TOPICS:
APR 23, 2004 11:04 PM
Kamper
Merrimack, NH
December 2003
APR 24, 2004 01:04 PM
APR 24, 2004 03:34 PM
what a loaded topic 
but who here other than myself ran around singing "like a virgin" and "she bop" when they were little? this is NOTHING new, at all, and I think I am pretty safe saying that I was not corrupted by Madonna and Cyndi Lauper , the original Britney and Christina. Do you remember leggings? stirup pants? those were tight too and showed off even more than tight jeans. I remember hot pants being pretty popular too, which are a lot more visible than thongs. and showing your belly, um TUBE TOPS anyone ??? LOL :p and those little plastic hoops that tied up one corner of your t-shirt so it was tight across your butt and chest? hahaha
when you are 10-13 your are trying to prove to everyone you are "not a child" even though you are, you are fighting for any independance you can have and trying to asert your opinions and views and buck at any type of restrictions. I think it is someone healthy for children to assert themselves, but they need to also be able to move on to other outfits, other music, other books and so on. i think it is only a real problem when they never venture away from the boy bands and the over sexualized female singers because THEN their views can be slanted or biased.
if you talk to your children then you won't be having as many issues, and since lolita was brought up, think about how big a role her parents played in the narrative.... can you think of any interactions other than praise for tennis or other social events or punishments? i mean eek do you recall "lolita's" mom's attiitude?
the thought of little girls wearing thongs just sounds tacky to me, but that is just my opinion and i could be extremely biased simply because i don't like thongs (on my self anyway 
)
but i think the major issue here is that cloths are not going to MAKE you a protitute, or tot, if you already have the desires and urges and whatnot then the cloths are just a way to express how you already feel. sometimes cloths can "boost" your confidence but they don't create the symptom, and neither do the singers.and what is fashionable to some maynot be to others. but sexuality is already in-grained it is genetic, it really hasn't been THAT long since girls DID bear children at 14 and where otherwise sexual at such a "young age"..
and as others have said, if you don't have an aurthority figure around to tell you about sex and self expression and make you aware that Briney and Christina are literally selling their bodies to get people to listen to them,then you have a problem.
my point was ( i rambled too much) that we all go thru some phase of emulation and that as long as we move on from it to find OURSELVES we , they , are fine. Just be there to guide them, give them an opposing opinion about fashion, show them others ways to feel pretty or attractive. (won't it be wonderful if you could feel pretty from something other than cloths? haha )
most of these things are just buzz words anyway and children don't really understand what these words and actions imply. the real people in their lives should be the role models, not a poster of britney spears or x-tina agulalalala .
and just as background info, my hippie mother taught me about sex at 3.
_Sarah_
Kalamazoo, MI
January 2003
APR 24, 2004 03:52 PM
Morgan said:
It's true that kids are sexual beings, but we're not preparing them for understanding sexuality before we send them out dressed like that. We're allowing them to ACT "grown up" without really understanding all the grownup things that come along with that. My problem is with parents who buy those clothes for their kids, but then refuse to teach them about sex, and be HONEST about. The ones who expect our system of sex education in schools to take care of it for them. That puts kids in a dangerous situation where they have grown up feelings but only know immature and unhealthy ways to use them.
When I was 10, my parents just sat me down and gave me an honest talk about sex, and gave me a great book that had lots of details and answered almost all of my questions. They also talked to me about responsibilty and healthy sexuality, and how ensure that I didn't get taken advantage of. And yeah, sometimes I wore little shorts or a teeny shirt...but it was fine for me because I knew how to deal with my sexual feelings in a healthy way.
I agree with everything Morgan said.
We didn't really have to worry about this in our middle school and high school because we weren't allowed to wear shirts/pants that bared our midriff.
The problem is that we're talking about 1989-1994. Low-rise jeans and thongs weren't in fashion at that point. We were all busy piling layers ON since grunge was big.
I've talked to mothers who can't find clothes that are stylish AND keep their twelve-year old modest. They've talked to several store owners to ask if they carry any "regular" clothes for preteens and young teens. It's kind of sad.
Herpes
I'm lost
August 2003
APR 23, 2004 08:23 PM