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

@Sally27

‘Position of the fortnight’ in More magazine. I was only about 13/14 when I used to buy this magazine and it made me feel under pressure that I should be doing things I wasn’t comfortable with.

Ross in Friends and his horrible controlling and manipulating ways towards Rachel.

I was reading More magazine at the same age and never felt it was something I had to replicate at home at that age! There was a big scandal about it on This Morning, but teens will always want to read something they think is aimed at someone a bit older. Just 17 was for 15 year olds max and 19 for about 16.

@Puppylucky

I'm really sorry to break up the party but I feel I have to reiterate what Whitchurch said a few pages ago now. Art - including pop music lyrics - is not just a verbatim repetition of an individuals story - it is a fantasy. The Beatles never really lived in a Yellow Submarine and Bryan Adams wasn't a young adult male in 1969. He was writing a song that touched all the classic American tropes around rock and roll and young love. I get that times have changed but I'm absolutely staggered that so many people seem to think that 70's and 80's culture was so warped. Individual crimes by sleazy bus drivers and teachers was yes probably more prevalent as it hadn't been (rightly) criminalised but not every piece of popular culture had a cynical subtext.

And just because a film/novel etc. is 'about' something doesn't mean it condones or promotes it!

There were no shower cubicles or curtains, you walked through a double row of showers with your arms raised. There was no soap and the water was barely warm so it was pretty pointless

Yes, this was my experience too - there was no actual point to it, nobody left the shower any cleaner than they went in, it was just a weekly exercise in humiliation.

I think Daniel Craig's 007 movies are far far more misogynistic than the old ones

Gemma Arterton has talked about how she hated her sex scene in Quantum of Solace and wishes the character could have said no. I don't see how they could separate the James Bond character from the misogyny - it's a male fantasy world where attractive women have little agency and don't say no to sex.

I don't see how they could separate the James Bond character from the misogyny - it's a male fantasy world where attractive women have little agency and don't say no to sex.

This nails it. I'd be happy to see the Bonds disappear.

At least in the Craig ones his character is portrayed as flawed/problematics rather than purely aspirational. The Connery and Moore films are dreadful, sexual assault portrayed as glamorous (and as something the women wanted anyway).

@Constantcrayfish

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'.

It's not really a problem if the children who read them then move on to watching EastEnders or something where almost every marriage has infidelity and arguing and ends in divorce :)

@wantanotherdog

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 😳?

I was in therapy for twenty years, but getting better now :)

Also what about single mothers being demonised in the 80s (not the fathers who had had their fun and ran off scot free!!)

The mums (who were absolute saints) were the "scourge of society" so they were taken advantage of, abandoned, looked down at by society and had little financial support for themselves and their little ones who they had chosen to keep despite all that!

My gran always said that an unwanted pregnancy was automatically the woman's fault, because she was the one who decided whether or not she kept her legs together.

I also have to say that when I was 16 I was dying to be ravished by some handsome older man. I put it down to lots of Jane Austin and Georgette Heyer books. Thankfully I never was because the reality would have been terrifying, but it was a fantasy of mine then.

@RoSEbuds6

I also have to say that when I was 16 I was dying to be ravished by some handsome older man. I put it down to lots of Jane Austin and Georgette Heyer books. Thankfully I never was because the reality would have been terrifying, but it was a fantasy of mine then.

I had the same fantasy, RoSEbuds. Maybe not quite 'ravaged' but swept off my feet by a gorgeous older man. I imagine that is quite normal. Boys fantasise about older women too.

"Not France, but elsewhere in Europe, I have a gynae appointment every 18 months. Gynae also does breast check. That being said, it's done very respectfully. It's always done after the gynae check and I am sent to put my bottoms back on before taking my top off. I'm happy to have it done as I'm 100% certain my gynae is a better judge than I am."

Yes, and I don't think it's great that there are no breast checks in the UK until you're old enough to be called for a mammogram.
However, in the cases in this thread, it sounds like the breast examinations were abusive because the women clearly felt they were.

I've never had an abusive breast examination and have regularly gone for mammograms. I am having one next week actually.

@Maggiesfarm

I've never had an abusive breast examination and have regularly gone for mammograms. I am having one next week actually.

Mammograms don't start until after the menopause though don't they? I thought they didn't work well on younger women?

Ravished, is more of a historical term @Maggiesfarm in my mind, and would have entailed me wearing a gorgeous silken gown.

I didn't make myself very clear with my post, what I meant to say was that songs about being taken under an older man's wing would probably have appealed to me at the time, because of that fantasy, especially the 'Come live with me, leave the boys behind'. God I would have loved to have left my home, schoolwork and homework and live with a suave older man who could have bought me anything I wanted from Chelsea Girl! Boys of my own age were pretty spotty, and dull.

Mammograms are different to breast examinations...

@SpringtimeSummertime

Not to mention that awful film where John Cleese plays a headteacher who runs around with a 6th former... What’s it called.

