I guess I’m curious–for those who think this is an acceptable dance routine/costume for little 7 year old girls, how low would the bar have to be for you to find it objectionable? Does anything go? Is everything appropriate? If there’s a limit, or a line you’d draw, what would it be?
I have not previously, and am not now, offering up any opinion on child beauty pageants or the people involved in them. I have no idea why you would try and declare what I think, nor why you seem to have decided to pick an argument here (with yourself, apparently).
I’ll spare you as much as I’ve been sparing, which is everything. Again, you are arguing with yourself. I’ve offered no opinion on JBR or child beauty pageants. Any inferences you make about my supposed attitudes towards them will say much more about you than about me.
Yes, I attributed Frylock’s opinion to you. Busted. :smack:
ETA Mistakenly.
Well at least you seem sane again. Good luck with that. 
I think if the dance routine involved a certain trick with ping pong balls, it would be over the line. By a lot. Like, the line would be in another county. Or state. Or across an ocean.
In the context of little girls wanting to do a routine like the bigger girls/women at the dance competition do, I can’t imagine anything I’d have a problem with. I mean, we’re not taking these hypothetical little girls to the World Pole Dancing Championship, right?
If the girls had nipple tassles hanging from the exterior of their outfits but the act was otherwise unchanged would it be over the line? If so, why?
Talking about hypotheticals can be dangerous if done poorly, but let’s do it anyway, because I think this one can help.
Pole dancing isn’t just for strippers anymore. These days, lots of shows may incorporate a pole-dancing segment into them. It’s increasingly common for a dancer to need to learn pole dancing moves, even if the dancer is not a stripper.
So then, why not teach seven-year-olds to pole dance. (NO ATTRIBUTING THAT TO ME IN A SIGNATURE! 
) It could be part of their repertoire someday should they go on to be professional dancers–especially of the “urban” style I read this video’s dance is supposed to be in.
So why not teach them how to pole dance now?
Suppose the video in this thread were much like it is now, with the parents saying the same things they’re saying in the actual video. Suppose the girls all show a lot of talent, are clearly having fun, and let’s imagine that they really have no clue about the associations such poles have in many people’s minds. And suppose, in this video, the girls were pole dancing–clothed, the same way they are clothed in the video.
Should we have a problem with this? If so, what’s the difference between this hypothetical video and the actual video we’re discussing?
Here’s a hypothetical for you: If an adult troupe in the same competition did that routine in those outfits, would they be drummed out of the group?
I think they’d have to re-form under a new name in order to ever be included again. There is absolutely no way that parents would approve of that happening in the same venue at the same time as little children performing.
I guess my thinking now that I’ve analyzed it a bit more is that it really shouldn’t matter because it should be a time when they’re not looked at through the lens of “Are they being sexy?” But people are inevitably going to do that, so I don’t think it’s right to put them through that.
It would be one thing for an adult to try to push the boundaries of sexuality–if an of age woman wants to wear a little girl type outfit and look sexy doing it, I don’t have an issue with that because even though you could argue she’s sexualizing youth, the woman doing that is old enough to know what’s going on.
Is it right to aim so much criticism at the parents of these girls, without knowing what their children’s competition was wearing?
That’s not the issue at point. The clothing was most likely chosen for stupid or creepy purposes. They probably shouldn’t have been dressed like that. But, given that it’s a fairly professional dance contest not a strip joint or a dance for Daddy or whatever, and given that it’s most likely that the person who decided their outfit was an idiot not someone creepy, it’s unlikely that the girls will suffer in any way from the event. So far as they’re aware everything was kosher, they won’t feel used or abused, and they won’t turn into axe murderers or sluts.
Presuming no intent for bad and no bad result, regardless that the situation shouldn’t have been in the first place, it’s better off to be happy that the girls kicked butt at dancing and didn’t get hurt than to sit around raging about how the world is forcing you to look at little girls and think provocative thoughts. Really, that only says anything about you.
