fuckyeahgenderstudies writes:

I hear so much on the news, read so much in the paper and online, about how “our” little children are being exposed to so much SEX AND VIOLENCE and it’s RUINING THEM. Particularly so for “our” little girls. Scarcely does a day pass without someone somewhere commenting on how one or more of the following is actively harming the minds and/or bodies of today’s children:

• The Media
• The Left
• The Gay Agenda
• Feminism
• Magazines
• Clothing
• The Internet
• Films

But what it boils down to, what it always boils down to, is sex. A few weeks ago I blogged about a post over at BoingBoing, entitled “Pedocouture”, in which the editors of French Vogue were decried as monsters for featuring a shoot in which little girls were wearing haute couture dresses and too-big-for-them-shoes. BoingBoing called the children “sex vixens” and said it was “messed up”, “wrong” and “totally wrong”. 

Of course, the only thing wrong about it — you can see pictures of the fully clothed, non-provocative, utterly non-sexual children here —was BoingBoing calling six years olds “sex vixens”. And perhaps the exploitation of children, but that would be the same if the kids were photographed for Vogue or for a toy catalogue — though I would imagine they would be better paid for this shoot than for a Toys R Us shoot.

You know what sexualises kids? No, it’s not high heels, or short skirts, or makeup. No, it’s not two-piece swimsuits (or, gasp, a six year old going topless on the beach!) or the Pussycat Dolls. It’s us.

I’m going to refer here to the children I saw in Channel Four’s documentary series, Big Fat Gypsy Weddings — which i highly recommend (available on 4od and YouTube). These little girls, some aged eight or younger, dress in short skirts and high heels and they act and dance it what I would say is a much more gregarious manner than most primary school-aged little girls in the UK. 

The interesting thing, though, is that these girls also adhere much more closely to the “traditional” “family values” that assholes in The Daily Mail, or wherever, harp on about, than do more “demure” children who aren’t so “sexualised”. Travellers, unlike most people today, do not live together before marriage, and traveller girls will not have sex before marriage. (Not so true for the men — I didn’t say they weren’t sexist… like everyone else.)

(The super-shitty bit is that The Daily Mail and other “news”papers don’t take every opportunity they can to sully my culture, despite the fact that I and all my friends have had sex before marriage and plenty have had babies outside of marriage, too. But antiziganism persists.)

These girls dress in short skirts and heels and wear makeup and dance “provocatively”, yet their moral code has not gone to ruin. So it simply can’t be that fashion makes children into “sex vixens”.

God, it doesn’t even make sense — HOW can a child be sex vixen? When I look at a child, I see a child. Regardless of costume. Dressed like Mary Poppins or dressed like Britney Spears, a kid is a kid! If you see something sexual, the problem is with you. 

Related: No, not sexualisation. Objectification. Say it with me.
So, I may have gotten a little bolshie on that whole sexualisation thing.

Elsewhere: Who sexualises children? (Fuck Yeah, Gender Studies)