What are you experiences (help and research)?

[Serafine]

Dear people of Scarleteen!

Pardon me for my unwanted presence but my name is Niamh, Nee is my nickname but you may call me whatever you like or desire; one nickname is Skunk. <3 I have being a fan of the site since the age of 14 but it's only being since today that I have decided to become a member of the message boards today so you will see me later around the message boards, sadly. But I am here for a reason, and that is upon a mission for research and writing. And this is where the beautiful, brilliant and strong-hearted women of Scarleteen come in.

For my English class, I have being asked to do a creative writing assignment that is to be assessed - and in which focuses upon youth. I have decided to go further upon it and to focus upon issues that female youth (through it could border on all women) face. All through retellings of the timeless fairytales. Now, you may ask, why the hell do I want to present female youth issues in the retelling of fairytales? Because, first and foremost, I have loved fairytales since I was a child andI have always loved retellings in which deconstructs fairytales and the themes and characters. And most importantly, having studied fairytale texts, fairytales were written to provided morals but also gave a picture of the expected behaviour and ideals of womanhood and of feminine sexuality and livelihood - pure, docile, timid, speechless, objects and proof of victory for the heroes. *throws up*

That was where I decided to use fairytales as a way of writing out female youth issues - to create them from mere damsels that are to remain good and pure by being mere props to women with desires and hopes and sexuality, like any woman within the world. That is where I want to ask you guys the questions so I can make the stories and obstucles that the characters must face - as long as the lovely goddess of sexuality and knowledge and womenhood Heather Corinna (is that a shoutout to Persephone by the way, Miss Corinna, the last name?) allows it. <3333 I would appreciate that everyone can put in their stories, information and answers; staff, volunteers and members!

Here is the stories that I am writing which gives a small synopsis under each title and under the synopsis will you find the questions. (I will be planning on releasing them so you guys can read them!). Please look through all the questions and only answer the ones that you are comfortable with and can explain in good detail. You will be credited for within the project! <3)

Rudhira (Red Riding Hood - sexual assault, rape culture)
Rudhira is basically a retelling of Red Riding Hood and it set upon a Arabian realm where the young woman with her eye-catching scarlet hijab, Aamira, lives with her family. And is where, after going to visit her grandmother under the request of her mother to bring her food after the grandmother's long journey from the deserts, Aamira has being attacked by what we would know as the wolf in the original fairytale. And it is there, that Rudhira focuses upon the mental tramua that Aamira goes through, at the age of 14, after her rape. But more importantly, Rudhira focuses upon rape culture and how rape affects the victim and the reactions of the community.

Questions to Scarleteen staff and members
[list] - How did your family react to you or someone you know having went through sexual assault?
- Could you describe the short-term and long-term effects it had on you after sexual assault or someone you knew?
- If the sexual assault became public, how did your local community react?
- What forms of rape culture did you encounter?
- How did you deal with it?
- Did it have a effect upon relationships, sexuality, sexual health, body images, view of self, faith etc?
- How did you heal? Did it become easier or harder?
- What would you like to see in Rudhira?[/list]

Eleutheromania (Rapunzel - puberty, sexualty-shaming, teenage/unwanted pregnancy)
Again, another story and this time it is a retelling or Rapunzel, the maiden with the long hair known as Genevra and set within Italy. At least 16 years old throughout the story and this time, she has being sheltered from the entire world by, as we all know the story, living in a tower with her 'mother'. And this time, like in the orginial story, not Tangled (as much as I love it), Genevra knows nuthin about men or about sexuality. Nuthin - practically the oppisite of everyone here on Scarleteen. XD But in all seriousness, Genevra has being growing up and given no information about her body, her sexuality, about love or romance or sex and what exactly happens and the reason she is told why she can't go beyond the tower is because of men. Basically, Eleutheromania is a deconstuction and a look onto why abstience education is a horrific idea - while also hinting that the mother Guila was the victim to rape AKA why wants to keep Genevra away from men and does not want to tell her about sex and constantly shames her sexuality. Which is where the prince comes in. The Prince comes in from hearing Genevra singing and before you know it, Genevra falls in love - her first love. The prince stays for three days - and at the end of the three days, right before Guila is to come home, the Prince has Genevra 'show that her love is true' (as she knows) and leaves promising to come back.

