Women’s social issues have been treated in programs geared towards teens for ages. Remember when DJ Tanner went on a crash diet so she could look good in a bathing suit, and then passed out on a stairclimber?

On Saved by the Bell, Elizabeth Berkley gained pre-Showgirls notoriety, for the famous Jessie Spano Caffeine Pill Breakdown (I’m so excited! I’m so scared!). Of course, Full House and SBTB were heart-warming sitcoms, where everyone learns their lesson in the end, and move away from their self-destructive behavior, never to mention anorexia, bullimia, or drug abuse ever again.

The breakout Canadian teen sensation, Degrassi, which airs in the US on The N network, covers a variety of teen issues, without the cavity-inducing sugary sweetness of the stuff we grew up on. Among the kids who dabble in drugs, alcohol, eating disorders, and bi-polar disorder, Degrassi introduced the world to Ellie Nash, who is a cutter.

I’m too old for Degrassi, but I don’t care. I’m pretty much obsessed with it. The best part about the show is that it doesn’t sweep the issues under the rug at the end of each 22-minute episode. And because the writers have the balls to “Go There.” I mean, come on: we all know the caffeine-pill incident was a stand-in for a harder drug, like speed or something, but hard drugs don’t exist at Bayside High.

I remember when the cutting craze swept my middle school. I have no idea who started it, or why it caught on, but at my school, cutting was the iPhone of the late 90′s. Read More »

Last night, my roommate’s boyfriend was over at the apartment. It was dinner time. She was wearing her baggy pajama pants, her hair unkempt, her face make-up free. I noticed how little she seemed to care about her appearance while in his presence, and I’m not necessarily saying that’s a bad thing. She just seemed so comfortable, and so….indifferent.

And then it got me thinking about myself. I came up with a theory: You can tell if you love some one by how you act in the morning when you’re both in bed.

When we sleep over a guy’s place for the first time, we wake up next to him, hopefully giving ourselves a high five and doing a DJ Tanner, “Yes!” (you know, when she pulls her leg up and clenches her fist with a celebretory “yes!” if she gets away with some kind of shenanigan or something). We are wearing our cutest underwear, just in case of a little morning mess-around session. Read More »