A news article prompted this one...
Wander through a store, K-Mart, Target, Santanica-Incarnata, er.. I mean Wal-Mart and walk through the female clothing area. You'll find shirts that have "Too Hot" on them and low-belly cut short-shorts with cherries stitched on the butt. Honestly, the typical slutty girl clothes. Though I don't find the concept of them all that great, there's really only one problem I see with these clothes.
They're in the 8-12 year old girl's sections.
I don't know what I find more disturbing about the growing trend of sexualizing our pre-teen girls (Heck, I find a problem sexualizing any girl under 18, after that they can make their own choice), the fact that reputable stores are marketing and selling this crap or the fact that parents let their kids wear it. I can't express the disgust I feel when a twelve year-old girl wanders around my store with her parents wearing a clothing style that could only be described as the "sexy style."
There's nothing sexy about a twelve year-old.
What the fuck is wrong with our society when this is being considered more and more by people as acceptable. When I was a kid, girls wore pants and regular t-shirts that were much like boy's clothes in cut, but had the typical girl-modifications (you know, blouses, flowers, bright and vibrant "girl" colors). If they weren't wearing those, they wore either dresses (usually the Morman girls), sweat-outfits, or full pajamas (a trend I never really understood). Not a single girl wore an outfit that accentuated their T&A, showed of their belly, or had a cleavage cut because, quite frankly, they weren't out trying to get boys. Heck, my junior-high dances were composed of maybe five couples tops dancing in the middle of the gym with the other hundred or so boys on one side and girls on the other.
But appearantly we want pregnant 14 year-olds and 10 year-olds with STDs.
Did you know that the CDC recommends HPV vaccinations for 9 year-old girls now? An STD vaccination before you hit double-digits! When my friends and I were nine the only vaccinations concerning the opposite sex we had were cootie-shots! Criminy!
I dunno. I think parents need to get off their asses and realize that they A. shouldn't let their kids do whatever the fuck they want and B. That it's not "cute" when their kids act like adults. Even back in the olden days when you were expected to have a family and a job by 18 they didn't expect their kids to be adults that young. The Quincinera (I don't feel like putting the the tilde~ there) is the Spanish celebration of a young woman officially being able to get married. It happens at 15. The Bar Mitzva (Pardon any spelling mistakes there) for boys wasn't until age 13, and it was to celebrate the boy becoming a man and officially being able to get a job and hold rank as an adult in society. They still weren't expected to have a wife until a bit later in life.
What has happened to us recently were kids are becoming sexualized so fucking early? There is no way a kid less than fifteen is mentally capable of any sexual relations, and most people take years beyond that to be able to handle it. (They might be interested, but aren't capable of truly understanding it.) But parents aren't just letting their kids dress and act slutty, they're encouraging it.
I think we, as a societal whole need to reevaluate (again, too tired to put the double-dots there) what we're doing to our kids and say "no." I'm not saying that we should shield our kids from the idea of sex (birds and the bees talk so they don't leap in unprepared when they are old enough), I'm just saying that we should keep them from provoking and participating in anything sexual until they've atleast, say, entered highschool, lest we turn into a paedophile's paradise.
To sum it all up; sex and being sexy isn't for kids. It's for adults. Period.
They're in the 8-12 year old girl's sections.
I don't know what I find more disturbing about the growing trend of sexualizing our pre-teen girls (Heck, I find a problem sexualizing any girl under 18, after that they can make their own choice), the fact that reputable stores are marketing and selling this crap or the fact that parents let their kids wear it. I can't express the disgust I feel when a twelve year-old girl wanders around my store with her parents wearing a clothing style that could only be described as the "sexy style."
There's nothing sexy about a twelve year-old.
What the fuck is wrong with our society when this is being considered more and more by people as acceptable. When I was a kid, girls wore pants and regular t-shirts that were much like boy's clothes in cut, but had the typical girl-modifications (you know, blouses, flowers, bright and vibrant "girl" colors). If they weren't wearing those, they wore either dresses (usually the Morman girls), sweat-outfits, or full pajamas (a trend I never really understood). Not a single girl wore an outfit that accentuated their T&A, showed of their belly, or had a cleavage cut because, quite frankly, they weren't out trying to get boys. Heck, my junior-high dances were composed of maybe five couples tops dancing in the middle of the gym with the other hundred or so boys on one side and girls on the other.
But appearantly we want pregnant 14 year-olds and 10 year-olds with STDs.
Did you know that the CDC recommends HPV vaccinations for 9 year-old girls now? An STD vaccination before you hit double-digits! When my friends and I were nine the only vaccinations concerning the opposite sex we had were cootie-shots! Criminy!
I dunno. I think parents need to get off their asses and realize that they A. shouldn't let their kids do whatever the fuck they want and B. That it's not "cute" when their kids act like adults. Even back in the olden days when you were expected to have a family and a job by 18 they didn't expect their kids to be adults that young. The Quincinera (I don't feel like putting the the tilde~ there) is the Spanish celebration of a young woman officially being able to get married. It happens at 15. The Bar Mitzva (Pardon any spelling mistakes there) for boys wasn't until age 13, and it was to celebrate the boy becoming a man and officially being able to get a job and hold rank as an adult in society. They still weren't expected to have a wife until a bit later in life.
What has happened to us recently were kids are becoming sexualized so fucking early? There is no way a kid less than fifteen is mentally capable of any sexual relations, and most people take years beyond that to be able to handle it. (They might be interested, but aren't capable of truly understanding it.) But parents aren't just letting their kids dress and act slutty, they're encouraging it.
I think we, as a societal whole need to reevaluate (again, too tired to put the double-dots there) what we're doing to our kids and say "no." I'm not saying that we should shield our kids from the idea of sex (birds and the bees talk so they don't leap in unprepared when they are old enough), I'm just saying that we should keep them from provoking and participating in anything sexual until they've atleast, say, entered highschool, lest we turn into a paedophile's paradise.
To sum it all up; sex and being sexy isn't for kids. It's for adults. Period.