Teen & Pre-Teen Modeling, Part Deux

Well, I agree that in both cases the child is being somewhat exploited; however, the ethical difference lies in the means of exploitation. And you’re perfectly correct that whether the child learns anything productive is entirely dependent on the parenting.

Soooo…

Is it your opinion that the girl can, through the aid of her parents, learn some lessons or at least avoid bad lessons from participating in this affair?

As well, is it your opinion that this girl is being “obviously” whored out? What would be the minimum amount of context-changing you’d require to set your ethical concerns at ease?

Answer to first question: Yes. Just as it is possible to learn good lessons from being mugged.

Answer to second question: No. Not “whored” out. I thought we agreed she was being “exploited.” Her image has been pandered, not her body.

Answer to third question: Well, changing the web site to a little girl’s vanity site rather than a source of income and not soliciting or responding to the “fan” outfit/posing requests would do nicely.

I see. So your conclusion is that parents can use their children’s beuty to sell something, so long as they aren’t using the child’s beuty to sell the child’s beuty.

Interesting analysis. I can’t say I agree.

Beuty? What the hell happened to the “a’s”???

If all they were selling was the child’s beauty, that would be cool, erl. That’s what models sell. What those parents are doing is selling the image of their beautiful child to people who fantasize about sexual contact with beautiful innocents. And if it were just artwork of anonymous and fictitious beautiful innocents, it would only be Very Specifically Creepy, but this is far worse, as they are calling attention to a real, named child in that way.

Because it is via the internet, the parents seem to feel insulated from what they’re doing. I suspect they would never even consider parading their daughters in front of the web page fans in real life. I see little ethical difference here, and I think the distinction between posing for internet pix and posing in front of a group is most likely unclear to at least some of these girls.

To be fair to your question, perhaps mine is more of an emotional response than a reasoned one. I don’t seem to be getting the ethical problems (that I see pretty clearly) across to you, so this might be the case. I suppose I should bow out of this discussion, as I don’t seem to be persuading you, and you are certainly unlikely to change my opinion.

Well, I’m not interested in convincing anyone of anything; I’m interested in understanding what makes this case special to others. Now you say it isn’t even her selling her appearance, but now who the audience is?

Hmm.

erl, I’ve been saying exactly that. To quote myself from earlier in the thread:

The intended audience is the deciding ethical factor. The parents of teen & preteen clothing models have, as their intended audience, other parents of teens and preteens, and the teens/preteens themselves. (Or, more directly, the modeling agency and advertising execs who choose the models.) In stark contrast, the parents we’ve been discussing are publishing their daughters’ pictures so that the audience can sexually objectify the children, something we would all probably agree was unethical were the transaction direct and physical.