Fucking, Flag-Waving and Free Speech

Since high school, free speech has always been a major political issue for me. In my senior year, I helped found a literary magazine that was immediately censored by the administration before we could publish our first issue (the printer ratted us out). They objected to the use, in a couple of pieces of writing (including one of mine), of the word fuck. Admittedly, a word that no high school student would use and one that, therefore, should not appear in a student publication. As a fellow student reminded me, in the midst of the controversy, “Good writers don’t need to use bad words.”

To which I say, Fuck him. Obviously.

But we went ahead and censored the magazine because we wanted to publish it. And I say with some pride that, as far as I can tell, the magazine still exists, thirty-three years later.

That run-in with the administration was only the first round in a campaign of pushing the principal’s buttons I engaged in for the entire year after that. A skit I wrote for the drama club to perform at a pep assembly was also censored (I placed satirically sexist language in a character’s mouth), as was a poster advertising the literary magazine (the magazine was called Chautauqua; I advised students on its pronunciation on the poster by spelling it “Shit Aqua”). Another time, I wore a ball cap to school (a blank ball cap), in violation of a dress code rule that made no sense to me. I told myself that I would remove the hat if any authority figure could adequately explain the rule. None could, of course, though several tried. And believe me, the explanations those adults gave were fucking stupid.

That little stunt resulted in my being suspended for the rest of the day. My deeply amused mother had to come pick me up. She still, to this day, mocks the Vice Principal for his explanation that he doesn’t always want to wear a tie to school, but it’s just something he has to do. (I counted myself lucky that I got rounded up before my afternoon singing class. That instructor—an extraordinary choir teacher—was a terrifying little German bulldog, with the unlikely name of Merlin. I had personally seen him reduce a disobedient student, who outweighed him by about 100 pounds and was at least two heads taller than him, to a quivering wreck by doing little more than planting himself squarely in his path, bracing his compact frame for potential violence and glaring at him with Stygian fury. My hat might not have survived.)

Then, there was the final matter of a certain massive water balloon fight that happened in the cafeteria on the last day of school. I was not the organizer of this event. But it’s possible that, when caught balloon-handed by staff, instead of not throwing the balloon, I became the first person to throw a balloon, thus setting off a brief but intense battle in the eternal war of Giggling Teenager v. Hapless Adult. I was required to attend Saturday detention, under threat of not receiving my diploma at Sunday’s ceremony. Meaning, the literal paper.

To this day, I do not have a high school diploma.

Not for nothing—in fact, let’s be honest, for everything—I was highly motivated in all of this by the fascination and curiosity my proudly rebellious behavior inspired in many of the most beautiful and intelligent girls around me. I mean, priorities, amirite? I was handsomely rewarded. But I really did believe in what I was doing and, most of all, I was just done being governed by these inadequate grownups and their middle-aged compromises and failures.

Smash-cut. Thirty-some years later…

My teenage son, almost 16—God forgive me—has inherited my talent for provocation and my outsize jones for justice. He is more mature than I was, and far more calm (he is not undiagnosed, you see). But—when he finds injustice or blinkered stupidity parading before him, he, like his father, cares little for what “polite society” will think. He stands up—and he does it most of all, not for himself, but for others who can’t always stand up for themselves. I admire him very much.

Yesterday he took two full-sized flags on flagpoles with him to school. An American flag and a Progress Pride flag, which many people think of as the “trans” flag. His intention was to protest the incoming Trump administration’s depraved cruelty.

He was not allowed to have the flags with him in school and was required to leave them outside. The explanation he was given was that it was “disruptive,” the classic line. And an even better one: “If we allow you to carry these flags, we would have to allow the carrying of a Trump flag.” Yes, and? (Was anyone in the school agitating to carry a Trump flag? Would anyone in this particular school community—a public charter, where all of the district’s assorted glorious weirdos end up and where there is certainly a greater concentration of gender non-conforming kids than any other school in the district—respond to his carrying the trans flag by coming to school with a Trump flag? Is this a real concern, or a mealy-mouthed dodge?)

For the record, I think the principal of this school is a wonderful person. He’s got a tough, thankless job. He is a good and fair man. And he respects my son. But this does not mean that he didn’t stoop to the usual condescending arguments, because the truth is that schools are factories for turning out conformists, and dissent may only appear in heavily proscribed ways.

But I told my son, “that he would be likely be able to find other ways to express himself that won’t run into [the principal’s] censorship requirements.” That’s how I explained it to my wife in text. She responded by affixing a gold star to my text, meaning: Look at you, husband! You have matured!

It’s true that my views have become more nuanced. I am anti-censorship. Yet I know there are few easy answers. One more example, from recent headlines.

The Supreme Court is considering whether to uphold laws in states that have required age-verification for pornography sites. The ACLU, one of my long-time hero organizations, is against this, because of concerns that such a law will prevent adults from accessing constitutionally-protected content. The court struck down portions of laws in the 1990s that had the same aim—to protect minors from pornography. At that time, however, secure, private age-verification systems did not exist. Now they do. And so I think the court should uphold age-verification requirements.

Minors should not see hardcore pornography. They will see it, regardless, as I did when I was a teenager. But I saw it rarely, on the surreptitiously possessed VHS and secret magazine stashes of my friends. Today’s children and teenagers have instant access to infinite pornography, a great deal of which is far beyond what almost anyone would consider “normal” sexuality. Mature adults with healthy sexual relationships may be able to understand and even celebrate the variety of consensual human sexual acts, but underage virgins don’t have a chance of doing so. This should be obvious to everyone (except teenagers, perhaps—that’s why they still need adults to protect them).

Let’s be crystal clear. If anyone at all tries to use age-verification requirements to prevent minors from accessing information about sex, about birth control, about STDs, about LGBTQ issues; about pregnancy and abortion; about any kind of health issues whatsoever, physical or mental; or to prevent minors from accessing the myriad artistic works that reference or depict human sexuality in non-pornographic contexts; I am one hundred percent opposed. Will people attempt to use age-verification laws to ban non-pornographic material and health information and art? Of course they will. Will sensible people fight back? Of course they will. Because there is nuance, and because a lot of Americans are vastly illiterate fools, and because human beings are generally bad to mediocre in everything they do. But it’s okay. We’ll survive. We’ll fight back against the scolds and prudes and, in the meantime, help our children better navigate their world.