” So I immediately said to Dan, “I will try to write this,” not realizing that I am not a musician and Noah very much is a musician! And somehow Dan agreed to let this happen.

Levy: I like to hand over the torch to the cast and say “run free” with that kind of content creation. With Noah and his cover of “The Best,” I had given him the choice of whether to take a stab at it himself or bring someone in. With Annie it was the same approach, and she said, “Please let me take a stab at this.”

Murphy: Once I got the green light, of course I was like, “Oh fuck. Okay, resources, resources.” So I found my two dear musician people, and told them, “Well, I just got myself into a predicament.”

Menno Versteeg: I remember very clearly the moment Annie described it to me, the whole scene and what it needed to be and the backstory of the song. Earlier that same day, I’d been in some kind of chain fashion store and “Work Bitch” by Britney Spears was on. The second she told me, I knew I wanted to rip off the feel of that song. We set out to make a song you want to do spin class to.

Murphy: We went into my friend Nick’s studio, and we listened to “Work Bitch” so many times our ears started to bleed, but in the best way. We also listened to “Stars Are Blind” and a bunch of Paris Hilton stuff. And then Nick and Menno got to work on the melody, and I started writing the lyrics, and we all got on a roll.

Nick Boyd: Menno and I were in a band [Hollerado] together for years and years. We were all friends growing up and Annie would sometimes come with us on tour, so we’ve been making music and hanging out together as pals for literally 20 years.

Versteeg: When you’re married to someone who’s in a band, it’s a very specific type of relationship. For the first half of Hollerado’s career, Annie was a struggling actress—she would get the odd commercial or bit part here and there, but she had a lot of time off. So she would often come on tour with the band, and that would involve sometimes coming onstage to sing with us. We ended up writing songs together—she wrote half the lyrics to one of the more well-known Hollerado songs, “Good Day At The Races.” All of that backstory factored into what we were able to do with “A Little Bit Alexis.”

Murphy: We knew it had to be funny, and we knew it had to be kind of spoofy, but we all secretly wanted it to be a fucking banger of a song that people would actually put on to pre-drink to and, you know, dance to at the club. [Pauses] I sounded like such a grandmother there. “Dance to at the club”?

Boyd: When Menno and Annie came in, I had already put together a baseline and a groove, and they were feeling it, so we started brainstorming verse ideas. We knew the era when the song was supposed to have been released [the early 2000s], so we asked ourselves, what would Alexis’s younger self have wanted to put out, given the musical trends at that time?

Versteeg: There’s something really fun about being able to do trashy garbage pop that’s also tongue-in-cheek. It doesn’t need to be subtle in any way, you just throw in every single hook you can think of. Annie wrote all the lyrics, and she’s one of the funniest people on this entire planet, and that really reflected when she started having fun with the lyrics.

Boyd: Annie knows the character so thoroughly, from top to bottom, so it was easy to say whether a lyric was gonna work or not. I think somebody suggested “I’m a little bit drunk when I drive my car,” and Annie was like, “Well, she wouldn’t say drunk. She would say tipsy.” And that lyric really spring-boarded the process, because the idea behind it is that she is above the law—she can get away with anything and has no sense of her own privilege. That became a theme for us.

Murphy: I think I just blacked out and woke up and it was written down.

Levy: Everything in the show is considered, so we were never going to use a version of the song that didn’t feel right for the character. What’s so spot on about the lyrics they came up with is they really highlight this stark contrast between who Alexis was and who she is now.

Murphy: My favorite moment, when we were recording, was trying to make that “neigh” as sexy as possible. It’s an intense moment. I remember being like, “I never thought I’d be in the position of sexily whispering ‘neigh’ into a microphone, but here I am.”

Chris Soper: I’d known Annie and Menno and Nick for years—they would do their records at the same studio I worked out of in Brooklyn. Menno approached me after they’d done the writing and recording and asked if I would mix the song. He described this vision for something that sounded like a 2000s Britney Spears dance hit.

Versteeg: There’s a term producers use to describe music: a track is “in the box” or “out of the box,” and “the box” means the computer. So an out-of-the-box track would be something like Arcade Fire: all their gear is analogue, every single sound is a real sound that comes from an instrument, in some cases there’s no computer involved until the very end. “A Little Bit Alexis” is entirely the opposite: It’s made completely inside the computer. We didn’t use one real instrument. It’s the cheapest, quickest, dirtiest way to get the most bang-for-your-buck sound. You’re not trying to get anything that sounds fresh.

Soper: It’s pretty much an assault from beginning to end.

Murphy: I took it to Dan and nervously waited by my phone. Then I got an “Obsessed with this!” which is the highest form of praise from Dan Levy.

Levy: I was expecting a scratch-track, a basic idea of the song. And they went ahead and fully produced a banger!

Versteeg: I own a record label, and part of that is being able to hear when a song is a genuine, certified banger. The second I got the mix back from Chris, I was like, “If they don’t use it, they are literally deaf.”

