Is This What I Have To Look Forward To With My Daughter?

[lightningBugout]

BTW this seems at tangentially germane to your post Barracuda - one of the biggest developments in the beauty industry in the past few years was Glamour's November 2009 plus-sized supermodel feature:

http://www.glamour.com/health-fitness/2 ... every-size

[norton ash]

Frilly underpanties on little girls don't drive "real men" to pedophilia.

I agree. But it does something for pedophiles, I'm sure. I'm just as sure that The Collector and Lolita are a very different sort of reading experience for some people.

Related: What does a 30-yr-old stripper dressed like a schoolgirl with a lollipop do for a normal man?

Both-- the girl and the woman-- alarm and embarrass me. I feel bad for them. Not funny, not cute, and the opposite of sexy, i.e., that gut feeling of revulsion and aversion. Not for the person herself, more for the culture that tells her that this is a good idea, that it's just fun.

[Joe Hillshoist]

This is a great discussion. I can see both LBO and 'cuda's point btw.

I think its all about control. It seems that sex has to be repressed and hidden or over the top and meaningless and there is no middle ground. (Probably cos the middle ground is where most ordinary people are at.) This is all about control.

Related: What does a 30-yr-old stripper dressed like a schoolgirl with a lollipop do for a normal man?

Reminds him of the girls he lusted over when he was a normal teenager? Or his first root.

[JackRiddler]

Related: What does a 30-yr-old stripper dressed like a schoolgirl with a lollipop do for a normal man?

Dismays me, but I am not a normal man, nor is anyone else quite. Not her, but the fact I'm in a world where anyone would imagine to present this as sexy - meaning it must work with some. Why?

When I was a kid, I lusted after women, not schoolgirls with lollipops. Among peers, I was more excited about girls who could play chess, or liked science fiction (a category probably a bit rarer then than now). But I'm very weird, I guarantee you!

[barracuda]

I don't think that's a great example. As far as I know there is no cultural history of shifting boundaries demarcating the appropriateness of human/transhuman (or at least trans-animal) sexual behaviors, with chocolate snacks or otherwise. Whereas there is with pedophilia.

What? Cocophilia isn't a great example?

Maybe you're right. Anyway, regarding the cultural history of shifting boundaries, I assume you are referring to the ages in which youngsters have been viewed as appropriate for sexual activity. And though I understand your point, I cannot think of any time in the past when seven year old girls such as those in the video were deemed viable sexual targets. Ever. So in as much as the allowable age of marriageable females has fluctuated, it seems safe to say that that age has rarely, if ever, strayed below the lower ranges of fertility. (Boy, is this a slippery ledge.)

On a less-than-conscious level I think that moral/ethical awareness is how cultures regulate all sorts of norms. One might imply based on your reply that (and without reading what I wrote) I had made an argument about sexy clothes provoking rape et al. Which could not be further from the truth. Though I, of course, do not hold you accountable for how that might be interpreted.

I am kind of under the impression that the gist of the contentiousness regarding the OP has to do with behaviours being seen as provocative, yes, mostly to pedos, but also, as in the case of your argument, in terms of the "leading astray" into the grasp of perversion, regular hets.

Frilly underpants are nothing new. Public group performances of children acting out popular sexy music videos is a good bit newer.

I think a few Shirley Temple movies might disavow you of that notion, for starters. Her work was viewed by some as ratherinappropriate at the time, i believe. There is scant documentation of such things before the advent of film, but you can be pretty sure they existed in one form or another. Is there any research that points to an increase in the prevalence of pedophilia correlative to the onset of the popularity of music videos amongst pre-teens?

I assume you agree that aberrant/non-aberrant sexuality is (largely) constructed relationally by cultures over long periods of time. Is there some reason to conclude this is not happening in our culture as well? I do sense you hold a lot more faith in sexual behavior and response being biologically determined than I do. Do you not, for example, think the role of pornography in our culture has experienced a sea-change since the web became universal?

