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

Just been discussing the snow white ride with DH. He really doesn't get my points 🤷🏻‍♀️
The ableism surrounding the 'dwarves'

Why is dwarves in quotes? They're dwarves (or dwarfs) members of a mythical race of being that live in forests and underground like trolls, goblins, brownies, elves pixies etc. There's nothing ableist about this. For all we know the seven dwarfs could be really tall dwarfs. You might as well cancel Tinkerbell for the same reasons. She's tiny when compared to Peter Pan. (Which should be really suspect because that's an obvious case of someone being supplied puberty blockers without their knowledge or consent.)

Stop overthinking stuff.

@Sunnyday321

I'm surprised no-one has mentioned Michael Jackson and the boys who parents allowed them to have sleepovers and part time living at Neverland .

Probably because that has been done to death and nobody really knows the truth. It's better to leave that in the past.

Has anyone on Mumsnet been psychologically damaged by Disney cartoons or the songs they happily sang along to without understanding the words? There are certainly songs and raps that should be strongly discouraged because of the content normalising knife crime and rape or foul language but perhaps over analysing well hidden messages in older songs will drive us all mad. And tbh analysing Aesops fables and folk tales would give anyone nightmares. Children abandoned in forests anyone? Then being captured by a witch and shoving her into an oven to be burned alive 😳?

Though there was the time they did Master and Servant on the Wide Awake Club ....

Ah, yes, I'd forgotten that. That was a really bad call by whoever booked them, but I still don't think they were specifically targeted at little kids, were they.... or has my memory failed me there?

I mentioned their song Stripped before - I've just looked up the lyrics again and, to be fair, it's not particularly about sex, but I still find it quite creepy - almost like you assume it's going to be about sex, but it's almost like sex isn't enough. I suppose it's their way of saying 'I want to get to know you as closely as I can, but approaching it from a 'make you think about sex' angle rather than as a deep meeting of minds.

I do as an adult find the easy fairy tale culture of instant love and marriage annoying; it feeds unhealthy relationship habits, as po-faced as I might sound.

That's why I like the way Frozen skewers 'love at first sight'.

Has anyone on Mumsnet been psychologically damaged by Disney cartoons or the songs they happily sang along to without understanding the words?

I think, in all honesty, that we have no way of fully knowing. All culture and language that we're exposed to permeates us at some level or another, whether we're conscious of it or not.

The UK and US (and probably other) governments did a number of experiments in subliminal programming/responses in the 50s/60s (IIRC) and it's amazing how your mind can be affected without you ever realising it.

As a silly and somewhat far-fetched fictional example, the episode of The Simpsons where Lisa objects to the doll she's given that says things like "Don't mind me - I'm just a girl, heehee" and then Marge later comes out with one of the doll's other exact sayings - something like 'let's not think about it and I'll get us all some lovely ice cream instead'.

I remember a 16 year old friend losing her virginity to one of our sports coaches (not a school activity, I was 18). They went up to a local beauty spot and did it on his coat as the grass was wet. It makes me feel vaguely sick to think of that now, he knew what age she was and also had a girlfriend. She thought she was so grown up!!

Oh and same friend at 15 or maybe 16 got a tattoo on her chest, the tattooist wouldn't let me stay in the room while he did it, yet she'd been fine to stay in with me while I got one done on a less sexual part of my body, I was only 17 at the time. He didn't ask for id and smoked throughout the procedure. She didn't mention if he did anything, but I suspect he jus had a good old grope of her chest. It makes me so worried if I were to ever have a daughter!

@WeBuiltThisBuffetOnSausageRoll

Has anyone on Mumsnet been psychologically damaged by Disney cartoons or the songs they happily sang along to without understanding the words?

I think, in all honesty, that we have no way of fully knowing. All culture and language that we're exposed to permeates us at some level or another, whether we're conscious of it or not.

The UK and US (and probably other) governments did a number of experiments in subliminal programming/responses in the 50s/60s (IIRC) and it's amazing how your mind can be affected without you ever realising it.

As a silly and somewhat far-fetched fictional example, the episode of The Simpsons where Lisa objects to the doll she's given that says things like "Don't mind me - I'm just a girl, heehee" and then Marge later comes out with one of the doll's other exact sayings - something like 'let's not think about it and I'll get us all some lovely ice cream instead'.

I love that episode of The Simpsons. I think it had a really inspiring impact on me as a young baby feminist!

they did wake up to the sexism in Bond in the 80s i think - I remember quite recently watching a Roger Moore Bond film (not sure which) in which he meets (I think) a drug smuggler/take over the world type, and he stays overnight in the mansion. He is supplied with a girl who looks about 14, for his comfort. She looks frozen (in her little bikini) and he raises that fucking eyebrow in a knowing, creepy way.

I objected to watching this fucking 'entertainment' and DP complained that I was politicising our TV watching. He saw the sexism and creepiness (when I explained forcefully) but said we 'shouldn't apply rules of today to a 1970s film'.

