E. Michael Jones - How Joking About Life Turned Life Into A Joke

Athena Diaz was born in 1988 to a Mexican father and a mother whose roots go back to Church of Christ ministers in Louisiana. She was one of three children living in a household where the father was an alcoholic who was physically (but not sexually) abusive to her at an early age. Her mother checked out of family life when Athena was three or four by enrolling in a graduate program in mathematics. Athena remembers that one of the ways to be close to her mother was to be in math class with her, and so she became, as a result, a model student, eventually graduating as valedictorian from her high school.

Athenas father did not sexually assault her but he did beat her up frequently, something she ascribes to Mexican culture, Mexicans being known for their penchant to violence. Athena assumes that her father was baptized a Catholic because he grew up on a farm in Mexico. Her mother was extremely cold and strict, something she attributes to the fact that her preacher step-father molested her as a child. Athena remembers attending the Church of Christ Church in Lake Charles, Louisiana on a regular basis during her childhood.

By the time Athena reached the age of ten, her father was gone, her mom was at work, and she was home alone going through puberty and wishing someone would come for me because she felt super-isolated, mega-isolated. Mom was not around to explain the changes that were taking place in her body. They never talked about sexual issues. When Athena asked her mother what a condom was, her mother was horrified.

Sex education in school filled the vacuum at home. In order to take part in the sex ed class, Athena had to get permission from her parents. Athena passed the permission slip on to her mother, who passed it on to her father, who attended the class, decided that the film that was being shown was pornographic, and then refused to sign the permission slip. Undeterred, Athena forged his signature and attended the class anyway.

She eventually watched the sex ed film but doesnt remember it as being pornographic, something she understood because she had already been exposed to pornography at the age of seven when she popped a VHS cassette that was lying on their kitchen table into their VCR and began what would become a life-long habit of watching pornography.

She still remembers the XXX on the tapes that were in a grocery bag on the table and suspects that her father left them there on purpose as a trap that was supposed to ensnare someone even though shes not sure who, just because her father was a cruel person who would take pleasure pointing his finger at someone who had fallen into the trap he himself was in so that he could lord it over his victim.

Athena remembers feeling super-scared, but gradually the mega fear she felt subsided and was replaced by the sense that she was dealing with something that was almost a drug, like a joint, something that would arouse her, give her pleasure, and at the same time also give her some sense that she had power over her life and, she would discover, over the lives of others as well.

The power which that habit had over her behavior increased exponentially when the family bought its first computer around the year 2002, when she was 14 years old. Athena already knew about porn; she learned about masturbation from other girls her age; now those habits coalesced because of access to porn on the internet, which she would access when she was home alone, which was not infrequently since her father was gone and her mother was away at work. Athena developed the habit of pulling the plug on the computer whenever anyone showed up unexpectedly in the living room. Porn led Athena to chat rooms where she would log on by giving her age, sex, and location to predominantly older men in her area, who then risked jail time by contacting her in person. Athena remembers meeting a man in his twenties at the local public library. This led to sessions of making out in his car but nothing more than that. Athena then discovered that she had become popular with the middle aged men in her area, and they succeeded in persuading her to have sex with them after the twenty year old failed.

By the time she got to high school, the middle aged men in the chat rooms got displaced by her interest in the cool teachers in school, and that eventually led to sexual relations with a number of faculty members at her predominantly black high school. She developed her most serious relationship with a Hispanic teacher who was in his fifties when Athena was 16. The relationship was, of course, fraught with danger, and the teacher did not emerge unscathed. After looking into the e-mail account which Athena inadvertently left open, her mother discovered Athenas correspondence with the teacher. She printed the e-mails and showed them to the local police, who showed up at the school and arrested Athenas 50-year-old boyfriend, who, after pleading guilty to child abuse was sentenced to six months in prison, which eventually got commuted to house arrest because he developed throat cancer.

When I asked Athena if her affair had caused scandal at her high school, she replied Not really, because a lot of the teachers in the same school in Maryland were involved in sexual relations with their students. One teacher was sexually involved with ten different under-age girls. The school was basically a glorified day care center, so there was tons of this sort of stuff going on there, which she attributes to the loose sexual morality pandemic in black culture.

Because Athenas father was Mexican, Athena qualified for affirmative action scholarships. Because her mother had a Ph.D. in mathematics, she ended up not only being the smartest girl in the school, she was also able to capitalize on her situation by playing the female Hispanic card to get out of Prince Georges County, Maryland. Athena eventually succeeded in getting an affirmative action scholarship to MIT, where the shortcomings of being the smartest student in a substandard school became immediately apparent to her.