Posted on 12/30/2006 7:27:56 PM PST by shrinkermd
It’s hard to write this without sounding like a prig. But it’s just as hard to erase the images that planted the idea for this essay, so here goes. The scene is a middle school auditorium, where girls in teams of three or four are bopping to pop songs at a student talent show. Not bopping, actually, but doing elaborately choreographed re-creations of music videos, in tiny skirts or tight shorts, with bare bellies, rouged cheeks and glittery eyes.
They writhe and strut, shake their bottoms, splay their legs, thrust their chests out and in and out again. Some straddle empty chairs, like lap dancers without laps. They don’t smile much. Their faces are locked from grim exertion, from all that leaping up and lying down without poles to hold onto. “Don’t stop don’t stop,” sings Janet Jackson, all whispery. “Jerk it like you’re making it choke. ...Ohh. I’m so stimulated. Feel so X-rated.” The girls spend a lot of time lying on the floor. They are in the sixth, seventh and eighth grades.
As each routine ends, parents and siblings cheer, whistle and applaud. I just sit there, not fully comprehending. It’s my first suburban Long Island middle school talent show. I’m with my daughter, who is 10 and hadn’t warned me. I’m not sure what I had expected, but it wasn’t this. It was something different. Something younger. Something that didn’t make the girls look so ... one-dimensional.
It would be easy to chalk it up to adolescent rebellion, an ancient and necessary phenomenon, except these girls were barely adolescents and they had nothing to rebel against. This was an official function at a public school, a milieu that in another time or universe might have seen children singing folk ballads, say, or reciting the Gettysburg Address.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Honest question: is it sexual harrassment on the girls' part to talk, move, and dress in such a way that any normal male present is in an involuntary state of arousal?
I guess for it to actually be sexual harassment there would have to be conscious intent on the part of the female. Given the level of sexual understanding which permeates our society, most girls over ten probably have sufficient knowledge to be guilty.
Or possibly sooner, like next month?
Due to the wide spread use of soy products, with their phyto-estrogen, many young children are fully capable of carrying a child themselves! Look out mom.
soy products? You lost me.
The use of soy in foods over the years has accelerated the physical maturation of girls by five or six years.
Check out these articles:
To think my 12 year old son will look at a girl in a bikini and think they look gross. But he will check out a cute girl in modest clothing.
Too many parents want to be friends first and parents second. But you are doing your children no favor by not being a PARENT. I love my children and that love means not being afraid to say no. And as I used to tell me kids " no is a complete sentence"
hellOOO getting a boy aroused and a boy forcing a girl into sex are two different things.
Yeah, i'd like these girls i mentioned homeschooled, but no one asks me. :D
i say protect your kids, no matter what it takes.
If she DESERVED it???
I'm all against immodesty both in clothing and behavior, but you go too far!
The thing, tho, about 'sexualized by this society' is that it is still up to the parents of that child. We are where the standards are set for our families. No one is forced to participate in any of this stuff. "All the other girls are doing it" is irrelevant. There are many choices.
I think parents of daycare kids don't know how to parent, and when they are with their kids they want to be Mr. Nice Guy to assuage their guilt.
Yes, that is a good part of the problem. Another part is what society has accepted as normal in our media. Parents can do everthing "right" and still wind up underminded by this pervasive overt sexualization that goes on. If the "good" parents are suffering from this, thing about those parents who don't have good parenting skills. Our society needs to stand up and demand better from Hollywood and the DBM, as well as the music industry. I wish I had an answer for how this can be accomplished. Yes, I can do my part in how I raise MY children. But for every household that is doing the right thing how many are not? We cannot just say "It's totally up to the parent" and then turn a blind eye to the problem. Burying our heads in the sand that way compounds the problem IMHO.
"hellOOO", I already said that I never meant to say that rape should be OK and said that I didn't write my original reply as clearly as I'd hoped.
good. whew!
My sister-in-law wanted to get my 6 year old daughter one of those DVD dance mat games that were advertised all the time before Christmas. The commercials alone made me cringe! That was a big "NO!"
That side of the family all think I'm weird. Their 2 year old is already on stage with them every night for the show. I am horrified that they are exposing this beautiful child to anyone and everyone. She's been in every pageant contest they can get her into. It breaks my heart.
"good. whew!"
That's what I said!!
Ha, ha.
Now if only I can get myself straight BEFORE I open my mouth!!
I didn't have time to read all the posts, that's why I missed your explanation.
I'm so glad to be wrong about you and that it just needed clarification. Unfortunately, that's not the case with all here. (shaking head) Too bad.
Unfortunately I went to a Southern California elementary school with teachers ahead of their time (or maybe just normal for the L.A. area) for this kind of trash. As 6th grade girls (or was it 5th?) we were taught a dance routine to perform for the boys to the Donna Summers song "Bad Girls." No joke.
And in a 5th grade talent show a girl who LOVED the J Geils band wanted to perform a dance to the song "Centerfold", but the teachers DID put a stop to that and she chose the song "Freeze Frame" instead.
It wasn't until I was older and not so naive that I realized what exactly that song "Bad Girls" was saying. WOW.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.