Well put, Sage Rat.
I think it’s important to point out that this isn’t all about make sure your kid isn’t pedophile bait, but also about teaching little girls that dancing around in stripper costumes is part of what being a “big girl” is all about, before they’re old enough to understand.
I’ll agree that the feminist claim is fairly strong, but I’d probably vote that beauty pageants are more crass of the two.
I’m a father of two pretty little girls. They’re well aware of the terms of fairytale romance and cartoon sexiness, and they’re also aware of some of the respects in which real life doesn’t precisely comport with those terms–their mother and I are divorced–and they’re also aware that all of that is a matter for grown-ups. They can play games pretending to be princesses planning their weddings, or whatever, but actually presenting themselves as “sexy,” or being approached on those terms, would strike them as ridiculous–scary if it was pressed.
That seems, to me, to be exactly as it should be.
You seem to be failing to see the difference between little girls being pretty little girls, and little girls being sex objects. Doing a suggestive dance in lingerie is being a sex object. Adult women (or men) can make the choice to be sex objects if they like–choosing the contexts in which to do so with knowledge and responsibility. Children cannot make that choice, having neither the full relevant knowledge nor the adult responsibility.
Exactly. A little girl who has been taught to be “sexy” may well become that easy target Sage Rat mentions, because she doesn’t have a clear, definitive concept of sex and sexiness being for grown-ups.
That’s a false dichotomy, though. Not encouraging and training little girls to perform stripper-type moves to sexy songs is not the same thing as keeping children completely unaware of the differences of the sexes.
While I agree that there’s probably little likelihood that this video will put these children in particular at higher risk of encountering a pedophile, that doesn’t necessarily mean that the effect of such performances being in the public eye is altogether insignificant.
One of the things that pedophiles tell themselves to justify their actions is that children naturally want sexual attention, and feel gratified rather than frightened or repulsed by sexual arousal and sexual acts in adults. Training real-life little girls to imitate exotic dancers in public, lip-syncing sexually suggestive lyrics while they bump and grind in sexually suggestive ways in risque costumes and audiences enthusiastically cheer, encourages the delusion that children “want it” and that it’s okay and normal to view children in a sexual way.
Being a sex object is acting as a sex object or realizing you’re being treated as one. If that’s not happening, what clothes are being worn and what moves are being made is irrelevant.
Just now, for example, two teen girls (14 or 15 perhaps) walked by outside the window wearing skin-tight shorts. If I was a man who’d been brought forward in time from 1910, I’d tell you that those two girls walking by were obviously being sex objects and oh how shameful it is. But my perception as the man from 1910 has nothing to do with whether or not those girls are harmed in any way by wearing those clothes. If they don’t realize that their clothing can be considered to be in poor taste, they don’t feel anyone objectifying them, they don’t feel any loss of personal worth, they don’t feel like they’re trying to look sexual, etc. then I as the man from 1910 can say whatever I want and think whatever I want and I’m still talking out my ass no matter how clearly correct my opinion must be.
The only metric that matters is whether any harm comes to the girls. If it hasn’t, my opinion as an old fuddy duddy has nothing to do with anything.
So, you are proposing that these girls have no idea that their outfits, their choreography, and the song lyrics are intended to be “sexy”?
But the girls in question are acting as sex objects, although only in an imitative way, and they may well not be aware of or understand the “sexy” aspects of what they’re doing. They are imitating the words and the gestures and the costumes of a performance by adult women designed specifically to be erotically alluring. That’s acting as a sex object.
That’s because you as a man from 1910 are unfamiliar with the cultural-mainstream America of 2010, and you don’t realize that here and now it’s considered culturally acceptable for teenage girls in warm weather to wear tight shorts in public.
But the out-of-date reactions of somebody from a different culture are irrelevant to this situation. We’re talking as people who share the same culture in the here and now, and we’re trying to decide whether a certain behavior is culturally acceptable for our own society.
It’s not very difficult to make a guess about who here is raising a daughter and who is experiencing a healthy testosterone level.
Young males often think there’s no such thing as too much sexual atmosphere. At least until they have daughters.
I’m thinking that, in spite of massive efforts to teach healthy expression, practice and thoughts of sexuality in this country, many of us think that for some reason we don’t quite get it right. And for that reason it may be wise not to promote little girls looking like horny hookers even if it looks cute and really doesn’t mean anything. At least to us mature and healthy folks who certainly wouldn’t be turned on by sexual behavior by a child, would we?
The argument that it’s all around us anyway doesn’t fly with me as reason to encourage a child to mimic it.
Is it possible that encouragement for some things is best saved for later?
For anyone who’s interested, here’s what 2 of the little girls’ parents have to say about it all.
I like the fact that they talk about context a lot. Context is like comfort: it’s important and you gotta have it.
I’d been thinking about “context”, Bo.
The odd thing about sexual arousal, though, is that is isn’t much given to appropriate context.
Sex is one of the most powerful forces in human nature. It’s strongly reinforcing both physically and socially.
Really? Pretty sure you’re not straight.
As the parents say, unless you isolate your kids from TV and music, they are listening to this kind of popular music and exposed to many cultures already. Naturally they want to imitate what they see.
At 8 or 9, it’s doubtful that they can understand the full impact of what will become sex; that requires the hormones to kick in at puberty. I say it’s not too early to learn about it in our sex-drenched culture. When they reach the right age, they will be ready.
Let 'em bump and grind all they want. Good education and good, clean fun. I wish I knew more about sex before I had to use it – these kids are much luckier than I was, growing up in a more-repressive society.
Did you watch the parents? Do you know what the context of this dance routine was? Do you understand why the parents didn’t have a problem with the dance routine, or the outfits?
I’m not asking if you agree with them, just if you watched it and understood the point they were making about the context of this routine.
The context of this routine appears to be that sixty years from now, these girls will be able to tell their grandchildren how great-granny and great-grandad had her dress like a hooker and do a bump and grind routine when she was seven so they could post the video on the internet for pedophiles to masturbate to. Context is everything: in 2010 some people thought that was a reasonable thing to do. Apparently, they didn’t think she would ever work it out. :rolleyes:
(And you won’t believe what the ancient Greeks got up to…)
Because they are unfit parents who try and live out their lives through their kids because they got cut from dance team in high school by that bitch Heather who ended up being knocked up by the quarterback and is now all fat so who’s laughing now?
OMG
I watched the video interview with the two parents. I don’t see anything there to make the case for a more favorable interpretation.
Context? The context was a performance on stage for a screaming audience, and they surely knew a video was being made. Maybe they didn’t intend the video to be seen by millions–but what difference does that make? Do they think people are critical of this being out there on the net? People are critical of them doing this to their daughters.
The costumes were strictly for “freedom of movement”? :dubious: Please. I’ve seen dancers, gymnasts and acrobats doing more challenging moves without their costumes bearing the slightest resemblance to lingerie.
If there was nothing wrong with the performance, why exactly are they “doing everything they can to control [the video] and stop it”?
Because the parents are catching hell for it!
Parents are responsible for not only placing reasonable controls on what kids are exposed to, but also in assisting the interpretation of what they do see.
Yes. They are being taught to be–or pretend to be, or think they are being–“sexy” without knowing what that means. That’s pretty much the problem here.
Premature sexualization is not sex education. It’s more like the opposite.
BIG jump in context. Nowhere did the parents say that.
God I want to punch that father. He seems like a smug prick.