Montreal is known as the third largest porn-producing city in the world alongside reigning contenders Los Angeles, Prague and Amsterdam. As the ‘femme fatale’ of Canadian cities, it comes as no surprise that Montreal thrives on pornography given the number of strip clubs, sex shops and escort services it offers. Beating out top technology companies like Microsoft, Google, Amazon and ebay, the porn industry proves to be a cash cow.
It has been said that happy employees are good for business and a recent study in the Journal of Sex Research would agree. Psychologists compared a group of 177 adult entertainment actresses with a sample of women matching in various factors including age and marital status. The porn stars proved to be healthier and happier and trended in high self-esteem, showing greater levels of satisfaction, spirituality and positive feelings compared to their non-porn working counterparts.
Prostitution tends to dominate sex-related work studies and Concordia sociology undergraduate student, Kayla D’Aloia, said she feels that “while it may be more common to study prostitutes as opposed to porn stars, both are stereotyped in the same way for trying to establish sex-related work as a professional status.”
“The most common stereotype is that women in sex-related work fields are victims when instead the study demonstrates that sex workers can make conscious decisions and be happy with the lives they lead,” said D’Aloia.
The study demystifies certain prejudices around the profession of pornography and dismisses the “damaged goods theory” by revealing a group of women who are happy with the work they do and why they do it. It may seem hard to picture a porn star leading a normal life. However, it has become quite common to hear of a school secretary who moonlights as a porn star. While this may stir controversy at the next parent-teacher association meeting, the point of the matter is that those drawn to the profession are not always desperate, addicted to drugs, homeless or victims of sexual abuse.
When having sex is part of your job, risks are important to consider. Famous Montreal porn star Vandal Vyxen told the McGill Daily’s Erin Hudson: “Porn stars must be tested for [sexually transmitted diseases] and bring documented medical proof to shoots, otherwise the DVD cannot be distributed. With so many regular visits to medical clinics, a porn star is likely more aware of their sexual health than the average person.”
Porn is criticized for debasing women but there are parts of the industry that do the exact opposite. Without implying the causation that porn makes these women happy, the study sheds a light on women who appear to be empowered both sexually and emotionally.
The debate about whether porn is good or bad, positive or negative, is still ongoing. In the meantime, researchers will continue to try and understand what makes for a happy life and how people can achieve satisfaction in the most diverse ways imaginable.
East End Radicals worked themselves to the bone with the release of Carry On, a 12 song album debut that will surely melt your leather and get your fists in the air.
Stomp Records recently added this four-piece punk rock band from Montreal to their repertoire, calling their album a “wild, raucous and unapologetic middle finger salute to authority, oppression and the status quo in general.”
The boys have shared the stage with the Planet Smashers, The Creepshow, The Real Mckenzies and the Mahones and toured Ontario and Quebec on their own in the summer of 2011. When asked about the tour, drummer and political science undergrad at Concordia, Matthew Di Guglielmo, said it was nothing short of amazing.
“You meet tons of incredible people that more often than not, will give up their houses and showers for the night so you have somewhere to stay,” said Di Guglielmo. “The generosity and hospitality we have received is incredible.”
Lead guitarist and film studies undergrad Eric Petraroia drops the names of Rancid, Dropkick Murphys, The Ramones and Social Distortion as some of the many influences from which they derive inspiration. Petraroia and Di Guglielmo have been playing music together since they were 12, and it wasn’t until the additions of Brent Blake on bass and Scott MacLeod on vocals and guitar that East End Radicals developed a gnarly attitude, one that would get them signed to Stomp Records.
About a year ago Matt Collyer, lead singer of Planet Smashers and manager of Stomp Records, took notice of the band on stage and approached them about a potential collaboration. East End Radicals sent in their demo, and three nail biting months later, Collyer called back with an opportunity that changed their lives.
“It was and still is a shock. This is something I’ve wanted since I was a kid, and for it to finally happen is really a dream come true,” said Di Guglielmo. Today, East End Radicals have an album available in stores and on iTunes, along with plans to conquer North America and Europe on their upcoming tours.
This great opportunity does come with some sacrifices for the band. Petraroia said that he is at “the finish line” of completing his degree, but believes touring to be a priority, for “music has always come first” for him. Blake and MacLeod have even sacrificed serious jobs to pursue this opportunity. Di Guglielmo revealed that making the decision to postpone school and commit to the band’s career was not an easy conversation with his parents.
“They are firm believers that school is very important, and to a certain degree, I agree with them,” said Di Guglielmo. “I think I would regret it more if I didn’t give music a shot because of school. I can always go back to school, I can’t always go back to getting signed.”
East End Radicals album release show is at Petit Campus on Thursday, Nov. 22 at 7 p.m.