I'm not sure why they keep repeating these crappy out-dated films.

(I also politicise our holidays apparently, by not wanting to holiday in India, parts of Africa, America due to human rights abuses.) shrug.

There was girls in my school who were sleeping with much older guys in their 20s and 30s it seemed cool and normal at the time.

Looking back with knowledge of grooming and stuff I question some of those relationships, especially with girls still in school. And I wonder did the parents, know or care?

I know I'm going to get shot for saying this but awareness of grooming and sexual abuse has changed so much in even the last 10 years.

But it's a hard line to draw the difference between a grooming relationship and just a relationship with a big age gap.
I've two friends who met their much older partners when they were late teens. One set of parents tried to break the relationship up, the other felt it was better to let it run its course with fear of pushing their DD into the older man's arms.

When I was in primary school (late 70s/early 80s) our headteacher used to make comments about the girls all the time. We used to have a sort of 'open mic' segment at Friday afternoon assembly where pupils could put on little plays, dance, sing or whatever. Every week he'd make the same joke about being disappointed none of the girls did a strip tease. When a girl did a dance performance once he commented on her 'broad back' and how nicely developed she was, in front of the whole school.

He would also send for girls to come to his office for a 'prize'. We had to sit on his knee and he'd give us a £1 book token for being good at maths/English/whatever. Sometimes he'd ask us to kiss him on the cheek to say thank you. I can still remember it feeling stubbly and he smelled like coffee.

It was a joke to the kids (the boys especially) but I remember a lot of us girls talking about how weird it made us feel but at that age and in that era we didn't really know why, and we definitely thought it was ok for him to carry on the way he did. My mother (like lots of my friends' mothers) thought it was fine, too. I remember bumping into him in the street when I was with my mum, I was wearing a Fame grey rara mini skirt and he told my mum I had lovely legs and she told me to thank him for the compliment. He was always giving girls 'squeezes' as he called them - sort of full body tight hugs.

Everyone knew he did these things and everyone was fine with it. He was massively respected, a pillar of the community who had a column in the local paper and an MBE.

If a headteacher had carried on like that when DD was at school I would have called the police.

[quote Thants1]@Constantcrayfish I actually feel sick thinking about it now, I think this is the first time I’ve really accepted that this might have been sexual assault. He is still practicing as a GP[/quote]
This was raised as a thread on MN about 5-10 years ago. People were appalled, but an older female GP (I think) said it was - if not standard practice - certainly reasonably common practice at one point.

Has anyone mentioned In The Summertime yet?

Also @drinkingwineoutofamug I used to love that band. So many of the bands of that genre and era were pretty reprehensible looking back, lyrics and actions-wise. I knew girls of 13 and 14 who would spend nights on tour buses and regale us all with the details after. We were actually envious of them, unbelievably.

Still creeped out by Michael Jackson - what kind of man has children sleep in his bed? Even if as his fans claim it was all innocent. Just why?

I can't stand James Bond movies, especially the Roger Moore era version, why on earth are we still sanctioning this?

Kate Bush - I saw a documentary about her a few years back. One of the music producers became her lover and came over as upset she'd ran off with someone else and had a child with them,. He always believed it would be his child but only when he thought she was ready to have a child. Yeah, not creepy at all.

@WeBuiltThisBuffetOnSausageRoll

Pop songs about sex? shock God help us all! Won't someone think of the children?!

Fair enough if you're happy for groups with a large fanbase of (sometimes very) youngsters to be singing to them about adults having sex. Not in a sex ed kind of way, but actually often describing being horny and what turns them on. Do you also let your little ones watch Naked Attraction? Take the time to describe to them about what you and their dad did in bed last night and what specific acts really got you both going and 'saw you to a conclusion'?

An awful lot of the content of these sorts of songs go over most kids heads. I think it's more uncomfortable for us as adults to hear them singing along as we know what the song is about. It's the same way panto is fun for both kids and adults. There is kid safe humour and then the stuff which adults enjoy but the kids don't get.

A school in my town decided to open the sixth form up to older adult learners (I assume on the basis that all ages learned similar things at colleges etc). A friend went there and there were 2 men in their early 30s in her year. She became friends with one of them through a shared love of poetry etc and by the end of lower 6th it was more than that. At the time it seemed very grown up and perfectly OK. When I think of it now, this was a man in his 30s who chose to study in a school with loads of teenagers rather than at a college with more people his own age. Pretty clear grooming and frightening that a man that age was basically given free access to school children of all ages without the protections etc that are in place when the adults are members of staff.

An awful lot of the content of these sorts of songs go over most kids heads. I think it's more uncomfortable for us as adults to hear them singing along as we know what the song is about.

I take your point, but I still question the motives of people who deliberately write/perform/produce songs like that which are mainly targeted at often very little kids. What do you think the reason might be why we as adults are uncomfortable to hear 7yos singing "This is a shout-out to my ex, I hope she's getting better sex and isn't faking it like me" etc.?

