4 - Friday, February 5, 2010 The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com E-MAIL ELAINE AT EMORT@UMICH.EDU ~Jt~ ffid~ian 4Ia4 t (Cigai fati Edited and managed by students at the University of Michigan since 1890. 420 Maynard St. Ann Arbor, MI 48109 tothedaily@umich.edu ELAINE MORTON -TNTP ANTl-fiK We'TY bIA. " . No W possti' STA <-yiA. Ptl-MTTO lbSUIL-VI,, - oN I4L' lLor- F of JUST CosA-E ONLYX12r- EOETSItHE Are4 tSR'S WL-AFiIOIB StivtTS JACOB SMILOVITZ EDITOR IN CHIEF RACHEL VAN GILDER EDITORIAL PAGE EDITOR MATT AARONSON MANAGING EDITOR Unsigned editorials reflect the official position oftthe Daily's editorial board. All other signed articles and illustrations represent solely the views ofttheir authors. Bring out the bins 'U' needs to increase easy access to recycling in Lawyers Club S tudents who live in the University's Lawyers Club experience elegant architecture, pristine surroundings and, apparently, a surprising vacuum of recycle bins. Residents of the Law- yers Club, a residence hall located in the Law Quad, are expressing frustration over a lack of recycling options in their residence hall. In attempts to explain the absence, administrators have offered excus- es that simply don't fly. Recycling serves an important environ- mental purpose, and the University needs to ensure that recycling receptacles for paper are readily available in the halls and rooms in residence halls, including in the Lawyers Club. An immodest proposal 0 As reported in the Daily on Monday, there are no recycling bins available with- in the halls or rooms of the Lawyers Club. Residents who wish to recycle must walk their recyclable materials to a separate location because there are no receptacles in the actual living area. Students say they are being discouraged from recycling because it's simply much more convenient to throw away recyclable materials like plastic and paper in much closer trashcans. In the past, the University hasn't been blind to the value of recycling. The Ross School of Business, for example, recently introduced composting and recycling pro- grams to reduce its waste. And in the 2010 College Sustainability Report Card by the Sustainable Endowments Institute, the University received an 'A' for its efforts. Recycling at the University is an effec- tive way to reduce waste and help the environment. With landfills overflowing and the U.S. annually producing 251 mil- lion tons of garbage, according to a 2006 report from the Environmental Protection Agency, trash is aserious problem. Recy- cling also supports the environment by reusing materials that take energy, natu- ral resources and pollution to make. The simple act is clean and efficient, and there's no reason that it shouldn't be available to students. But the recycling problems at the Law- yers Club are a black mark on the Uni- versity's record. It's both surprising and inexcusable that students living in the Lawyers Club don't have easy access to recycling options within their residence hall. Students shouldn't need to search or trek through snow to find a place to recycle their trash. Recycling bins need to be avail- able in prime locations, including students' rooms or surrounding hallways. Perhaps as pitiful as the absence of recy- cling options at the Lawyers Club are the excuses being offered by administrators, who cite a lack of space and fire safety con- cerns as the reasons recycling has been neglected. But if trashcans can be provid- ed within the hall, as they have been, it's absurd to suggest that a recycling program can't be implemented. To make matters worse, the Law School has also neglected to recycle the paper waste produced in an office space it rents within the Lawyers Club. Administrators at the Law School and the Lawyers Club can't agree who is responsible for overseeing recycling in ,the office - so recycling has simply been neglected. But these excuses are laughable and could be easily overcome. The truth of th m terjt }gXputtjg gtt, recycle bins in the Lawyers Club shouldn't be a difficult process. The University needs to stop its bureaucratic excuses and get recycling into the Lawyers Club. Last weekend, University Health Service's peer sexual health education group, Sexperteam, presented its sec- ond annual three- day seminar called "Sexpertise: Con- versations about relationships, sexual health, and sex." Wendy Shalit, author of "A Return to Modesty: Dis- LIBBY covering the Lost ASHTON Virtue" and "Girls Gone Mild: Young Women Reclaim Self-Respect and Find It's Not Bad to Be Good," helped to launch the weekend's events, serving as the key- note speaker for the panel discussion Wednesday night titled "No Strings Attached? A Conversation About Sex and Relationships on Campus." Shalit's