The USA has a problem. I realized it when my daughter was about 9. She had played hard all day and fallen asleep next to me on the couch as we were watching television. The movie ended and I was watching her as she slept for a while. I noticed how her cheeks were blushed ("must be left over from playing") then I noticed how amazingly red her lips were... I thought "Is her mom letter her wear makeup?" But when I ran my thumb over her lip, nothing came off... Then I noticed that her lashes were long and incredibly dark; separated and defined. Just like the mascara ads say. At that point, I suddenly realize that it would be possible for someone who had not changed her diaper for years to see my precious little angel as an object of sexual desire. Her face looked just like the faces of the "women" who model clothes, appear in ads, and grace magazine covers everywhere. And she wasn't wearing any makeup.
At first I was worried that my little girl had been ingesting growth hormones or that she has some sort of disease that caused her to mature more rapidly that normal. But then I realized that just about ALL girls just naturally have blushed cheeks, red lips, bright eyes and full, defined eyelashes. No cosmetics, just mother nature. It is something in our food? Well, the average little girl does get her first period at about that age these days.2 In 1979 it was 12 to 13 and at the turn of the century, it was 14.1 It isn't that the little girls look like mature ladies, it is that the mature ladies are made up to look like little girls. But that doesn't account for why older (mature) women would want to look like barely pubescent girls no matter what the current age of "coming of age" happens to be.
The more I thought about it, the more I realized that everything modern North American women do to make themselves more attractive just happens to also make them look more and more like little girls. People have been saying that the little girls are looking more and more like women, but it is actually the other way around as well: Our perception of what a real woman looks like has been shifting towards what a little girl looks like. It may have started with the "heroin chic" of the 1990s and the waif-like, ultra-thin models that have been popular since.4 But there have been echos in the past such as the "flappers" of the 1920's with their make-up, short hair, and bound chests hiding more womanly breast sizes.3
Am I exaggerating? Pick up any womans magazine and start looking at the pictures... at the articles... look at the effect that is being sought-after. Despite all the hype about large breasts and breast implants, most of the dresses, models and styles really do NOT emphasize the bust line. And the hips are kept very slim. No "hourglass" figures today. Slim in in. Our ladies are starving themselves, and doing it so they will look like children.
And
if that isn't bad enough, now the clothing manufacturers are finding that
there is a market for clothing that makes little girls look like they are
sexually mature. Yes,
JonBenet*
and her pre-pubescent beauty queen crowed come to mind, but check this one
out: Kohls is selling a padded and underwired training bra
for little girls! Now, that is just WRONG.
Kohls is no longer offering this. It isn't on their web site anymore. I got the flyer some time ago and just now got around to scanning it in and showing it here. At least this "deal" is no longer available. And hopefully it was because no-one was willing to buy it for their kid. I take it as proof that the people are not the sick ones... it's the corporations who need to find a reason to sell something. Let me explain:
A while back I was watching a thing on Hugh Heifner, not one of my heroes, but still an interesting person. As he has an obvious preference for blonds, he was asked if it were true that "blonds have more fun" and his comment was that originally, that was said in order to sell hair bleaching products, but now it really seemed to be the case.
It seemed to me that this is a truly profound statement. Someone in the ad industry needed to sell bleach. What better way than to convince all the brunettes that they were missing out? Over time, when a dark haired lovely felt she wasn't getting enough attention, she would "go blonde" as a signal that she was "more fun." And so, girls who wanted to be "more fun" became blondes. A self fulfilling prophecy.
Could it be that most makeup sold today is sold for the same reason? Instead of a verbal message, the advertisers have somehow managed to flood the media with images of younger and younger women, leading to a paranoia of aging that has driven women to buy products that make them look younger and younger until now they are trying to look like 9 year olds?
And could it also be that as a result of all of that, the men in the USA have slowly been trained, over years and years, to find younger and younger women attractive, to the point that now men are actually being (unwittingly) trained to become pedofiles?
Look at the number of impressions of half naked women vs half naked men that you see just passing out of your local grocery store and ask yourself what message that gives your daughter? I have nothing against half nakedness (or fully clothed...ness... ) but what does my daughter see as her value in the world? Is she worth something because she is smart, strong willed (boy, let me tell you) and a hard worker? Or does she feel that she is only worth something because she is pretty?
In the end, "all that is required for evil to prevail is for good men to do nothing"
And so my statement that there must be something we can do to make sure kids (and adults) have a positive message of self worth that is not related only to sexual advertising.
I believe that we must stand up and say that:
1. Girls have worth based in more than appearance and sex. We need to point out and decry images in the media that portray females as only objects of sex. Not that sex is bad, but that it is not the only thing girls can aspire to. Boys have worth beyond how many times they have scored and given the media blast of sexual images, they may need some help keeping in their pants. Or at least out of someone else's pants...
2. That there are a lot of variations in what people fine pleasure in and no one way of enjoying yourself is wrong as long as it doesn't damage anyone. E.g. Masturbation, safe sex, same sex, swinging, whips and chains, sucking on toes, or what ever your fetish happens to be is ok as long as it happens between consenting adults and does't leave any marks. Or at least no /lasting/ marks...
3. On the other hand, if someone is trying to get you to do something you don't want to do, we need to be willing to listen, take it seriously, and take appropriate action. That includes getting people who have problems to help and not just taking them out and shooting them. No matter how much we might want to...