Swimming with Dolphins, SeaWorld, and Solitary Confinement

A few different links popped up on my Facebook newsfeed today that I shared without having time to write my thoughts on them. (I have since added comments). 

What started it was an article about the dangers of swimming with dolphins. Danger not to the human, but to the dolphin. 

Nothing in the article was a surprise to me. It wasn't disturbing, simply because I've been fortunate to know about these horrors for a while. 

There were about 5 months in my 9-year-old past where I wanted to be a dolphin trainer, but then I saw marine mammals in the wild and people educated me about the problems with keeping these creatures in captivity. 

I remember being somewhere around the age of 12, on a whale watching expedition with my family, having a "discussion" with one of the dads on the trip about places like SeaWorld and how terrible I thought it was and how I thought they should all be closed. He and others talked about how great they were that they could bring marine mammals to places that wouldn't normally have them—to people who would not normally be exposed to them. 

Sure, I get it. The first time I saw dolphins was at the Shed Aquarium. But there's no excuse for the torture we put marine mammals through. 

At the time I could only fight back tears, now I have more words. That was ten years ago and the fact that it's still happening is just fueling my fire. 

It's really easy for me to be cynical right now simply because I have been fortunate enough to have people in my life telling me about this from a very young age and passionate enough to have wanted to learn more on my own. I don't understand how people could not know that swimming with dolphins against their will is torture, but not everyone has had the same experiences I have. If you have taken advantage of some of the swimming with dolphins facilities around the world I'm not going to blame you. Obviously it's not in the corporations' best interest for you to know how terribly they are treating the animals. 

Again, nothing in the second article surprised me either. I've known about the pod of orcas it mentions who face some of the same dental issues because of their diet of skates and rays ever since I read Alex Morton's book Listening to Whales years ago. I know that these creatures have never harmed humans in the wild and the only reason they're aggressive is because of the huge amount of drugs they're on and the fact that they are literally going crazy. 

We're putting marine mammals in solitary confinement. There have been studies done on the dangers of solitary confinement and how people put in these units very often go insane, become more aggressive, even kill themselves to get out of the torture. 

This is exactly what we're doing to marine mammals. And it needs to stop. 

The last article is long—I haven't even read all of it—but here's a quote I pulled that I think really sums up what I wanted. 

The article was written by an inmate who was in solitary confinement for 26 years. What he describes is probably very similar to what orcas, dolphins, whales, and other marine mammals are experiencing in captivity everywhere. The only difference is that we don't have the intelligence or apparent emotional or intellectual capacity to understand the signals they're giving us. Just because they don't speak our language doesn't mean they shouldn't be respected. 

"I’ve experienced times so difficult and felt boredom and loneliness to such a degree that it seemed to be a physical thing inside so thick it felt like it was choking me, trying to squeeze the sanity from my mind, the spirit from my soul, and the life from my body. I’ve seen and felt hope becoming like a foggy ephemeral thing, hard to get ahold of, even harder to keep ahold of as the years and then decades disappeared while I stayed trapped in the emptiness of the SHU world. I’ve seen minds slipping down the slope of sanity, descending into insanity, and I’ve been terrified that I would end up like the guys around me that have cracked and become nuts. It’s a sad thing to watch a human being go insane before your eyes because he can’t handle the pressure that the box exerts on the mind, but it is sadder still to see the spirit shaken from a soul. And it is more disastrous. Sometimes the prison guards find them hanging and blue; sometimes their necks get broken when they jump from their bed, the sheet tied around the neck that’s also wrapped around the grate covering the light in the ceiling snapping taut with a pop. I’ve seen the spirit leaving men in SHU and have witnessed the results."

If humans can't even respect each other it seems hopeless to think that they could respect other species, but damn, we have to try. 

Body Positivity

I debated posting something about this ever since I saw a Humans of New York post about it. I just haven't been able to get it out of my mind, so I figured it was time. 

The majority of my life I've been pretty freaking skinny—tan, skinny, and blonde. Many people see this combination and think "Oh, she must have no self-esteem issues at all! If I looked like that, I would be happy." I didn't try to look like this. It was just my genetics. I came the way I came. I had a fast metabolism and was dancing and swimming and in general pretty active, just because I liked it. 

I remember a moment my freshman year of high school when I was walking to the cafeteria and I head someone behind me say something about anorexia. Who knows if it was actually about me, but I took it that way and became more embarrassed about my awkward teenage body than I already was. There's all this hype about fat-shaming and I'm not saying skinny-shaming is the same thing, but it's definitely out there, too. 

People always talk about the "freshman fifteen," a splendid moment that hit me as the "gap-year fifteen." As much as my 13 year old self couldn't wait to have boobs, my 18 year old self was mourning the stretch marks, the dimples, the multiple necks that I felt plagued my body. People would comment on the change, some saying I was still beautiful or that it didn't matter what I looked like. 

But I didn't feel beautiful and it didn't matter what anyone told me. I was never going to feel beautiful because I couldn't see myself as such. 

My point is really what we all should know to be true. 

Body positivity doesn't come from a weight, or a diet, or how "in shape" a person is. Recently I've been looking at myself in the mirror, at my reflection in a window, or just down at my body as I sit, walk, dance, type, anything, and feeling good. Sure, it's summer and I'm more happily tan and blonde and thinner than my gap-year self and that makes me personally feel pretty. Last summer, though I was tanner and blonder and my thought process wasn't the same, though, so the only thing that has really changed is my brain. 

Posts from women about their own lightning strikes of stretch marks, countless illustrations, and aerie's incredible (although shouldn't be) campaign for unretouched women all remind me of the different kinds of beauty. 

Obviously just viewing these things is not what made me more body positive. I've had to push myself out of my comfort zone in order to feel comfortable in my body. Through Carleton's Skin Deep, rock climbing, dancing more and in different ways, talking about my body, and wearing short shorts—all things that scared me, believe it or not—I've been able to come to see myself as beautiful. 

The point is:

It's a constant battle. You do have to tell the little judgmental side of your brain to shut up sometimes and other times you have to listen to it in order to motivate yourself to push a little harder, if that's what is going to fuel your beauty fire. 

In my "gap-year fifteen" phase my mom was always the one to tell me that I was the only one who could change how I felt. I always kind of hated it when she did, because I would commented on my body while I was eating ice cream or something complaining about one of my chins and I knew she was right, but couldn't admit it to myself or could't find a way to change it. 

Mama, you were right. As always.