The Puritan vs. The Prostitot - CAGE MATCH!!!
When I was seven years old, or right around that age, I was playing by myself in my room. I don't remember what I was doing, but at some point, I flung myself off of the top of my bunk bed and proclaimed "I'm gonna be a STRIPPER!". I'm sure that I had seen one depicted on TV, and since this was '79 or '80, it was a very tame depiction. Mom was careful about what we watched. Either way, I had seen a glamorous-looking woman on TV, and she had been called a stripper either by another character or by my mom. But she was pretty and, like I said, glamorous-looking. I thought it would probably be a good thing, being a stripper.
Mom disagreed. She reacted instantly, calling me out of my room and into the kitchen so we could have a very serious talk about modesty. As I said, I didn't really know what a stripper was or did, so I had absolutely no idea that they took off their clothes in front of strangers. Mom did, though, and she let me know that perhaps this was not a proper aspiration for a seven year-old to have. She was concerned, but we had our talk and that was the end of that.
My mom is no puritan, to be sure. We often saw her walking around naked. She was comfortable with her own body, and tried to instill that same comfort in us. She was a nursing student when few were growing up as well, so we learned all about bodies, both externally AND internally. She was no nudist, but she wasn't ashamed either. In the privacy of our home, she would walk from bedroom to bathroom without a stitch on, and she'd often leave the door open when she was done with her bath and putting on lotion. It was a body, we were her kids, and she wasn't doing anything lascivious, so there was no issue. It was a long time before I realized that this was NOT, in fact, the norm.
People in the US are freaked out about sex and nakedness. Europeans laugh at us, at how uptight we get when we go over there and see CHILDREN!!! on the NUDE BEACH!!! But those kids, and their parents, are totally relaxed. Taking in a little sun, avoiding tan lines, and being unfettered by hot, sweaty clothing seems perfectly natural to them. I was at a wedding last summer that had a large European contingent, and at the barbecue the day after, the kids were all playing in the pool and the yard. Some of them - GASP - wore no shirts. EVEN THE LITTLE GIRLS!!! OH NO!!! Later, when I was talking to one of the attendees (who is French) about it, and talking about how cute one of the kids in particular was, he said that the only reason she was allowed to do what came naturally and go without a shirt was because they were among many other Europeans. Had it been strictly Americans there, she would have had to keep her clothes on. This girl was maybe two years old.
We lose our minds over the slightest little thing. Other places have topless women in their daily newpaper, for heaven's sake, but in America, even the most "wholesome" image, that of a mother feeding her infant, causes an uproar. Back in August of last year, BabyTalk Magazine, a free parenting magazine sent to new mothers, put a breast on its cover, with baby attached. No nipple was visible. No aureola was visible. Though breasts are lovely for many reasons, I hear that we have them for a more specific purpose - feeding the children that we spawn. So if any magazine in the world has the right to put one on its cover, it would be a parenting magazine, right?
The image that launched over 8,000 (that's right, EIGHT THOUSAND) letters and emails, is this:
It's a baby attached to a blob. As I've said elsewhere, the only reason that we know that blob isn't a butt cheek is the fact that there's a baby attached to it. But people who received the magazine (can I say again that this magazine is sent to PARENTS, which means that they've already ostensibly had sex AND birthed a baby) responded that it was "gross" and that they were "SHOCKED to see a giant breast on the cover" and one woman had to rip the cover completely off so that her husband wouldn't see it. Seriously.
This image wasn't used to sell beer. It wasn't an ad for a sexy car. It was showing the breast in its natural habitat, doing what it was created to do. If this image caused so much furor, it's no surprise that the Janet Jackson/Superbowl fiasco had such huge repercussions.
