Am I right to brush off what 11 YO DD1 said some boys said to her this evening?

[AmIRightInThinkingThis]

DD1 has been playing out with some DC she knows from school (and some she doesn't) while she was round at my mums house tonight.

She didn't want to say what they'd said and so wrote it down, 'They said they wanted to suck the girls they had a crush on tits.'

I think the boys are about the same age as DD1.

I brushed it off as something boys of that age say, they find something they know is rude and giggle at it, saying it to the girls to embarrass them.

Is that right do you think? I don't think it's sinister, more something they've heard from an older sibling and are just being immature.

I'm asking because I'm finding it hard to remember what was or wasn't said at 11 YO (30 years on), and even if I could would that be relevant to gauging what's OK or not nowadays?

AIBU?

"Society has changed so much since I was a gal....

Has it though? boys were like when my mum went to school in the 70's and they were when I went in the early noughties.

I agree though access to internet porn is worrying.

I'm a bit worried by the assumption here that girls need to tolerate sexual harassment if they are to be popular. I disagree that DD should be looking to "lighthearted" ripostes: it's perfectly possible to say something without preaching. An adult might say "You're way out of order!" So can an 11 year old.

Imagine DD had a disability, and the boys said something aggressive about that? Would you encourage her to counter them? Why would one form of aggression be more tolerable than another?

I'm disappointed by those who say their sons are just trying it on, tbh ... Of course they are, and they need to learn pdq that it's NOT on!

Telling girls to let it pass and boys they're just being boys leads to the situation where http://www.google.co.uk/gwt/x?gl=GB&hl=en-GB&u=www.itv.com/news/london/2012-05-25/sexual-harassment-common-in-london/&q=I+newspaper+sexual+harassment+uk+may+2012&ei=MfvAT9mKOIeSOrq4zO4J&sa=X&ct=res&resnum=4&ved=0CBQQFjAD 40% of young women experience sexual harassment

(sorry for crap linkage, best I can do on phone)

Yeah, I agree with Garlic to an extent. I think it would be a terrible shame if your DD thought she had to laugh along with/ sit on the sidelines of stuff that she thought was awful and made her feel bad. I grew up through the ladette thing, where as long as women said something equally awful back and everyone cheered, life was fine. But this didn't challenge the fact that this sort of behaviour isn't bloody alright!

I remember a boy passing my friend a note, when we were around the same age as your DD, explaining that he wanted to "Suck on her little tits and fuck her red raw.' - we did laugh and say "oh yeah, with what?" but my friend was upset and I was frankly horrified, being a bit sheltered at that age, and so we also showed it to his form room teacher and a letter was sent to his parents, and, frankly, he got into a lot of trouble. It's sexual bullying, no different from racist bullying, and it's what makes schools an unpleasant place for some people to attend. I'm really glad schools are getting better at picking up on racist and homophobic jibes than they were in my day (early 90s) - but when they clamp down on bra-snapping and sexual comments,

I like to imagine that us getting this boy into a fair bit of trouble when he was 11/12 and his own mother saying "why would you talk to someone like this?" to him has probably stopped him from sliding down a slippery slope into being a complete twat . Tell your DD they are stupid immature idiots, and that it's never okay, and she doesn't have to put up with it. I'm not saying you need to start taking her on marches (though I'm gonna, once I've got something older than a toddler!) but I am saying that having a strong sense of self-worth when it comes to dealing with sexual harassment helps young women avoid abuse from 'friends' and abusive relationships, too. She shouldn't need to think that being liked/popular is more important that her own gut feeling about a situation.