I think an adult troupe in those outfits would look fine, but not particularly sexy; it would look like a costume. Keep in mind that I can’t see the video again, but I recall bare midriffs, shorts, some fringe, and the stockings. An adult troupe would look neither sophsticated nor sexy in such an outfit. An adult troupe would have to have higher-cut legs, plungier necklines, and actual garters in order to attain the same level of outrage, and if they did an identical routine in an identical costume at the same event they’d look stupid.
Again, the only thing I’d question is the music,* and for some reason every dance teacher in America has seized on this song right now. It’ll pass.
*And the fact that it ended up with national focus
Wait.
Wait.
What position do you think you’re arguing against?
I guess I don’t speak for everyone else on the thread who says there’s something wrong with the dance. But I do suspect that most of them, like me, are simply arguing exactly for the abovequoted position.
You agree with this position?
Then what are we arguing about?
I’m not sure why you think I’m saying any of the things that you are attributing to me. All I asked was that if you were someone who found this routine and these costumes acceptable for a little girls’ dance performance, what WOULD be the line in the sand that you would draw? How far is too far? Should there be no limit? If there’s a limit–what is it?
I never said ANYTHING about what I thought, never said I wasn’t happy about their kick-butt dancing abilities. Just asked you where the bottom line for appropriate costumes and dance moves was.
And I get the impression that you aren’t all that comfortable defending either the choice of costumes or the choice of dance moves. But maybe you could clarify that.
Hot damn! And she comes with her own pole :eek:
I’ll have two please.
Try this one – NSFW would be my guess.
Lady Gaga - Telephone (Official Explicit Version) ft. Beyoncé
Half naked lesbians mass murderers. WTF?
Seriously, I am all for porn, but I’m also for drawing a line as to what is appropriate and when. And, IMHO, even since the advent of MTV, the music industry has been blurring the line to the point where pornography’s going mainstream. Guess I’m showing my age when I say that I dislike the current trend of women-dressed-and-acting-like-whores. Never mind the little girls that are the subject of this thread.
Disgusting.
Absolutely. It would be far worse to find out that this is the “new normal.” I have plenty of choice words at the ready for any other parent who acts as egregiously.
I also disagree with the “no harm no foul” arguments. If a pedophile is masturbating to this video, then yes, someday it’s going to make these girls want to vomit when they realize that they were so sexualized at such a young age. They are being used in an inappropriate manner. A manner to which they can not possibly consent.
I can’t help wondering how those two parents became the spokespeople for the group. I have a suspicion (and it’s only that) that this Dad was the one who argued for these outfits. He ust had the stance of a man who has gotten what he wanted, and just doesn’t care what anyone else thinks about it. I felt sorry for the wife.
Video of a past performance by the same troupe, choreographed to a contemporary rendition of “My Boyfriend’s Back”.
That outrage is silly and almost certainly unnecessary and foolish. Either that or that you didn’t read the very first response to the thread and/or lambasted somebody because you agreed with something they said but yet felt obliged to lambast them because they didn’t say everything you wanted them to say in that single post.
It depends on the situation. If there’s a traditional dance in Africa done all in the nude with little girls rubbing bananas between their thighs and yet there’s no reason to think that the girls interpret this in a negative way towards their personal worth nor does it encourage misbehavior on the part of any of the viewers, then I really couldn’t give a damn. If, on the other hand, we had a dad in 1850s Europe getting his daughter to wear skirts that showed off her ankles and he was leering at her constantly because of the naughtiness of ankles and the girl understood that her own father was taking advantage of her, then that would be entirely unacceptable.
The question is intent and results. If neither of those is bad, I don’t care. If the intent is bad, I care regardless of what the results are. If the intent is good but the results are bad, then I tell the person with the good intentions to get their head out of their ass, but I can’t really get all that angry.
But what is or isn’t acceptable depends on the mores of society. Lingerie is still less revealing than what people have worn for most of their history.