I can't find an example of historical non-abberrational sexuality between sexually mature adults and non-mature children, though. A few fringe examples perhaps, but generally, no. And as far as I know, everyone who wanted porn could get it pretty much ever since porn existed. Porn has really not been culturally mainstreamed significantly by the internet, has it? I mean, Showgirls aside, of course.

[Joe Hillshoist]

There's also this:

Rose Tattoo - Sydney girls

Don't you, look at me that way
You got me tongue tied but I got a lot to say
Don't you, bend down to get that book
I might be arrested if I take a second look

Oh my oh my, makes me wanna cry
Cotton brown dresses, Sydney girls...Hi!
Hi there...whoo hoo....see ya!

You've got, that smile upon your face
I know I shouldn't ask you round to see my place
You've got, that swayin' in your walk
If I get you alone there won't be any talk

Oh my oh my, it makes me wanna cry
Cotton brown dresses, sun brown thighs
Oh my oh my, it makes me wanna cry
Cotton brown dresses on Sydney girls...Hi!
How ya doin? You're lookin' good...

I like, to see your sun brown thighs
You got that look of promise dancing in your eyes
I like, that carefree way you smile
You seem so innocent but naughty all the while

Oh my oh my, it makes me wanna cry
Cotton brown dresses, sun brown thighs
Oh my oh my, it makes me wanna cry
Cotton brown dresses on Sydney girls...Hi!

You've got, a certain way you walk
And you've got, a certain way you talk
Sydney girls...

Kind of reinforces LBOs point ... btw that song is about girls finishing high school. Not 7 year olds.

(And Sydney girls always had a reputation. For being gorgeous and knowing it. Its also got a rep for being a bit of a sin city.)

"Cuda mentioned something about living in California.

The entire east coast of Australia is a bit like California. 3000Kms of beautiful southern Pacific beaches, surf and sunshine, and up until recently, over summer the only thing people did was piss off to the coast for a couple of months (none of that private beach bullshit in this country, beaches are open to everyone and cos no one wears anything much its a very egalitarian thing.) Unless they lived in Syney, where they have great beaches on their doorstep.

In which case every day its the beach.

I dunno. There's a natural human impulse there. When you are young, fit, tanned and spend all day in the hot sun wearing not much, then all evening partying and having a ball - its a great time to be alive.

And in Australia alot of people lived that way from 15 till ... well some people never stop.

But some do, and then 15 years later when they are fat, pale and stuck in a suit ...


Thats where a lot of the power of that "sexy school girl" image comes from. Chasing something you know you'll never have again. Part of the reason you know you'll never have it is the ...

... the tawdriness of the image I spose. Humping on the beach all night when you are young, and the world seems so full of promise is great. (Its still great in middle age too )

Sure sex is dirty (isn't that part of the fun), but its also innocent cos you are discovering it all for the first time - especially those first road trips.

If you have a job and a mortgage and your parents life all of a sudden, then all thats gone. (It doesn't have to be, I know people with jobs, mortgages and kids who still pull it off. Rare tho.)

30 year old school girls might be a pale replacement but they might also be all you've got. Its sad tho cos its the complete opposite of that sort of sex you have when you are young, and you wag school for the day and maybe both of you are wearing school uniforms when you meet at whoever's house has no parents.

The worst thing about that particular image and fetish is its kind of cynical knowing imo.

Its the complete opposite of what its meant to be.


Then again if my missus dressed up like that for whatever reason I wouldn't find it sleazy. I'd have fun tho.

(BTW I haven't seen the video in the OP, it has apparantly been moved for copyright reasons.)

[lightningBugout]

I don't think that's a great example. As far as I know there is no cultural history of shifting boundaries demarcating the appropriateness of human/transhuman (or at least trans-animal) sexual behaviors, with chocolate snacks or otherwise. Whereas there is with pedophilia.

What? Cocophilia isn't a great example?

hat -tip......