That is when things go straight to hell soon. Just like in the original Genevra waits and waits for him to come, all while it comes to Genevra's notice that she seems to have became sick and her clothes have became too small for her - well, more like her waist. And when she raises the issue, Guila puts two and two together and throws a shit fit because, unknown to Genevra, what they did was have sex (again, Genevra was never taught about sex) and Genevra is currently pregnant at the age of 16. That is where the main issue of teenage pregnancy and sex-shaming comes in and where we see the conflict of Genevra dealing with a teenage pregnancy and being forced to leave after rejecting having a abortion (which at that time, was practically Genevra's death sentence).

Questions to Scarleteen staff and members
[list] - Did you live in a family where open discussion of sex/sexuality was taboo? What was it like?
- If you had a mother who you know suffered from past sexual assault/abuse, what was it like being raised by her?
- What was living in a household where sex-shaming was common like? What methods of sex-shaming used?
- If your first sexual experience was when you had little to no information about sex/sexuality, what as it like?
- If you became pregnant at a teenage age, how did you and your family react? Negatively? (this also applies if the pregnancy was unwanted I.E outside of marriage, partner family does not like, rape etc)
- How did you deal, physically and emotionally, with a unwanted pregnancy while carrying it full-term?
- If you were forced to leave home because of a unwanted pregnancy, how did you deal with it?
- (Medical question) What is the dangers of a teenage pregnancy at the age of 16, while suffering from malnutrition, heat exhasution within the first months of pregnancy? What problems would childbirth and labor encounter, both mother and baby?
- What would you like to see in Eleutheromania?[/list]

Concupiscence (The Little Mermaid - objectification, unhealthy relationship, agency, body image)
My most favourite fairytale and this time, it is set within Denmark like in the original setting but focuses on Renata (not Ariel!). Renata is a young mermaid of 16 who experiences her first love, that love being for the Prince Vilhelm she has saved at least a year ago when she was 15 years old. Coming to the Spirit of the Seas, Parthenope (who is hinted to have loved and sacrificed her mermaid form once upon a time for a failed romance), Renata sacrifices her voice and must undergo essentially the mutilation of her body to gain the love of the prince. However, Vilhelm and his court sees Renata less as a person but as a plaything, giving her the name of Grace and treating her more as a plaything to provide entertainment for the courts and that of the Prince, basically making her a trinket - all while demeaning her and slowly destorying any sense of a good body image and sense of agency for Renata herself. Thankfully, with help, Renata escapes the Prince and enters a loving relationship with another and becoming her own person and gaining a true sense of body image and of sexuality.

The story of Concupiscence is basically about how women are objectified and how misogny and objectification alongside with emotionally unhealthy relationships effect body image and a sense of self and of sexuality - all while exploring the themes of first love, heartbreak and actual, meaningful and true love, as one could call it.

Questions to Scarleteen staff and members
[list] - What was your first love like?
- Was there a time in where you faced objectification from a loved one?
- What does living with low body image like?
- Within the story, Renata feels as if she is purely a sexual object, that her desires do not matter. Was there a time when you encountered a situation like that? What is the mind state and behaviour of a person like Renata?
- What was living in a emotionally abusive relationship like?
- How did you heal from a emotionally-abusive/low body image?
- How did you gain your own sense of voice, so to say?
- What would you like to see in Concupiscence?[/list]

Philocaly (Snow White - ideals of beauty, conforming to society)
The fourth story goes to tell that of Princess Lixue, daughter of the assained Emperor of Imperial China and the stepdaughter to the feared Empress Consort Jia, who is seeking to scar each and every beautiful maiden in the Empire and to have Lixue scarred so terribly that she is considered a mere monster than that of a woman and exiled, so that Jia can retain her position as the most beautiful woman in the land and have her reign as Empress go unchallenged. From there, it explores both the perspectives of Jia and Lixue as Lixue hides within the apple orchards in the southernmost of China and Jia feels the pressure of society's view of beauty with her age and how her envy and her desire to conform consumes her to attempt murder on her stepdaughter.

And like any young girl, Lixue and Jia must endure in a society in which aims at difficult and mostly unattainable ideals of beauty and how it creates pressure against women, young and old alike, along with a sense of conforming within the ideals of society and how it views women and that of female youth and how the ideals of beauty change within each generation.