motivation in writing and speaking about the status of sexuality today seems to be twofold: she's both urging young people to consider the negative implications of the "hook- up" scene (which refers to anything from a long kiss to sex) and facilitat- ing our realization of our own dissat- isfaction with it. After reading aloud the saddening personal accounts of young people who sought her counsel regarding their feelings of worthlessness after a nightofhookingup, Shalitspoke about the pluralistic ignorance she's found to be binding young people to the empty reality of casual sex. According to her, we're wrong to assume that everyone around us is hooking up with each other and probably even more wrong to assume that those who are hooking up feel satisfied by their hookups. She reminded the audience of the impor- tance of emotional intimacy in experi- encing fulfilling physical intimacy and asked,,rletorically, "What's thepoint. of casual sex if it isn't any good?" Although many of Shalit's obser- vations contained kernels of truth, something about the way she articu- lated her message was off-putting. Shalit calls for a reconsideration of whether or not sexual prowess is a means to empowerment. She seems to have a visceral, negative reaction to the relationship between sexual lib- eration and personal empowerment. This reaction, I suspect, follows from an insight that a failure to honor the intimately personal nature of her body would allow a feeling of worth- lessness to seep into her innermost self-regard. She extrapolates from that personal insight (one to which I and probably many others can relate) to prescribe that all people must honor their bodies, with a behavioral lifestyle of "modesty" and "virtue," in order to be truly empowered. Shalit seems to have mistaken the foundational problem of the cyclically devaluing hookup scene as being an oversexed culture with no care for the private realm. She sees a genera- tion of young people who blindly fall prey to the precedent of sexual free- dom established in the '60s and - as her narrative samples illustrated - wake up the next morning feeling self- loathsome and inauthentic. That diagnosis, however, ignores those who do have a foundation of self-respect and aren't emotionally repressed but still choose to engage in behavior that Shalit may not deem "modest." To imply that one must either be emotionally repressed or sexually repressed leaves everyone powerless in some respect. While our hypersexual culture certainly facili- tates the devaluing of physical inti- macy and the repression of emotional intimacy, the primary cause of con- sistent self-inflicted degrading sexual behavior is a pre-existing lack of self- worth and self-awareness. The general insecurity that seems to plague many young people features a variety of symptoms including binge drinking, bullying, eating disorders and injurious sexual behavior. If, in attempting to remedy this societal ail- ment, we distract ourselves by focus- ing too heavily on one of the products of the insecurity, we'll allow the inse- curity itself to continue masquerading as other (seemingly more pertinent) self-destructive behaviors. Hookups don't equal an unhealthy sexual attitude. Near the end of the panel discus- sion, Shalit suggested that perhaps people are reluctant to accept the reality of a problem when no obvious solution seems to be available. The prospect of somehow lessening this mass psychological handicap (which could be a timeless characteristic of youth) is daunting, but not impossible. As Shalit noted, the necessary first step toward solving a prob- lem is accepting that it exists. This would require a lifting of the veil of pluralistic ignorance and an admis- sion of the fear of vulnerability and rejection that guides so many people down a path of unfulfilling, mutually destructive relationships. Applying Shalit's rather abstract conversation about sexual emotional health to a Saturday night in Ann Arbor is similarly daunting, but not impossible. As you walk into the bar or your friend's house or the frater- nity house, make a commitment to honor your own fragility and that of those around you. Guide your actions by a doctrine of respect. Modesty may (or may not) follow. - LibbyAshton can be reached at eashton@umich.edu. EDITORIAL BOARD MEMBERS: Nina Amilineni, Emad Ansari, William Butler, Nicholas Clift, Michelle DeWitt, Brian Flaherty, Jeremy Levy, Erika Mayer, Edward McPhee, Emily Orley, Harsha Panduranga, Alex Schiff, Asa Smith, Brittany Smith, Robert Soave, Radhika Upadhyaya, Laura Veith AMY SONG It's time to end sex trafficking LETTERS TO THE EDITOR: Readers are encouraged to submit letters to the editor. Letters should be fewer than 300 words and must