Levy: It really felt like a moment from her past. It couldn’t sound too current, it had to live within the world of Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, people who were big in the early 2000s when Alexis would have been shooting this reality show. Annie just ran with it!

Murphy: I think the success is half people liking it and half it getting stuck in your head in such an intense way: “I guess I like this, or I’ll go insane.”

Levy: The cover art was really important. We got to dig in and say, ‘okay, what did singles look like back then? What was the font like, what kind of photo would they use?’ We had to ask Annie if she had sexy photos from her past, which fortunately she did! We worked with the CBC on it—Calum [Shanlin], who does social media for the Schitt’s Creek account, created [it].

The cover art for “A Little Bit Alexis.”

CBC

Boyd: There was a moment, on the soundtrack chart, where it was sort of neck and neck with a bunch of the songs from A Star Is Born. I think it was number four, and the top three were all from A Star Is Born. That was a real “holy shit” moment. To be clear, it was there for maybe a week, but still!

Versteeg: A portion of the proceeds are getting donated to this really great Canadian organization called MusiCounts. It’s an organization that provides instruments and resources in schools that otherwise couldn’t afford music programs.

Levy: “A Little Bit Alexis” didn’t have the same overnight instant success that Noah’s “Simply The Best” had. It was a smaller detail in an episode, it wasn’t the climax of a storyline in the way Noah’s was, so you didn’t necessarily have the same rush of people desperately needing to find the song. The scene is 60 seconds long, and yet slowly but surely, the song has made its way onto people’s iTunes playlists and Spotify playlists and it’s been played in gay nightclubs across the world!

Murphy: I was in New York in December, and I was meeting a friend at a drag bar and had arrived early. One of the queens came up to me and said, “Just so you know, I’m about to do a DJ set where I play “A Little Bit Alexis,” and it goes into “Work Bitch,” so if that’s gonna be uncomfortable for you…” I was like, “I’m obviously staying for this!” The whole fucking bar was singing, like word for word, and dancing. And it was at that moment that my friend arrived. I had to be like, “I swear to God, I have not paid these people off. This is just a really fucking weird thing that’s happening to me right now.”

Dan: It’s always great when once in a while, somebody tweets footage from the inside of a very dark, steamy gay bar, and all you hear is “A Little Bit Alexis” thumping over the sound system. I’ve had situations with both Annie and Noah’s songs where I’ve been driving my car and I hear the song, and I look over and it’s the person in the car beside me, listening to it in their car on full blast! That’s been completely surreal and amazing.

Annie: I mean, I just performed with Kelly Clarkson on Kelly Clarkson’s talk show. In my wildest version of this, I never would have imagined that that would be happening. I knew I was going to be on her show, but I got a call about two days before from the producer asking, “Kelly was wondering if you’d consider performing ‘A Little Bit Alexis’ as a duet with her?” I was like “I’m sorry, did you just ask me if I would consider performing, with Kelly Clarkson, a song that I wrote?” It’s run away from me in the best way possible.

Dan: The song is ultimately a testament to Annie and her creativity and ingenuity as a performer, that she contributed in this way to the show, but also honestly to pop culture as a whole. We will all be listening to this song for years to come.

Emma Dibdin Contributor Emma Dibdin writes about television, movies, and podcasts, with coverage including opinion essays, news posts, episodic reviews and in-depth interviews with creatives.

The post How Schitt’s Creek and Annie Murphy Turned A Little Bit Alexis into a Certified Banger appeared first on Trends Dress.

from Trends Dress https://trendsdress.com/how-schitts-creek-and-annie-murphy-turned-a-little-bit-alexis-into-a-certified-banger/ from Trends Dress https://trendsdresscom.tumblr.com/post/614221373372596224

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kristablogs · 5 years ago

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Porn is helping people cope with the pandemic

Self-isolation can be boring and lonely. So, people are turning to online porn. (Annie Spratt/Unsplash/)

Joshua B. Grubbs is an assistant professor of psychology at Bowling Green State University. This story originally featured on The Conversation.

Across the globe, the coronavirus pandemic is affecting almost all aspects of daily life. Travel is down; jobless claims are up; and small businesses are struggling.

But not all businesses are experiencing a downturn. The world’s largest pornography website, Pornhub, has reported large increases in traffic—for instance, seeing an 18 percent jump over normal numbers after making its premium content free for 30 days for people who agree to stay home and wash their hands frequently. In many regions, these spikes in use have occurred immediately after social distancing measures have been implemented.

Why are people viewing more pornography? I’m a professor of clinical psychology who researches pornography use. Based on a decade of work in this area, I have some ideas about this surge in online pornography’s popularity and how it might affect users in the long run.

What’s the point of pornography?

People use pornography for a variety of reasons, but the most common reason is quite obvious: pleasure.

In 2019, my colleagues and I published a review of over 130 scientific studies of pornography use and motivation. We found that the most common reason people report for why they view pornography is sexual arousal. Research is abundantly clear that the majority of time that pornography is used, it is used as a part of masturbation.