You are young and life is long and there is time to kill today. And then one day you find 10 years have got behind you. No one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun.
Graphic Jennifer Kwan
Earlier this year, Jay wrote an article for the Huffington Post concerning her book and the “9 Ways Twentysomethings Screw up Their Lives,” highlighting the quarter life crisis that people our age are experiencing. Are we squandering the most transformative and foundational years of our adults lives?
Most of her points are frighteningly valid and can provide any 20-year-old with some introspection. However, she makes a controversial point, that some may find teeters the brink of anti-feminism, when she says women in their 20s are “ignoring their ovaries.”
Being 21, married, and carrying a baby was common for our grandparents, however a cultural shift has occurred within the last generation or so. Women seem more concerned with managing their careers and personal schedules rather than a baby bottle and diaper changes. As user-friendly birth control flooded the market and women began flooding the workplace, Jay argues that “by the new millennium, only about half of 20 year olds were married and by the age of 30 even fewer had children, making the 20s a time of newfound freedom.”
Women seem constantly bombarded with mixed messages. Not only are they pressured to balance school, work, love and money but they are now being told that they have to start timing when they want to have babies. Despite marriage and family still being an active and important part of a woman’s future, it seems that women are figuring out their place separate from the mother and wife role.
Celebrities like Meryl Streep, Nicole Kidman, Brooke Shields, and Halle Berry have helped glamorize childbearing between the ages of 40 and 50. Women feel less pressured to marry and have children early.
Jay argues that, at 35, a woman’s ability to have a baby drops considerably and that women need to inform themselves about fertility in their 20s to avoid the troubles that come with trying to get pregnant in later years.
Laura Diogo, a 22-year-old psychology undergraduate at Concordia, said she agreed with Jay’s points.
“Most 20-somethings are still in university, living on their own, working to pay the rent and don’t have the time or money to support a new family,” said Diogo. “I think it is important for every woman to be informed about their fertility.”
It seems hard enough to manage a school and work schedule without the ticking sounds of our biological clock. While Jay argues that 30 is not the new 20, she fails to consider alternative reasons as some women are waiting longer to start their families. As much as I want to believe women can ‘have it all’, the fact of the matter is, women today are faced with some very difficult decisions and it pays to get your priorities sorted out sooner rather than later.
At face value, reality television is easily a reflection of everything that is wrong with society. The only thing worse than the housewives, bachelors, idols, kids from the shore, teen moms and toddlers, might just be those who tune in to watch these shows every week, fuelling our society’s great appetite for idiotism and humiliation. So why is reality television this irrevocably addictive?
Reality T.V. is life at the extreme; it’s indulgent and candid. It is the quintessential guilty pleasure that networks like TLC and MTV capitalize on because the truth is, reality T.V. is the staple entertainment of the 21st century as it makes us go from viewers to voyeurs.
Shows like Survivor, Big Brother, Real Housewives and The Bachelor give viewers the spectacle of drama different from any other television program. The fact that these characters are not fictional makes it gripping on an intrinsic level, exposing human nature at its extreme.
Ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle mulled this idea over for years, saying that the Athenians who attended the theatre did so as a way “to be cured, relieved, restored to psychic health,” he wrote.
After a long day of ordinary responsibilities and relationships, reality television is the perfect antidote. It is a form of catharsis that allows viewers to purge various emotions and exposes our very own excessive passions we sometimes keep withdrawn. The representation of real people in real situations makes the “what would I do?” question more plausible. We root for the underdogs and the stories that pull at our heartstrings, but we revel in the drama, the fights and the humiliation.
Many baby boomers cannot seem to understand the beauty behind reality television shows, and why would they? Classic sitcoms they grew up with like All in the Family, Three’s Company and The Mary Tyler Moore Show were wholesome, family-oriented shows.
Censorship was more prominent; people were not as open and candid. However, nowadays we live in an information age. The more we know and the faster we are updated, the better.
Not only is reality T.V. entertaining, but it sends the message that ordinary people can become so important that millions will watch them and talk about them to friends and coworkers.
People always bring up the falsehoods of reality T.V. and it being detrimental to society due to fabricated situations, pre-scripted events and various ethical issues. However, reality T.V. continues to win the popular vote as ratings for shows like American Idol and The Voice remain high time and time again.
Aside from the regular “trashy” programs, shows like ABC’s Supernanny, A&E’s Intervention and NBC’s Biggest Loser can actually be really helpful to an audience’s larger consciousness and provide beneficial information.
Blaming reality T.V. for our societal problems is just our way of dismissing the other reasons for our so-called “dumbed-down” popular culture. I’m pretty sure it’s not just the Kardashians corrupting and influencing the youth, however hard they might try.