include the writer's full name and University affiliation. Letters are edited for style, length, clarity and accuracy. All submissions become property of the Daily. We do not print anonymous letters. Send letters to tothedaily@umich.edu. Entering the Tyson Zone Want to make $32 billion in a year? That's more than Nike, Starbucks and Google com- bined. Go to your local massage parlor, nail salon, ethnic restaurant or men's club to find out the secret. India, Thailand and the Philippines know as well. What's the answer? Just join the sex trafficking industry. If you think this only happens in poor, Southeast Asian countries, reconsider. People are sold as sex slaves right here in America and right here in Michigan. For almost a year, Katya, a 20-year-old Ukrainian college student, was forced to work in Detroit strip clubs, according to a December 2007 MSNBC.com report. She was enticed by two men who, using a waitressing job as bait, lured Katya into coming to the United States. Upon her arrival in the country, however, she was imprisoned along with 15 other women in separate apartments around Detroit. They were threatened with violence to force them to work 12-hour shifts, earning up to $1,000 a night. But they never saw a penny of the money. The men controlled their every movement. These women were imprisoned and exploited, without any freedom or any way of finding help. There are stories worse than this. Young teenage girls are sometimes kidnapped from their driveways and forced into sex slavery. Girls are gang raped, brutally abused, threat- ened to submission, treated worse than animals, locked up in cages or dresser drawers during the day and brought out to work entire nights with their every action closely monitored. These are modern-day slaves. Females are exploited to work for sex without pay. You would be shocked to find out that the U.S. is the . second largest destination of sex trafficked vic- tims. These people can be found in New York penthouses, Nevada's brothels, California's massage parlors and in our very own metropo- lis, Detroit City's strip clubs. Traffickers use children to sell sex in big cit- ies and small towns across the United States. Victims are tricked into the business through jobs and educational opportunities or sold by parents or spouses. Sex trafficking often includes exploitation through prostitution, pornography and stripping. Some sources will tell you there are around 27 million slaves in the world right now - more than at any time in history - making the trade the most lucrative and fasting growing crime industry in the world, behind the illegal drug trade. Over 2.2 million children are sold into slavery every year, though not all to perform sex work. There are girls who start working as sex slaves at the age of 10 or even younger; for boys, the average age is between 11 and 13 years old. In India, 40 percent of prostitutes are children ages 12 to 14. Every year, 244,000 to 325,000 American children and youth are at risk for sexual exploitation and sex trafficking. According to a 2006 U.S. Department of State Trafficking in Persons Report, an estimated 14,500 to 17,500 victims of all ethnicities, rang- ing from 12 to 18 years old, are brought into the U.S. against their will. But this doesn't have to continue. We can be the new abolitionists of this century to free these people. There is hope: There are already victims who have survived, rebuilt their lives and even reached out to help others suffering as they once had. We can raise awareness within our commu- nities. No longer can people be ignorant of this issue by thinking that human trafficking only occurs in foreign places. No community is seen as untouchable in the eyes of human traffickers. We can change the conversation. Children are too young to consent to sex so they should not be viewed as entering prostitution, but as victims of human trafficking. Victims should not be punished;as is the law now. Those on the demand side - buyers and pimps - are the ones to be held responsible. We should be on the lookout. If you suspect slavery or exploitation, call the National Traf- ficking Hotline at (888) 3737-888. Be informed. Fact sheets and articles on this issue are easily accessible online. Organizations like International Justice Mission will send you updates when you sign up online at www.ijm. org/justicecampaigns. Go to the website now to read and sign a petition asking President Barack Obama to push for further change in this area. We must reduce demand. Fight sex tourism. Ask travel agencies, hotels, tours to sign the Code of Conduct for the Protection of Children from Sexual Exploitation in Travel and Tourism at www.thecode.org. And go to the League this Friday. At 7:30 p.m., Emmanuel