Maybe you're right. Anyway, regarding the cultural history of shifting boundaries, I assume you are referring to the ages in which youngsters have been viewed as appropriate for sexual activity. And though I understand your point, I cannot think of any time in the past when seven year old girls such as those in the video were deemed viable sexual targets. Ever. So in as much as the allowable age of marriageable females has fluctuated, it seems safe to say that that age has rarely, if ever, strayed below the lower ranges of fertility. (Boy, is this a slippery ledge.)

Which is funny because *I* can't think of any time other than now when the lower range of fertility was rapidly dropping due to environmental pollution and dramatic changes in the practice of agribusiness.

'Precocious Puberty' Is on the Rise
Hormone-mimicking chemicals found in food, water, and many consumer goods may well be the cause of why children as young as eight are showing signs of sexual development.
January 6, 2007 |
Kids these days are growing up too fast -- in more ways than one. American girls are reaching puberty up to a year earlier than in previous generations, with some children showing signs of sexual development as young as age 3. In extreme cases, girls are budding breasts before they’ve even learned to read.

Researchers call this phenomenon "precocious puberty," which some say is on the rise. Forty-eight percent of African-American girls and 15 percent of Caucasian girls show physical signs of puberty by age 8, according to a study of 17,000 U.S. girls published in Pediatrics in 1997. In a subsequent study of more than 2,000 boys, lead author Marcia Herman-Giddens found that 38 percent of African-American boys and 30 percent of Caucasian boys showed signs of sexual development by age 8.

What’s going on? Although scientists have yet to prove definitive causes, many suspect that hormone-mimicking chemicals, obesity and stress all contribute to precocious puberty. The chemicals, often called endocrine disruptors, are of particular concern because they’re everywhere -- in food, water, personal-care products, some plastics and many consumer goods.

Pediatrician Darshak Sanghavi notes in The New York Times that outbreaks of precocious puberty are most often traced to accidental exposure to drugs in hormone-laden products. He describes a case in which a kindergarten-age boy and his younger sister had both begun growing pubic hair. In addition, the boy was exhibiting aggressive behaviour.

When Sanghavi's colleagues examined the children, they discovered that both had extremely elevated levels of testosterone -- equivalent to those of an adult male -- and that their father was using a concentrated testosterone skin cream "for cosmetic and sexual purposes." The children had absorbed the testosterone from normal skin contact with their father.

It’s a problem that’s not likely to go away anytime soon. The New York Times notes that prescriptions for products containing testosterone are on the rise, doubling to more than 2.4 million between 2000 and 2004.

Of course, we can’t blame it all on testosterone. Phthalates, ubiquitous industrial plasticizers common in everything from personal-care products to vinyl and plastic packaging, mimic estrogen. So do compounds in some pesticides and flame retardants. A growing body of evidence suggests that these and other endocrine-disrupting chemicals can interfere with sexual development, an idea widely introduced in the groundbreaking book "Our Stolen Future" by Theo Colburn, Diane Dumanoski, and John Peterson Myers.

In the two decades since the book’s publication, evidence has mounted that substantiates its main thesis. The September, 2006 issue of Alternative Medicine points out that a number of human studies have found possible links between endocrine disruptors and early puberty. One study found that Puerto Rican girls whose breasts developed earlier were three times more likely to have elevated levels of phthalate esters in their blood. Another reported that girls who had been accidentally exposed in the womb to polybrominated biphenyls -- common flame retardants containing compounds that mimic estrogen -- began menstruating a year earlier than a control group.

Some researchers have linked precocious puberty with factors including obesity, stress, and a sedentary lifestyle. "In the animal industry, to hasten puberty, they keep the animals confined, they feed them really rich diets, and they grow really fast," Marcia Herman-Giddens notes in Alternative Medicine. "That is exactly what we are doing to our children."

As young children struggle to cope with changing bodies, the psychological trauma can lead to later problems including depression, substance abuse and teenage pregnancies, according to a number of studies. Meanwhile, parents wrestle with painful decisions such as whether or not to give their children injections of drugs like Lupron, an expensive medication that suppresses hormones and has some 26 possible side effects.