That was not, in fact, showing a breast in a wholesome light. However, it barely showed the breast, and you can only even see her nipple on EXTREME close-up (which is, I'm sure, available on any number of websites). She was wearing a piece of jewelry in her nipple piercing that basically covered the whole thing up. Granted, Janet was full of shit when she said it was a "wardrobe malfunction". I'm sorry, but if you're performing a song with the lyrics "Gonna have you naked by the end of this song", and you're wearing a rather ornate piece of nipple jewelry, it's clear that you were planning on making good on the promise the song made. If they had just owned it, both Jackson AND Timberlake, I would have cheered them on. But it's funny, because I was watching the Superbowl when it happened, and *I* barely noticed it. Everyone else barely noticed it too, but they were able to have another look. It is the most TiVo'ed piece of footage ever. So thank you, TiVo. People watched it over and over again, and THEN got outraged. SANCTIONS!!! FILTH!!! FCC!!! OUR CHIIIIILDRENNNNNNN! Over a breast. People lost jobs because somebody dared show a breast during a game known for its brutality and in between commercials featuring all manner of scantily clad women selling beer.
We're coy about even the names of those body parts that we're so vigorously guarding. It's the "no-no spot" or "bikini area" or whatever. I was recently completely fucking mortified to see the word "va-jay-jay" on the cover of Comsmopolitan. Fucking COSMO can't even use proper words but can get away with "va-jay-jay" on the goddamn cover? Are you SERIOUS?
I could go on and on about the way that kids are exposed to way more violence than nudity and how damaging that can be on their little psyches, but that's been done to death. Insert your favourite ranting about that right here, and we'll move on.
We've covered the puritan angle. We've covered that people go bonkers over the slightest bit of nudity, no matter what the context or intent. Now, let's get to the other side. The fact that we encourage our children to behave like hussies.
Yeah, you heard me. If Hooters is a family restaurant (I can't tell you how many times I see families coming out of that place with the small children carrying Hooters balloons) and Britney is a role model, how on earth do we justify the aforementioned puritanism?
There's a girl who's a busker on the street where I work. Her father is always hanging around, presumably to keep her safe from predators, but he's probably just protecting his cash cow. Well, she's nine years old, so maybe "cash calf" is a better term. In any case, she sings along to karaoke tracks. "The Greatest Love Of All", "Proud Mary", stuff like that. But she also includes current hits. One of which is a song by a girl named Cassie, a teenager herself. This song is called "Me & You", and while it's relatively mild in comparison to, say, 2 Live Crew, this is absolutely NOT a song you want to hear coming from the mouth of a nine year-old, as she helpfully points to guys in the crowd while she sings. I'll give you a sample of the lyrics, so that you truly understand.
"I know them other guys/They been talkin' bout/The way I do what I do.
They heard I was good/ They wanna see if it's true/They know you're the one I wanna give it to/I can see you want me too..."
"Baby, I'll love you all the way down/Getcha right where you like it/I promise you'll like it/I swear/Just relax and let me make a move"
It's a catchy song all by itself. I'll sing right along with it. The difference? I'm almost 35 years old! I know what a friggin' blowjob is, for heaven's sake, and it's legal for me to give them. It's legal for you to think about me giving them, even, without thinking yourself a felon in the making. This girl is singing this song on the street at age NINE. With her father standing right there, keeping an eye on the tip jar. Er, I mean, his daughter. Yeah. That.
We've got Rihanna, singing a really earnest song about friendship (with one of those refrains that has now become a bit of a pop-culture punchline). This is all well and good, but she's also prancing around in the video wearing practically nothing at all. But that's pop stars for ya, right?
We already know the kind of fresh hell that stage mothers can be, and pageant mothers are quite often completely insane. But now, those aren't the only mothers who encourage their children to dress and act in a fashion far more adult than they actually are. There's a shop that's popular in malls (and there's one in Downtown Disney as well called "Club Libby Lu"). It's where children, small ones, ages 6 and up, go to play dress-up. With makeup and dress-up costumes (they have an outfit similar to the one that our Britters wore in the "Baby One More Time" video), and all sorts of stuff. I know somebody who used to work across the hall from one of these shops in a mall, and they all called it "The Prostitot Store". They said that they would see 6 and 8 year-olds exiting that place slathered in expertly applied makeup and wearing teeeeny tiny outfits - miniskirts and midriff-baring shirts. The place is a pedophile's wet-dream.