There are loads of things that suddenly become 'acceptable' when they're put to music, and I'd love to know why. If you had a 7yo who said they didn't want to read the Beano or First News any more, but they've seen this exciting new photo-magazine with stories about a young woman who breaks up with her ex and then explains why she hated feeling she had to fake orgasms but sarcastically hopes that he's able to sexually satisfy his new partner much less selfishly.

Would you think "Yep, that's a suitable mag for me to buy for her. She probably won't really understand the storylines anyway and will just enjoy looking at the fashionable clothes the models wear...." ?

When I was 18 we rented out the flat in the basement of our house and at the time a man in his 40s who'd recently divorced was living there.

One Sunday afternoon he phoned my dad and asked if it would be ok if I went down to his flat to trim his beard and my dad said yes!!

My dad is (was) so intelligent and such a gentleman that I thought it must be just me who felt weird about it, so I did it.

Nothing undue happened but I'm 100% sure the guy was getting a sexual thrill from it.

It seems like a bad dream now...

@Gobbeldegook

Just been discussing the snow white ride with DH. He really doesn't get my points 🤷🏻‍♀️ The ableism surrounding the 'dwarves' How its inappropriate to kiss someone who is incapacitated. He's not thick and is pretty perfect in all other senses but my god. I don't understand why he doesn't understand 🤣 He says it's just a love story. I said how would you feel if one of our dds were laid passed out in the woods and a stranger kissed them? That's different apparently. Cause snow white isn't real 🙄 Yes leave it in the past to learn from but D**ney shouldn't be making new rides about non consented kisses.

Snow White isn't incapacitated, she is dead. It's only magic that brings her to life.

I don't see anything ableist about the dwarves. Dwarves in folk stories aren't disabled, they are simply small magical beings who guard or mine the earth's treasures. If anything, it's unfortunate that the word "dwarfism" has been applied to people who have a certain disability, perhaps a medical term would be better. (Just as the word "mongol" is quite rightly no longer considered appropriate for people who have Down's.)

I was trying to do some work and thought, hmmm, let's put on a bouncy happy album I know i can rock out to. Of course, OPM's 2000 Menace to Sobriety. (I haven't listed to this in maybe 12-15 years...) El Capitan, lovely little tune, now I clearly see lyrics from hell. An interlude called punanny. What was i thinking back then! Yuck yuck yuck

I grew up in central-ish London in the late 60s and from the age of 9 my best friend and me used to get a Red Rover ticket on a Saturday and ride around all over London, getting home about 9pm.

My mum worked in a West End theatre and used to get free tickets and me and the same friend attended evening perfomances. Mum finished work at 8pm and went home, leaving us in the audience to make our own way home at about 10 or 10.30pm. We had to change buses halfway, too.

I saw a thread on here today of a mum wondering if it would be OK to let her 11 year old go to the park alone and realised that the way we lived back then was rather iffy. Nothing ever happened to us. Some Saturdays the bus crew would share their tea with us at the terminus!

The popular song "Thank Heaven for Little Girls" is a bit dodgy:

Each time I see a little girl
Of five or six or seven
I can't resist a joyous urge
To smile and say
Thank heaven for little girls
For little girls get
Bigger every day
Thank heaven for little girls
They grow up in
The most delightful way.
Those little eyes
So helpless and appealing
When they were flashing
Send you crashing
Through the ceiling
Thank heaven for little girls
Thank heaven for them all
No matter where,
No matter who
Without them
What would little boys do
Thank heaven
Thank heaven
Thank heaven for little girls.

@WeBuiltThisBuffetOnSausageRoll

An awful lot of the content of these sorts of songs go over most kids heads. I think it's more uncomfortable for us as adults to hear them singing along as we know what the song is about.

I take your point, but I still question the motives of people who deliberately write/perform/produce songs like that which are mainly targeted at often very little kids. What do you think the reason might be why we as adults are uncomfortable to hear 7yos singing "This is a shout-out to my ex, I hope she's getting better sex and isn't faking it like me" etc.?

There are loads of things that suddenly become 'acceptable' when they're put to music, and I'd love to know why. If you had a 7yo who said they didn't want to read the Beano or First News any more, but they've seen this exciting new photo-magazine with stories about a young woman who breaks up with her ex and then explains why she hated feeling she had to fake orgasms but sarcastically hopes that he's able to sexually satisfy his new partner much less selfishly.

Would you think "Yep, that's a suitable mag for me to buy for her. She probably won't really understand the storylines anyway and will just enjoy looking at the fashionable clothes the models wear...." ?

But that song is clearly not aimed at 7 year olds and neither is the photo magazine. Isn't it the parent's job to keep those things away from them if they don't like it? (There used to be Bounty for the pre-teen age group, is there anything like that now?)