ABC’s “The Bachelorette”
CON: Unrealistic expectations, anyone?
by Ayda Omidvar
From The Jersey Shore to Here Comes Honey Boo Boo, reality television seems to have taken up a large part of network airtime and everyday conversation. But the question is, why?
It’s only a form of gossip entertainment. Viewers adopt the idea that these characters exist in their day-to-day lives and when the gossip quota runs out, they turn to this type of polished drama. Reality T.V. has developed into a self-destructive sub-culture. The fact that a crime can be turned around into a good story is preposterous — an example being the episode of Jersey Shore where the overly tanned and boisterous Snooki is arrested on the beach for “disorderly conduct.”
In a less obvious way, reality T.V. makes the far-fetched lives of the rich into something attainable and even more so, expected.
The picture perfect girls on The Hills live in beautiful apartments in downtown L.A., drive nice cars, and have internships with companies such as Teen Vogue. Viewers, noticing that these characters aren’t anything above ordinary in regards to intelligence or wit, may start to wonder why their lives haven’t panned out the same way. It’s mainly because the girls on The Hills are filthy rich.
Not only do these types of shows damage the viewer’s mind, but also the minds of the ‘actors’ or participants in the shows.
Reality T.V. is like any other dramatized television show except that it “blurs the line between actor and person,” said Laura Buchanan, a student studying theatre performance.
Toddlers in Tiaras teaches children at a young age that aesthetics, physical beauty, and a slightly crazed mother will get you what you want. This is a recipe for disaster.
Starring in one of these absurd shows means living with the fear that if you don’t act ridiculous every episode, you’re going to be quickly replaced. Characters on Laguna Beach or The Hills who don’t invoke as much attention as the networks would like, gradually fade away until they don’t appear in anymore episodes.
“There is a reason people watch T.V., and it’s not to watch ordinary people’s lives,” said Kenna Prepchuk, a political science student at Concordia.
The people on these shows ruin their future dignity in the sense that no one can ever look at them the same way. Unless these actors have signed a contract to do the show for life, how can they expect to be recognized as a person who can be hired for any other job?
The networks aren’t solely to blame in this situation because just like any business, they are there to make money and will do anything to get it. Making profit from reality T.V. shows like Jersey Shore means including highlights of excessive drama and cutting out the mundane and the ordinary.
While reality T.V. lacks style and class, like any form of addiction, knowing its bad for you doesn’t mean you’ll quit it anytime soon.
After quizzing over 1,000 adults about their everyday lives, the study found that those who jumped out of bed at 7 a.m. were generally healthier, thrived in the workplace, and were surveyed as having higher levels of happiness than those who started their day at around 9 a.m..
As a self-proclaimed night owl, I have always avoided early classes. My level of function before 10 a.m. is minimal, unless I have a double caramel macchiato in my system. However, this semester I have a class at 8:45 a.m., forcing me to jump-start my day while the birds are still chirping. Consequently, within these first three weeks of school, I have noticed a positive change in my daily routine. I am far more alert and productive during the day. I return e-mails, pay bills, complete most of my readings for class, and find that I am far less of a grouch. This is a positive change in attitude that former psychology PhD student at Concordia, Denise Jarrin, understands all too well.
“[The] general finding is that early risers do tend to have personality characteristics of being conscientious and open,” said Jarrin.
The University of Toronto examined the habits of two groups of people; young adults and older adults. Researchers found that older adults tend to rise early while young adults tend to sleep in until later hours of the day. This seems to ring true, especially for students who seem more prone to irregular sleeping patterns due to fluctuating school and work schedules. Implementing healthy sleep habits may come easier to someone working a nine-to-five job; however, it proves more difficult for those students trying to meet a deadline or cram for a mid-term.
“Staying up late to finish a paper is a feeling I know all too well,” said Concordia English literature student Angela De Cicco. “Sleep has become bittersweet because pressing snooze feels great, but I often wake up feeling unmotivated.”
Though procrastination seems to be an ongoing theme in a student’s day-to-day agenda, it sometimes leads to late nights over books with a coating of drool—a habit that can be difficult to shake.
Early birds have more hours in a day to cross off tasks on their to-do lists, providing a sense of accomplishment which can make you feel great and keep you motivated. While the benefits of waking early are as clear as black on white, the change in lifestyle is not an easy task.
Cathy Beggan, founder of Rise-N-Shine, a company that came to fruition in 2006, offers all-natural supplements that can help adults wake after six to eight hours of sleep feeling alert and energized without the grogginess. Beggan also gives simple tips like avoiding chocolate, wine and coffee in the evening hours, as well as having dinner three to four hours prior to bedtime. She suggests drinking a glass of water in the morning to help hydrate, and establishing a stretch and breathing routine to help you transition from night owl to morning riser.