Then we have the mothers who decide that just dressing like a ho (and I'm not saying this in a "get off my lawn" kinda way, either, because I've seen tweens in outfits that would make me look askance at an adult wearing the same thing) isn't enough. They also have to be groomed to within an inch of their tiny lives. Yeah, some of you may have been dragged to the salon when you were a kid to get some infernal perm, but this goes beyond. This article, set in Philly, talks about women bringing their eight year-olds in for eyebrow waxing and bikini waxing. Yes, you read that correctly. These women are bringing eight year-old girls in and paying money for a procedure that they most likely will get zero use out of. I know that puberty is happening earlier and earlier, but even with that, most eight year-olds aren't sporting a huge, unruly, 70's style bush. And it's not just happening in Philly. Los Angeles, Chicago, New York, even smaller cities that aren't seen as any sort of style mecca or fashion beacon. I have women who come to me at work with their 7, 8, 9 year-olds. These girls have skin like milk, clear and healthy and beautiful. The moms tell me, "My daughter needs a skincare regime and an exfoliant. You can never start good habits too early! Haha. Which ones would be good for her?" Um, lady? NONE OF THEM. I point them toward the mildest stuff we have, but only after advising against messing with such beautiful skin until it starts to show some signs of trouble. The mothers are always insistent. "She needs to learn NOW."
America needs to make up its fucking mind already. We've got abstinence-only education in the schools that's helping our teen pregnancy and STD rates go up. We've got people who lose their fool minds over a magazine cover that's less explicit than some works of art displayed in Christian churches. And we've got more and more people pushing young girls to emulate people like Britney, who was so over-sexualized at such an early age and for such a long time that she finally went out of her fucking tree, shaved her head, and went car shopping in a bad wig and her wedding dress. This is what we want our girlchildren to become? This is what we want our boychildren to know and expect from females as they grow up? Really?
The more and more I look around, the more I realize that my mom is a total anomaly. Why? She's fucking sane.
During the entire month of April, I am blogging for RAINN (Rape And Incest National Network) in support of National Sexual Assault Awareness and Prevention Month. At least once a week (but probably more often), I'll be posting about sex in some way, shape or form, as part of a contest through the Grassroots Blogger Book Marketing Campaign. While I'm doing this, if you could please donate to RAINN so that they may continue the work that they're doing, I would appreciate it. When doing so, if you would mention "GBBMC:08" and "chowyunsmut" in the "In Honour Of" box, it will help them track my posts and the donations that said posts generate. Yes, I am eligible to win prizes, but really, I'm doing this to raise money for RAINN. Every little bit helps.
Mom disagreed. She reacted instantly, calling me out of my room and into the kitchen so we could have a very serious talk about modesty. As I said, I didn't really know what a stripper was or did, so I had absolutely no idea that they took off their clothes in front of strangers. Mom did, though, and she let me know that perhaps this was not a proper aspiration for a seven year-old to have. She was concerned, but we had our talk and that was the end of that.
My mom is no puritan, to be sure. We often saw her walking around naked. She was comfortable with her own body, and tried to instill that same comfort in us. She was a nursing student when few were growing up as well, so we learned all about bodies, both externally AND internally. She was no nudist, but she wasn't ashamed either. In the privacy of our home, she would walk from bedroom to bathroom without a stitch on, and she'd often leave the door open when she was done with her bath and putting on lotion. It was a body, we were her kids, and she wasn't doing anything lascivious, so there was no issue. It was a long time before I realized that this was NOT, in fact, the norm.
People in the US are freaked out about sex and nakedness. Europeans laugh at us, at how uptight we get when we go over there and see CHILDREN!!! on the NUDE BEACH!!! But those kids, and their parents, are totally relaxed. Taking in a little sun, avoiding tan lines, and being unfettered by hot, sweaty clothing seems perfectly natural to them. I was at a wedding last summer that had a large European contingent, and at the barbecue the day after, the kids were all playing in the pool and the yard. Some of them - GASP - wore no shirts. EVEN THE LITTLE GIRLS!!! OH NO!!! Later, when I was talking to one of the attendees (who is French) about it, and talking about how cute one of the kids in particular was, he said that the only reason she was allowed to do what came naturally and go without a shirt was because they were among many other Europeans. Had it been strictly Americans there, she would have had to keep her clothes on. This girl was maybe two years old.