Questions to Scarleteen staff and members
[list] - How do you view yourself?
- What do you feel is the expectation of women within society?
- Do you feel pressures of beauty and conforming? How?
- Have you ever felt envious about another or have being the object of envy? How did it effect you?
- What do you fear if you are not a beautiful person within society's view? What would you say is the consequences of not being considered beautiful or fitting in?
- What would you like to see in Philocaly?[/list]

Astrophilia (Beauty and the Beast - same-sex love, homophobia)
Within this version of Beauty and the Beast, to continue the idea of multiculturalism ( and to enforce all female youth face these issues), it is set within the Arctic Circle. With this, there is a young girl called that of Serafima at the age of 16 who lives amongst the Arctic people of the northernmost of Russia who in spite of living amongst the wilderness, is still a educated woman with a love for astronomy and the Northern Lights but who is engaged to a man who she does not know, a man with a good status in St. Petersburg and is a good friend of the Tsar and who her father prays will provide for her. However, when her father was returning home from his journey to St. Petersburg to finalize the engagement, he is invited upon a glided airship where he dines and slumbers for the night - until he nearly steals away a model of the stars, something Serafima wanted dearly. To avoid death, Serafima must go to the glided airship, to pay for her father's sins.

It is from there that Serafima is not killed but is instead expected to act as the 'housekeeper' of the glided airship, all while coming to know what calls itself 'Beast', what hides in the shadows. Only to realize that this 'beast' is not a monster, but a woman like Serafima. The Tsar's daughter that was proclaimed dead many years ago, known as Tsarevna Ragneda, who was exiled by her father and mother and by the Imperial Court after being found in love with a woman - and left with burn scars that have deformed her face, as punishment from her mother and father. With this, the story focuses upon love going beyond appearance and gender and society ideals - but also focuses upon homophobia.

Questions to Scarleteen staff and members
[list] - When did you first discover that you loved the opposite sex?
- Have you faced or seen homophobia being done to you or a person you know?
- How have you faced homophobia that was either/both subtle/violent?
- Was your family rejecting of your sexuality? How were they? How did you deal with it?
- How does homophobia, in the present or past, effect you mentally or within your life?
- What was your first same-sex relationship like?
- What would you like to see in Astrophilia[/list]

So, five stories, all five which I have a good idea upon but in reach I need your knowledge and experience in. Comments, questions, answers and help are all wanted. And just want to let you guys know, from Heather Corinna to the newest member of the team, that you are nothing less than that of strong and good and brilliant and deserve nothing but love and your own happy endings. <3

Can't wait to get replies!

<33333,

Niamh/Nee/Skunk

[Heather]

I'm fine with this (and all my surname is a nod to is my birth certificate! But my understanding is my father chose is because that was the name of one of the poet Sappho's contemporaries). Also, just a person, not any kind of god-figure, I assure you.

However, you might just want to narrow things a lot here, particularly since you're asking very personal questions of people in a community you just arrived at, so no one knows you at all. Sharing such personal things with someone someone has no history with is asking a lot. (So, also just want to manage your expectations here: you may not get any answers here, so you may want to make sure you have other ways of finishing/doing this project!)

So, in order to make it likely you get some responses, how about you pick a couple fewer topics, and make less questions in the ones you choose? You also may want to ask people if they want to be credited in anything you do with this outside the site, since again, these are very personal questions and someone answering them may prefer you do not attach even their username to them.

A deadline may also be helpful for people!

Btw, if you're not already familiar, there is a pretty good literary history of feminist retellings of fairy takes and folk stories. Francesca Lia Block has an anthology of them, and there are also a couple multi-author anthologies with this theme you'd probably like (though your own concepts and ideas here sound pretty darn fantastic to me)!

[Serafine]

Dear Miss Corinna

It is nothing less than lovely to see you around here! And while I have never thought or read that person, having studied Geek Mythology and knowing that Corinna was based off Kore, a name for the goddess of rebirth known as Persephone, you choose that name. But seeing that you were born with it, I would say that it's fate showing through! <3

Also, thank you for pointing that out - I am more than grateful and I seemed to have gotten too caught up with the project to remember my sense of newness in this lovely community. Thank you, seriously. Which is why I want to remind you guys, you do not have to answer anything you are not comfortable with. I will be crediting the whole of Scarleteen message boards as to respect the privacy of revealed answers that may be deemed private (but if you would like to be creditted, I am more than willing to credit you on a whole). And with that, I have surveyed the questions and realized that some of the questions here may contain subjects too dark and private to be revealed to a newbie, like myself. I apologise if I have offended you.

However, if there are too many topics (which I am sticking to, I want to approach everything about female youth), what questions should I be asking that are more sensitive and less selective Lady Corinna? What topics on a whole you can see corresponding in the all of the stories that I can approach with?

Never the less, reply with further suggestions and advice people, and feel free to go through the questions!

P.S Deadline would be within two or three weeks time!