Clockwise? In defence of that film I don't think there is anything meant to be going on between him and the sixth former is there? I think it is more the implication that other people might think there is and this is just one of the many many disasters to befall him. I mean I am not saying it is perfect. But I think part of the point is that it would be dreadful if he had actually kidnapped a teenager and everyone is horrified that he did so. Rather than that is what actually happened.

@RoSEbuds6

Miss World and Page 3 girls. We used to watch Miss World as a family and vote. Seems so demeaning now. Page 3 was just weird, why would a topless woman be even relevant in a newspaper? I never understood it.

Yep. Although the thing that actually killed of page 3 etc wasnt changing morals of society/a realisation that obectifying women was wrong. It was the internet.

@TipseyTorvey

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.

Some of the senior gymnasts on the German team have started wearing a one piece outfit that covers their legs as well, for this very reason. I actually hope it gains in usage.

@TheVampiresWife

I first went on the pill when I was 16 in the late 80s and I had regular breast examinations, too (male GP). I thought this was normal?

I think there was a period where there was a lot of push for doctors to do breast exams as a standard part of any gynae appointment. They were trying to get women to get in the habit of doing them a lot.

Like a lot of these kinds of medical fads I think it faded and became more reasonable, and some doctors never bought into it in the first place.

Yep. Although the thing that actually killed of page 3 etc wasnt changing morals of society/a realisation that obectifying women was wrong. It was the internet.

I am not sure of this trade off. No page three but violent porn is now the norm. We might be better off to trade back.

@Fantail2018

Agree re 'Flowers in the Attic' which was in school library at intermediate (age 11-12).

There are multiple sequels and other series by same author/ghostwriters about inappropriate relationships and incest. Not sure why it was being promoted to primary age children.

My Mum was a librarian and pretty liberal about reading material generally but was pretty horrified that this was in the school library.

I have actually never read it. I think because she never normally restricted what I read I must have really respected what she said about this book and given it a swerve!

@Whitchurch

Songs tell stories. They don't always have to be positive stories, they don't necessarily reflect the views, experience or aspirations of the artists. They talk about life. The Police sing about a stalker - the lyrics aren't promoting it as a good thing, they are relating how it might be to be that person. It comes across as creepy. It's supposed to. I think that songs that explicitly tell us that the singer is lusting after an under-age child are something else of course! but some of this putting lyrics under scrutiny is madness to me. Do we want to live in a sanitised world where nobody is allowed to write a work of fiction (song or book or poem etc) that reflects a seedy, but real, aspect of life? It's wrong to murder people, but crime thriller writers aren't to be condemned as prospective murderers are they? Or their books burned because they portray situations that are illegal, cruel or otherwise unacceptable. Somehow we need to stop this constant looking for wrong where it was never intended. We're heading for ridiculous censorship resulting in the loss of classics and the narrowing of our views of life. As an example - Go and read the Bryan Adams lyrics for Summer of 69. It's a man looking back on happy times in his youth. His first guitar. How he and friends formed a band. It didn't work. First love. "Those were the best days of my life". No abuse, no under-age lust, just life as it's experienced. While we look backward we somehow don't manage to deal with the vile stuff that surrounds us now. Listen to some current lyrics. The ones being picked over here pale into insignificance.

I do agree with that. I also think though there is a big difference between feeling "uncomfortable" with something and wanting to ban/cancel it. Some songs/paintings/films etc are MEANT to make you feel uncomfortable. For example - I loved Hands Clean and You Oughta Know by Alanis Morisette when I was much younger. As an adult, when you know what its about, Hands Clean in particular is uncomfortable - but it is an excellent song.

What makes me feel really uncomfortable though is songs about fancying/sleeping with teenagers when the much older singers were actually sleeping with teenagers. It isnt even as though the singers are remembering their own teenage years. E.g. "Catholic School Girls Rule" and that was the 80s

@SmokedDuck

Yep. Although the thing that actually killed of page 3 etc wasnt changing morals of society/a realisation that obectifying women was wrong. It was the internet.

I am not sure of this trade off. No page three but violent porn is now the norm. We might be better off to trade back.

Quite! But it certainly wasn't that murdock and the rest suddenly realised the error of their ways.

"Like a lot of these kinds of medical fads I think it faded and became more reasonable, and some doctors never bought into it in the first place."

Is it "more reasonable" to not have breast examinations though? Genuine ones I mean. Not sure about the health need of them and I'm wondering whether actually they could be useful.
On the other hand, are we also being told we don't need to examine ourselves any more, just be 'breast aware'? It's a bit confusing.

So what if he was only 9 in 1969?

It doesn't have to be 100% autobiographical. Perhaps the summer of 1976 didn't rhyme? Perhaps he wanted to draw on the general nostalgia for the summer of 69 while using memories and feelings from a number of summers of his youth. Perhaps it is all just made up bollocks designed to sell records!

Was it maybe a concern that the pill or contraption drugs could cause breast issues?

I just can't imagine that it was so common for that many Drs to be perves.