Jal, a former child soldier turned musician and human rights activist, will speak about similar issues at the 6th Annu- al Midwest Hip Hop Summit. Amy Song is a Public Policy senior. The Rip Torn story, currently buried on the third page of most national newspapers, may very well be the most under- rated celebrity scandal of all time. It has now made its way up the hierar- chy of crazy celeb stories with the h likes of Eddie Mur- phy receiving fel- latio from a tranny LINCOLN hooker, Rob LoweBM filming a sex tape BOEHM with a 16-year-old and Kanye West's infamous - yet underrated - "George Bush doesn't care about black people" comment. (You do realize he was talk- ing about the sitting president, right? Cajones.) For those of you who don't know who Rip Torn is or what happened, let me break it down for you. Rip Torn is a hilarious actor. You have most likely seen him in films and would without question recognize him. He played Zed in both "Men In Black" movies, he was the coach in the wheelchair in "Dodgeball" and he played Artie on what is in my opinion the best TV show of all time, "The Larry Sand- ers Show." Rip Torn is a legend. Some may say a comedic God - he even did the voice of Zeus in the Disney movie "Hercules." Coincidence? I think not. The question is, if he's so amazing and so important, why haven't you heard about what he did one week ago today? And if you have heard about it, why haven't you heard more about it? Rip Torn is 78 years old, and last Friday night he got incredibly drunk, loaded up his revolver and broke into a bank in Connecticut. Pause for disbelief. That's right. This 78-year-old mhan broke into a bank with a loaded gun while he was close to over three times the legal blood alcohol level, accord- ingto reports by The Associated Press. When I first heard this story, I didn't believe it. It's not that I didn't believe it could have happened - I just didn't believe it could have happened and not garnered appropriate attention from the media. In my mind, this story has five unbelievable parts to it, but it only needs two or three of them to be a front-page story. Part one: We have a 78-year-old man. That's older than a lot of your grandparents. Part two: He's piss drunk. Part three: He's car- rying around a loaded revolver. Part four: He breaks into a bank. Part five: He is a very well-known celebrity. Put two or three of those parts together and you have a shocking story. All five? That's pure chaos. lsat down with one of my friends to try to figure out why this wasn't front- page material. We determined that it's because society has thrown Rip Torn into the Tyson Zone. For those of you not familiar with writer Bill Simmons, the Tyson Zone is a group of people who have displayed such craziness that they can do anything, and if you heard about it you'd believe it and not be shocked. Other members of the Tyson Zone include Mike Tyson, Ron Artest, Gary Busey, Tom Cruise and Flava Flav. For example, if some- one said to me, "Yo, Lincoln, did you hear that Ron Artest is going to fight a caged lion on national television to raise money for Haiti?" My response would be "Dude, not now, I'm in the middle of writing my column." My friend and I determined that Rip Torn is the first person in history to be retroactively inducted into the Tyson Zone. He hadn't done anything too crazy prior to this, but once it hap- pened it came as no surprise. Most people's responses were something like, "I've been expecting Rip Torn to do this for years." I don't get how this made so much sense to everyone, but it did. Nobody seems to be surprised by this story, but I think the idea of anybody older than my grandpa rob- bing a bank is nuts - not to mention that the culprit is Zed from "Men In Black." The most crazy 0 celeb story you haven't heard. You may be asking yourself, "Why would you write your column about Rip Torn, Lincoln?" Well, that's a valid question. The answer is simple: I refuse to be a part of this conspiracy to ignore Rip Torn and his ridiculous behavior. The man was too much of an influence on me as a child. I respect him too much as a human being to let this slide. Someone needs to put a foot down and say: "Did nobody see that this just happened? For the love of God, someone please care." So I'll take it upon myself to say: Did nobody see that this just happened? For the love of God, someone please care. - Lincoln Boehm can be reached at Isboehm@umich.edu. onate, strong d. Editorial Board and writing the :he opinion page. G@UMICH.EDU The Daily is looking for diverse, passi student writers to join the Editorial Boar members are responsible for discussing editorials that appear on the left side of t E-MAIL RACHEL VAN GILDER AT RACHELV FOR MORE INFORMATION.