We lose our minds over the slightest little thing. Other places have topless women in their daily newpaper, for heaven's sake, but in America, even the most "wholesome" image, that of a mother feeding her infant, causes an uproar. Back in August of last year, BabyTalk Magazine, a free parenting magazine sent to new mothers, put a breast on its cover, with baby attached. No nipple was visible. No aureola was visible. Though breasts are lovely for many reasons, I hear that we have them for a more specific purpose - feeding the children that we spawn. So if any magazine in the world has the right to put one on its cover, it would be a parenting magazine, right?
The image that launched over 8,000 (that's right, EIGHT THOUSAND) letters and emails, is this:
It's a baby attached to a blob. As I've said elsewhere, the only reason that we know that blob isn't a butt cheek is the fact that there's a baby attached to it. But people who received the magazine (can I say again that this magazine is sent to PARENTS, which means that they've already ostensibly had sex AND birthed a baby) responded that it was "gross" and that they were "SHOCKED to see a giant breast on the cover" and one woman had to rip the cover completely off so that her husband wouldn't see it. Seriously.
This image wasn't used to sell beer. It wasn't an ad for a sexy car. It was showing the breast in its natural habitat, doing what it was created to do. If this image caused so much furor, it's no surprise that the Janet Jackson/Superbowl fiasco had such huge repercussions.
That was not, in fact, showing a breast in a wholesome light. However, it barely showed the breast, and you can only even see her nipple on EXTREME close-up (which is, I'm sure, available on any number of websites). She was wearing a piece of jewelry in her nipple piercing that basically covered the whole thing up. Granted, Janet was full of shit when she said it was a "wardrobe malfunction". I'm sorry, but if you're performing a song with the lyrics "Gonna have you naked by the end of this song", and you're wearing a rather ornate piece of nipple jewelry, it's clear that you were planning on making good on the promise the song made. If they had just owned it, both Jackson AND Timberlake, I would have cheered them on. But it's funny, because I was watching the Superbowl when it happened, and *I* barely noticed it. Everyone else barely noticed it too, but they were able to have another look. It is the most TiVo'ed piece of footage ever. So thank you, TiVo. People watched it over and over again, and THEN got outraged. SANCTIONS!!! FILTH!!! FCC!!! OUR CHIIIIILDRENNNNNNN! Over a breast. People lost jobs because somebody dared show a breast during a game known for its brutality and in between commercials featuring all manner of scantily clad women selling beer.
We're coy about even the names of those body parts that we're so vigorously guarding. It's the "no-no spot" or "bikini area" or whatever. I was recently completely fucking mortified to see the word "va-jay-jay" on the cover of Comsmopolitan. Fucking COSMO can't even use proper words but can get away with "va-jay-jay" on the goddamn cover? Are you SERIOUS?
I could go on and on about the way that kids are exposed to way more violence than nudity and how damaging that can be on their little psyches, but that's been done to death. Insert your favourite ranting about that right here, and we'll move on.
We've covered the puritan angle. We've covered that people go bonkers over the slightest bit of nudity, no matter what the context or intent. Now, let's get to the other side. The fact that we encourage our children to behave like hussies.
Yeah, you heard me. If Hooters is a family restaurant (I can't tell you how many times I see families coming out of that place with the small children carrying Hooters balloons) and Britney is a role model, how on earth do we justify the aforementioned puritanism?
There's a girl who's a busker on the street where I work. Her father is always hanging around, presumably to keep her safe from predators, but he's probably just protecting his cash cow. Well, she's nine years old, so maybe "cash calf" is a better term. In any case, she sings along to karaoke tracks. "The Greatest Love Of All", "Proud Mary", stuff like that. But she also includes current hits. One of which is a song by a girl named Cassie, a teenager herself. This song is called "Me & You", and while it's relatively mild in comparison to, say, 2 Live Crew, this is absolutely NOT a song you want to hear coming from the mouth of a nine year-old, as she helpfully points to guys in the crowd while she sings. I'll give you a sample of the lyrics, so that you truly understand.
"I know them other guys/They been talkin' bout/The way I do what I do.
They heard I was good/ They wanna see if it's true/They know you're the one I wanna give it to/I can see you want me too..."