Dr. Paul Kaplowitz, chief of endocrinology at Children’s National Medical Center in Washington, D.C., and author of Early Puberty in Girls: The Essential Guide to Coping with this Common Problem, distinguishes between actual precocious puberty and more benign and isolated signs such as body odour, pubic-hair growth or breast development before recommending treatment, according to Alternative Medicine. He notes that less than 10 percent of the girls referred to him require treatment for early puberty.

Still, what’s happening now in children’s bodies affects their daily lives and their future health -- and may well foreshadow broader environmental and social crises.

What can you do?

Parents can take practical steps to minimize their children’s risk for early puberty and encourage healthy lifestyles. These are key steps according to Sherrill Sellman, author of "What Women Must Know to Protect Their Daughters from Breast Cancer":


* Avoid meat, milk and dairy products containing growth hormones

* Buy organic produce

* Minimize soy, which mimics estrogen

* Choose green household products

* Encourage children to eat well and exercise

* Prevent children from chewing on plastic toys

* Avoid polyvinyl chloride (PVC) products, including vinyl shower curtains and toys and packaging that bear the number "3," indicating they’re made with PVC.



Schedule an appointment with a health-care practitioner, Sellman says, if your child shows unusually early signs of puberty. In addition, since phthalates are rarely included on cosmetics labels, visit sites like safecosmetics.org to find the safest personal-care products. Many of these small steps can help reduce your child’s exposure to endocrine-disrupting chemicals while cumulatively contributing to a healthier planet. And that bodes well for all children.

[Nordic]

* Avoid meat, milk and dairy products containing growth hormones

* Buy organic produce

* Minimize soy, which mimics estrogen

* Choose green household products

* Encourage children to eat well and exercise

* Prevent children from chewing on plastic toys

* Avoid polyvinyl chloride (PVC) products, including vinyl shower curtains and toys and packaging that bear the number "3," indicating they’re made with PVC.

It really pisses me the hell off that we have to go out of our way to do these things.

In any SANE society, all of this shit would have long been banned.

But in the U.S.? Nooooo of course not. You have to educate ourself, get informed, and then go to great lengths to do all this crap, and hope your kids don't pick up this stuff at school, or at someone else's house, or in ways that are completely out of your control.

Meanwhile, the huge percentage of the population that is ignorant of all of this wonders why their kids have titties and pubic hair and goes on their merry way.

It's so disgustingly fucked up.

[alwyn]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rA0JL_SB22A[/youtube]

Some friends of mine, coming into fashion...


(still don't know how you technokind get those things to embed....)

[barracuda]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rA0JL_SB22A[/youtube]

Some friends of mine, coming into fashion...


(still don't know how you technokind get those things to embed....)

Just the code after the equals sign in the YouTube url goes in between the bracketed YouTube embed code.

[JackRiddler]

* Avoid meat, milk and dairy products containing growth hormones

* Buy organic produce

* Minimize soy, which mimics estrogen

* Choose green household products

* Encourage children to eat well and exercise

* Prevent children from chewing on plastic toys

* Avoid polyvinyl chloride (PVC) products, including vinyl shower curtains and toys and packaging that bear the number "3," indicating they’re made with PVC.

It really pisses me the hell off that we have to go out of our way to do these things.

In any SANE society, all of this shit would have long been banned.

But in the U.S.? Nooooo of course not. You have to educate ourself, get informed, and then go to great lengths to do all this crap, and hope your kids don't pick up this stuff at school, or at someone else's house, or in ways that are completely out of your control.

Meanwhile, the huge percentage of the population that is ignorant of all of this wonders why their kids have titties and pubic hair and goes on their merry way.

It's so disgustingly fucked up.

Oh yes yes. That so much of this stuff isn't labeled, and when labeled still not always easy alternatives to find, even in big cities.

And then that from birth forward any halfway conscious parent is pitched into a daily battle for their child's soul against the full forces of the corporate media consumer brainwash: EAT POISON, WATCH SHIT, IT'S COOL, YOUR PARENTS ARE STUPID!

