What now makes you uncomfortable that didn't at the time

[drinkingwineoutofamug]

As a teenager I like listening to a certain rock band.
Just found their album on iTunes, downloaded and listened.
I was shocked. One of the songs - sung by grown men - ' she's a 13 yr tease , with bleach blonde hair. Let me eat your cookies , let me see your cookies '
Sat in the bath gob smacked. When I was 15 , this never made me question.

Has anyone else come across something that as a younger person it never crossed your mind but now it's a wtf moment

Summer of 69?

Someone I went to school with started going out with another (older) school pupils dad, she was 16 and he was about 40. They stayed together for years and had a kids together. At the time it caused a minor scandal in our town but I think in school we were more shocked that SHE would do that to the other pupil as it was obviously terrible for them having someone in a younger school year as their dads girlfriend. I’m horrified to think about it now!

Dad's making jokes about shotguns or being their DDs protector. Fucking hate it now.

Diana Spencer - a 19 year old married off to a man 12 years older. Did it seem romantic then? I'm horrified as the mother of a 19 yr old

Absolutely agree about 'Mrs Doubtfire'. I seem to recall Anne Fine's book - which is excellent - does a much a better job of portraying the mum as a woman driven to breaking point, and the husband as a bit of an obnoxious man-child.

One of my colleagues who calls me to the window every time there is a lone man walking up the hill opposite the primary school at which we work ('He doesn't even have a dog!') 🙄 conveniently overlooks the fact that she is the progeny of the relationship between an underage girl and an older man. It's not a huge gap, and wouldn't have attracted comment twenty years ago, but she's got very firm ideas about what a hebephile looks like, and it clearly isn't dad.

Tonight's The Night lyrics by Rod Stewart, especially "Don't say a word my virgin child
Just let your inhibitions run wild
The secret is about to unfold upstairs" 🤢

I read an article today about girl gymnasts wanting to wear full length costumes and it blew my mind that of course it's horrendous that young girls are made to wear what is essentially sparkling swimsuits and do cutesy moves in what is actually an incredibly robust athletic sport. There's been so many exposes lately about paedophile gymnast trainers but it only occurred to me today that girls should absolutely not be wearing tiny swimsuits whilst they split their legs in the air. I did gymnastics for ages and didn't even question it.

Cancelling the past ?

Men in drag. Didn't bother me at all in my drama students days but that was decades ago.

So many things. I remember being frequently wolf whistled and leered at at 14/15/16 in school uniform. Naively I was flattered at the time. Now I'm appalled.

@tipseyTorvey my 6yo is crazy about gymnastics and this makes me feel really uncomfortable too. She always wears shorts when she is training but for competition they are only allowed leotard. They say that it’s because they need to see the lines etc but it a ok to wear a long sleeved Leo so that doesn’t seem to ring true for me. All I can say is that until my dd grows out of her gymnastics phase I will be keeping a very close eye on her.

PE knickers. Big up and over ones that you wore with nothing but a gym T-shirt. In the winter. For cross country. Funnily enough the boys got to wear proper shorts 🤔

When we were in yr 9 they had a shake up of the pe staff and two younger female staff joined. They immediately added shorts to the girls PE uniform.

I was a bit "whatever" about it at the time. I was a "good girl" and just did and wore what I was told. But thinking now about how many women my age were put off exercise in their teens - well of course they bloody were. They were made to run around in a pair of knickers, at the start of puberty and periods, in front of hundreds of boys and male PE staff.

Why? Why on earth where those sodding knickers even considered an item of external clothing?

The Heaven 17 song Come Live With Me 'I was 37, you were 17...' - creepy...

A girl of 12 who had a baby in year 8 when I was in secondary school.

At the time, she was the scandal, not the MAN who did it to her.

And yes to gym knickers and pleated PE skirts.

@DeciduousPerennial

A girl of 12 who had a baby in year 8 when I was in secondary school.

At the time, she was the scandal, not the MAN who did it to her.

I think that’s still happening

A young girl gets pregnant and she’s the one who’s a whore, a slut, trying to trap a good man/boy.

Never him who’s blamed

I think the biggest one for me was realising years later what the song 'Krisco Kisses' by Frankie Goes to Hollywood was about...

...and also on Frankie, the lyrics of Relax, which everyone just went round blithely humming at the time (and OMG the sound effect at the end of that song).

And also:

Primary school kids being told to do PE in their knickers and vests if they forget their PE kit. I bet that doesn't still happen.

Rapey sentiments in Carla Lane's sitcoms. I absolutely love her shows, but (showing my age here), things like 'I want to be raped!' in Butterflies, and an episode of The Liver Birds where they get drunk (if I remember rightly - I was pretty young at the time) and start rubbing letters off a greengrocer's window so 'Cape Grapes' changes to 'Ape Rapes'.

A Victoria Wood song (much as I adored VW) written as a gospel song and featuring one black character, dressed as a cafe waitress and pushing a trolley.

A lot of the sentiments expressed in Friends and Sex and the City, much as I love both shows.

Simpler times I suppose, but... yeah.

In around year 10- so aged 15, we had a new teacher start who flirted with my friend. At the time we thought it was funny- he was young and attractive and we were boy mad teenagers. He offered her lifts home sometimes, winked at her whenever he saw her and would find any excuse to keep her back after lessons. It didn't seem creepy at the time, he wasn't physical, only complimented her and spoke to her the most. Not so funny now 10 years on they're married.

@Soubriquet

The ‘baby’ will now be nearly 3 times the age his mother was when he was born. His father (who was in his 20s) was sent back to his home country in disgrace - not for abusing a 12 year old, but for dallying with a girl from a different race.

I don’t doubt that it still happens. But if it happened now, then safeguarding protocols that are in place would kick in somewhere. They may fail, but they exist.

They didn’t then. Not as they do today. And that’s what’s shocking to me in the context of then vs now.

At that point, no one ever thought it was abuse - not the rest of the school cohort, not the other parents, not the school staff (as far as it’s possible to know). A good proportion of society would now though.

She was nearly expelled for that. And the rest of her time at school was a misery.

Looking back through adult, parent eyes, I can’t believe the amount of shame and scorn poured on her. A child.

I rewatched The Thick of It recently, and the casual homophobia really jumped out at me. Want to insult someone, just throw a line at them about being gay. I doubt it would be written like that now.

a man taking photos of my daughter aged 2 playing, i guess it is all above board

a man wanted my two dds in his caravan to play on his play station.

yes i really dont like that part of Big

Some of these have not aged well but a few I think you're missing the point. If you listen to Does your Mother Know You're Out, he is discouraging the girl from trying to act older than she is. I've always heard it as being very self aware about girls who think they are more grown up than they are.
Also Cruel Intentions...it's an adaptation of Dangerous Liaisons...the whole point is the seduction of young girls and how these awful people try and ruin their lives and reputations. The message is not that this is ok...but watch out for the perverts out there!

And to throw my two pence worth in... Friends. But even at the time I remember my mum rolling her eyes and leaving the room if it was on...so some people saw it for the sexist, fat shaming, homophobic shit show that it was 😂