"Baby, I'll love you all the way down/Getcha right where you like it/I promise you'll like it/I swear/Just relax and let me make a move"
It's a catchy song all by itself. I'll sing right along with it. The difference? I'm almost 35 years old! I know what a friggin' blowjob is, for heaven's sake, and it's legal for me to give them. It's legal for you to think about me giving them, even, without thinking yourself a felon in the making. This girl is singing this song on the street at age NINE. With her father standing right there, keeping an eye on the tip jar. Er, I mean, his daughter. Yeah. That.
We've got Rihanna, singing a really earnest song about friendship (with one of those refrains that has now become a bit of a pop-culture punchline). This is all well and good, but she's also prancing around in the video wearing practically nothing at all. But that's pop stars for ya, right?
We already know the kind of fresh hell that stage mothers can be, and pageant mothers are quite often completely insane. But now, those aren't the only mothers who encourage their children to dress and act in a fashion far more adult than they actually are. There's a shop that's popular in malls (and there's one in Downtown Disney as well called "Club Libby Lu"). It's where children, small ones, ages 6 and up, go to play dress-up. With makeup and dress-up costumes (they have an outfit similar to the one that our Britters wore in the "Baby One More Time" video), and all sorts of stuff. I know somebody who used to work across the hall from one of these shops in a mall, and they all called it "The Prostitot Store". They said that they would see 6 and 8 year-olds exiting that place slathered in expertly applied makeup and wearing teeeeny tiny outfits - miniskirts and midriff-baring shirts. The place is a pedophile's wet-dream.
Then we have the mothers who decide that just dressing like a ho (and I'm not saying this in a "get off my lawn" kinda way, either, because I've seen tweens in outfits that would make me look askance at an adult wearing the same thing) isn't enough. They also have to be groomed to within an inch of their tiny lives. Yeah, some of you may have been dragged to the salon when you were a kid to get some infernal perm, but this goes beyond. This article, set in Philly, talks about women bringing their eight year-olds in for eyebrow waxing and bikini waxing. Yes, you read that correctly. These women are bringing eight year-old girls in and paying money for a procedure that they most likely will get zero use out of. I know that puberty is happening earlier and earlier, but even with that, most eight year-olds aren't sporting a huge, unruly, 70's style bush. And it's not just happening in Philly. Los Angeles, Chicago, New York, even smaller cities that aren't seen as any sort of style mecca or fashion beacon. I have women who come to me at work with their 7, 8, 9 year-olds. These girls have skin like milk, clear and healthy and beautiful. The moms tell me, "My daughter needs a skincare regime and an exfoliant. You can never start good habits too early! Haha. Which ones would be good for her?" Um, lady? NONE OF THEM. I point them toward the mildest stuff we have, but only after advising against messing with such beautiful skin until it starts to show some signs of trouble. The mothers are always insistent. "She needs to learn NOW."
America needs to make up its fucking mind already. We've got abstinence-only education in the schools that's helping our teen pregnancy and STD rates go up. We've got people who lose their fool minds over a magazine cover that's less explicit than some works of art displayed in Christian churches. And we've got more and more people pushing young girls to emulate people like Britney, who was so over-sexualized at such an early age and for such a long time that she finally went out of her fucking tree, shaved her head, and went car shopping in a bad wig and her wedding dress. This is what we want our girlchildren to become? This is what we want our boychildren to know and expect from females as they grow up? Really?
The more and more I look around, the more I realize that my mom is a total anomaly. Why? She's fucking sane.
During the entire month of April, I am blogging for RAINN (Rape And Incest National Network) in support of National Sexual Assault Awareness and Prevention Month. At least once a week (but probably more often), I'll be posting about sex in some way, shape or form, as part of a contest through the Grassroots Blogger Book Marketing Campaign. While I'm doing this, if you could please donate to RAINN so that they may continue the work that they're doing, I would appreciate it. When doing so, if you would mention "GBBMC:08" and "chowyunsmut" in the "In Honour Of" box, it will help them track my posts and the donations that said posts generate. Yes, I am eligible to win prizes, but really, I'm doing this to raise money for RAINN. Every little bit helps.