Until the demise of high/mid/low culture distinctions, it was easier to gain allies in such a fight. Now it's half the intellectual class itself celebrating how cool it is to media your kidz from teletubbies forward, don't handicap the poor things, let them be a part of their culture, let them acquire those crucial thumb-mashing skillz - don't be a TV-limiting FASCIST!!! (I heard that more than once - in one case from people who aggressively kept their kids from even accidentally touching their genitals.)

This is a profound defect in how we are - that collectively we fail to create good spaces for our children. I like to think in another 400 years, if and when the first human civilization is achieved, we will not have any or need any restrictions on the media per se, but it will simply be our culture that small children live together in media-free spaces, and that the TV (or whatever the screen will be) exists in spaces devoted to it exclusively - you go to watch something already in mind - and isn't just the crackling fireplace that everyone has on always.

You ever notice that? People welcome you into their house as a guest, say for dinner, and often first thing they do: Oh, I'm sorry, let me turn the TV on for you!

[Joe Hillshoist]

There's a call to ban Islamic women from wearing burqas in Australia at the moment.

Apparently burqas are anti freedom so we should ban them.

[Perelandra]

* Avoid meat, milk and dairy products containing growth hormones

* Buy organic produce

* Minimize soy, which mimics estrogen

* Choose green household products

* Encourage children to eat well and exercise

* Prevent children from chewing on plastic toys

* Avoid polyvinyl chloride (PVC) products, including vinyl shower curtains and toys and packaging that bear the number "3," indicating they’re made with PVC.

It really pisses me the hell off that we have to go out of our way to do these things.

In any SANE society, all of this shit would have long been banned.

But in the U.S.? Nooooo of course not. You have to educate ourself, get informed, and then go to great lengths to do all this crap, and hope your kids don't pick up this stuff at school, or at someone else's house, or in ways that are completely out of your control.

Meanwhile, the huge percentage of the population that is ignorant of all of this wonders why their kids have titties and pubic hair and goes on their merry way.

It's so disgustingly fucked up.

Oh yes yes. That so much of this stuff isn't labeled, and when labeled still not always easy alternatives to find, even in big cities.

And then that from birth forward any halfway conscious parent is pitched into a daily battle for their child's soul against the full forces of the corporate media consumer brainwash: EAT POISON, WATCH SHIT, IT'S COOL, YOUR PARENTS ARE STUPID!

Until the demise of high/mid/low culture distinctions, it was easier to gain allies in such a fight. Now it's half the intellectual class itself celebrating how cool it is to media your kidz from teletubbies forward, don't handicap the poor things, let them be a part of their culture, let them acquire those crucial thumb-mashing skillz - don't be a TV-limiting FASCIST!!! (I heard that more than once - in one case from people who aggressively kept their kids from even accidentally touching their genitals.)

This is a profound defect in how we are - that collectively we fail to create good spaces for our children. I like to think in another 400 years, if and when the first human civilization is achieved, we will not have any or need any restrictions on the media per se, but it will simply be our culture that small children live together in media-free spaces, and that the TV (or whatever the screen will be) exists in spaces devoted to it exclusively - you go to watch something already in mind - and isn't just the crackling fireplace that everyone has on always.

You ever notice that? People welcome you into their house as a guest, say for dinner, and often first thing they do: Oh, I'm sorry, let me turn the TV on for you!

I agree with so much of what you guys are saying, except for that first point. It's easy to NOT buy crappy processed food, to NOT buy chemicals and plastic, and to tell your kids why. Just don't buy anything that's ever been advertised.

(or whatever the screen will be) exists in spaces devoted to it exclusively - you go to watch something already in mind - and isn't just the crackling fireplace that everyone has on always.

Perhaps the ubiquity of the screen will someday be it's downfall, I don't know. In any case, I try not to be around people who watch tv. I'm a screen snob.

[chiggerbit]

[JackRiddler]

Agnolo Bronzino, Venus and Cupid, ca. 1568:



NOTE: Not intended as a justification of the "Love's Baby Soft" ad campaign, which is, um, evil.