Knowing that people use pornography to masturbate doesn’t explain a great deal about why they might be using more pornography now.

My colleagues and I found that there are several additional reasons people might use pornography. For example, greater levels of psychological distress often predict higher levels of pornography use. People feeling lonely or depressed often report greater desire to seek out pornography; many people report using pornography to cope with feelings of stress, anxiety, or negative emotions.

In short, people often turn to pornography when they are feeling bad, because pornography (and masturbation) likely offer a temporary relief from those feelings.

Psychology researchers also know that people use porn more when they are bored. I suspect this relationship between pornography use and boredom is quite likely one of those exponential functions that’s been in the news so much in recent weeks. It’s not just that more boredom predicts greater pornography use—extreme boredom predicts even higher levels of use. The more bored someone is, the more likely they are to report wanting to view pornography.

There's debate over the long-term effects of online pornography on sexual and psychological health. (niklas_hamann/Unsplash/)

Is more pornography now a problem later?

The spread of the coronavirus and social distancing measures meant to help contain it have led to increases in social isolation, loneliness and stress—so increases in pornography use make sense.

But are there likely to be negative effects down the road?

Already, numerous anti-pornography activists have expressed grave concerns about these increases in use, with many groups providing resources for fighting those rises.

As a scientist, however, I’m skeptical of blanket claims that increased use right now will translate to widespread negative outcomes such as addiction or sexual dysfunction. Like most aspects of the ongoing coronavirus crisis, there are probably not enough data yet for researchers to make definitive predictions, but past studies do provide some ideas.

Generally speaking, most consumers do not report any problems in their lives as a result of pornography use. Among people who use pornography frequently—even every day—a large percentage report no problems from that use.

Some research, though, does find links between pornography use and potentially concerning outcomes. For example, for men, pornography use is often linked with lower levels of sexual satisfaction, but the current evidence doesn’t untangle whether men use pornography more when they are dealing with sexual dissatisfaction or if men using pornography more leads to more sexual dissatisfaction.

For women, the results are even more unclear. Some studies have actually found that pornography use is associated with more sexual satisfaction, whereas others have found that it is not associated with sexual satisfaction at all.

Studies related to pornography use and mental health have found that hours spent using pornography do not necessarily cause depression, anxiety, stress, or anger over time. The same holds for sexual dysfunctions. Although there are cases of people who state that pornography led them to experience erectile dysfunction, large-scale studies have repeatedly found that mere pornography use does not predict erectile dysfunction over time.

A distraction at a boring, anxious time

There’s certainly evidence that some people who use pornography also report having mental health concerns or sexual problems in their lives; so far, though, the evidence linking those things does not appear to be causal.

In short, porn doesn’t seem to be causing widespread problems, and it’s probably offering people a distraction from the boredom and stress of current events.

Despite the fact that, prior to COVID-19, 17 states introduced or passed legislation calling pornography use a public health crisis, professionals have argued that it really isn’t one—and I tend to agree. COVID-19, on the other hand, certainly is a public health crisis.

Although humanity has survived countless pandemics over the ages, the current one is the first to occur in the digital age. As disruptive as the coronavirus has been, for many people, opportunities for entertainment and distraction remain greater than they have been at any other point in history.

When social distancing measures are lifted and people are once again permitted to safely spend time with friends, strangers, and potential sexual partners, I would expect that pornography use will return to pre-COVID-19 levels. For most users, pornography is probably just another distraction—one that might actually help “flatten the curve” by keeping people safely occupied and socially distanced. Combined with the fact that many people are isolating alone, pornography may provide a low-risk sexual outlet that doesn’t cause people to risk their own safety or the safety of others.

0 notes

scootoaster · 5 years ago

Text

Porn is helping people cope with the pandemic

Self-isolation can be boring and lonely. So, people are turning to online porn. (Annie Spratt/Unsplash/)

Joshua B. Grubbs is an assistant professor of psychology at Bowling Green State University. This story originally featured on The Conversation.

Across the globe, the coronavirus pandemic is affecting almost all aspects of daily life. Travel is down; jobless claims are up; and small businesses are struggling.

What’s the point of pornography?

People use pornography for a variety of reasons, but the most common reason is quite obvious: pleasure.

Knowing that people use pornography to masturbate doesn’t explain a great deal about why they might be using more pornography now.

In short, people often turn to pornography when they are feeling bad, because pornography (and masturbation) likely offer a temporary relief from those feelings.

There's debate over the long-term effects of online pornography on sexual and psychological health. (niklas_hamann/Unsplash/)

Is more pornography now a problem later?

The spread of the coronavirus and social distancing measures meant to help contain it have led to increases in social isolation, loneliness and stress—so increases in pornography use make sense.

But are there likely to be negative effects down the road?

Already, numerous anti-pornography activists have expressed grave concerns about these increases in use, with many groups providing resources for fighting those rises.

A distraction at a boring, anxious time

In short, porn doesn’t seem to be causing widespread problems, and it’s probably offering people a distraction from the boredom and stress of current events.

0 notes