“Sturdy but beautiful”, yeeesh.

This makes me mad, at least some commenters think so too

I do not believe in free speech the american way, that regardless how many people you will offend or hurt directly, your right to express yourself is above all, but people simply cannot be made responsible for the way some people will perceive things in general. An image that for someone can be edgy for other can be disgusting.

Sorry, like I said, got a little emotional there and didn’t proofread before posting!

My opinion here is difficult to articulate but I do want to try. The crowd I grew up with during the 90s, my teen years, was extremely diverse in terms of age, gender, sexual identity, personal style, and political leanings. What almost everyone had in common was drug use. Basically, my hometown was just small enough that the entire counter-cultural scene was an extended community where everyone knew everyone else and co-existed rather peacefully. It was also just big enough (and located on a drug-running trajectory between Florida and the northeast) to be saturated with inexpensive drugs of pretty much every sort imaginable. Some of us stuck with the classic booze and pot preferences, with lighter experimentation into other categories. Many, many, many others fell prey to much heavier habits and quickly the story of addiction – with its entourage of violence (from domestic abuse to outright drug-related murder), sickness, and death not far behind. These drugs, particularly heroin, became a part of the narrative of our lives at an age when most kids are worrying about prom dresses and the SATs.

I can specifically remember one friend discussing his reasons for trying heroin the first time (by this point he was several years an addict, and around 19 years old). He was a talented musician, and welcomed that first syringe as the missing link of authenticity he needed to fully give himself over to the rocknroll lifestyle. Were glamorous images of heroin use (whether in the form of a photograph or otherwise) at play in drawing that once-handsome, once-talented, once-potentially-relevant young musician to drug abuse? Was ‘good judgement’ or ‘freedom of expression’ around to keep him from hungrily embracing that needle and becoming the now-pathetic, now-stunted, now-entirely-hopeless addict I recently bumped into on a visit back home? 100 fucking percent.

This is just one of dozens of examples I could give to illustrate my point here. At least Kevin is still alive, which is more than I can say for many others. You know what isn’t sexy at all? Fucking dying.

My thoughts on censorship don’t even enter into this. Those images DO romanticize drug use, and some who see them WILL receive the message this way. Those are the facts, and folks who choose to take these photos or post them on an ‘edgy’ tumblr ARE participants in a heroin-positive sphere of influence whether they want to admit it or not.

I’m not sure if my argument has made much sense here…I’ve ended up frustrated and in tears as I write this because to me the consequences of all this are way too real. This is something I’ve been confounded and scarred by for two decades, but rarely tried to put into words. Hope it makes sense at least a little bit…