To feel phsyically sick at this suggestive toddler t-shirt, and the even more inappropriate write up...

[SaffronCake]

Perhaps Your 2 year old is just a cupcake looking for her stud muffin (so she can kick her legs about all night- WTF)?

Mine sure as hell isn't.

t-shirt at Zulily

Just kill me now. Even running the risk of an AIBU flaming isn't as bad as this fucking abomination.

Very obvious difference though, isn't there, even for the hard of thinking - anyone has the potential to become a porn star, no one can be Superman because he's not real.

Superman is a hero. He's strong and kind, he helps people and rescues them, he is virtuous and good. A pretty good role model for children.

Pornstars are filmed having (often) degrading sex acts performed on them/performing (often) degrading sex acts on other people for the financial benefit of someone else. Not a role model for anyone.

I know that. I was responding (sarcastically) to someone who emphasised the word "training" and brought up Social Services.

That diminishes the experience of actually abused children, so I don't approve for the same reasons as I disapprove of rape jokes and DV jokes.

I felt the need to make it clear that "Pornstar in training" -which I wouldn't buy btw- is no more a reflection of real life than a superhero t-shirt.

Yes but that;s just bollocks, really, Extro. Because it could happen. Whereas becoming Superman couldn't.

Not as bad as this one from eBay.

www.ebay.co.uk/itm/lmfao-sexy-and-i-know-it-party-rock-gym-BABY-VEST-BOY-GIRL-BODYSUIT-COMICAL-/261056816139?pt=Baby_Clothing&var&hash=item3cc832e40b&_uhb=1#ht_481wt_832

sorry
www.ebay.co.uk/itm/lmfao-sexy-and-i-know-it-party-rock-gym-BABY-VEST-BOY-GIRL-BODYSUIT-COMICAL-/261056816139?pt=Baby_Clothing&var&hash=item3cc832e40b&_uhb=1#ht_481wt_832

The thing is Extro it is a reflection on real life.

Some children are sexually abused; some children are pimped out by their parents; some parents think it's funny to expose their children to age-inappropriate activities and watch their reaction; and some parents think it's funny to make a joke amongst their peers at their young child's expense.

No child has ever become Superman.

Apart from Kal-El.

But he's not really real.

When I was growing I had the misfortune to meet a number of adults, male and female, including a guide leader, who found it really fucking amusing to put children into oddly sexual situations and watch. So I really get what FolkGirl is saying.

I'm anti-paedophile as much as anyone. I just think moaning about t-shirts does NOT help abused children and once someone brings up social services that trivialises cases where social services really do need to intervene.

I'm more concerned about sexualisation issues with pre-teens 8-12 than what shirt a two year old is wearing, because sexual abuse is far more prevalent in the latter age group, and sexualisation will change their self-perception in a way it probably won't in a much younger child so encouraging them to risky behaviour or positive responses to abusers.

Anti-paedophile ! Have you met many pro paedophiles ? Apart from paedophiles?

Extro do you honestly see no problem with labelling a two year old as 'I'm just a girl looking for my man' - leaving aside any sexualisation issues?

Of course we're all concerned about the sexualisation of 8-12 year olds.

But it is the normalisation of sexualised attitudes towards children in general that means that by the time they are 8, some adults are already seeing children as sexualised beings.

But then, I agree with Doctrine. Leaving aside any argument of sexualisation, I'd have thought that most parents would have greater aspirations for their young daughters than finding them a man.

I think that approval of this kind of message on clothing shows a distinct lack of understanding of the power of these sorts of messages and language in general.

No, I haven't met many "pro-paedophiles" , got into a discussion last year with a man who said it was only our culture's reaction to sex between children and adults that made the children feel like victims, that it was a remnant of the traditional religious idea that sex should be associated with reproduction that makes us balk at sex where one partner is too young to reproduce, and we should instead recognise that it's "normal" and reduce the age of consent to 4 -yes, that's four years old (when he said a child is capable of saying "yes" or "no" to sex and understanding what it means.) He denied being a paedophile himself and then launched into a defence of incest and necrophilia saying that if he didn't fancy family members or dead bodies himself but still supported legalising it for those who do, there's no reason you have to be a paedophile to support massively lowering the age of consent.

And the odd member of the post-modernist/pretentious academic set who believes in pro-paedophilia because Foucault, Derrida and many of the early ('70s and before) gay rights activists did. They say that "children's liberation" was unfairly removed from the liberal challenge to conservative social norms out of political expediency because it was so abhorrent to the majority that it would jeopardise the gay and women's rights movements to come out in favour of paedophiles. The largest American gay rights coalition dropped NAMBLA (a pro-"man/boy love" group) and a similar body from its ranks in 1994, at a time of strong anti-gay backlash in the US. They see this as evidence for their view.

I was making the point I was "as anti paedophile as anyone" just to avoid any misinterpretation of my belief that people were being too sensitive on certain matters of alleged sexualisation. I didn't believe people would think I was (pro-)paedo but that they may see me as indifferent to protecting children.

- and you believed his denial? And you still think it's too sensitive to sexualise children below the age of 8 when disgusting idiots like this are out there? Wow.

The thing is Extro I like Foucault as much as the next person (less so Derrida) but you are talking about philosophers and their musings here. And on a purely philosophical level one could argue in favour of lots of hideous crimes if it could be proved that in any incidence that the perpetrators enjoyment is greater than the victim's distress. But just because some people could argue it in a purely intellectual arena doesn't mean it can ever be justified in the real world!

It was also the 'done thing' in the time of the Ancient Greek philosopher's to have a 'young boy', but we don't know how the young boys actually felt about this.

Philosophers are important because they deconstruct, evaluate and challenge current thinking, ideas and preconceptions. It is the resulting 'not just accepting that things have to be done the way they currently are' that ultimately leads to progress in ideas/thinking. It's what they do. That doesn't necessarily mean they are right in what they say.

I know a psychologist who works with child survivors of sexual abuse. As part of her MA she saw photographs of the physical damage done to children of 4 years old. I don't think anyone would argue that those children had been liberated. And what 4 year old can consent to sex when most 4 year olds believe in Father Christmas because adults tell them he exists. They don't understand. They trust that adults will protect them. They don't understand how sex will make them feel. They don't have a clue.

I can't really comment on Foucault's attitude towards gay rights because I don't know anything about them. But if you apply a little Foucauldian discourse analysis to the messages contained within the tshirts discussed on this thread, it becomes very clear that there is a pervasive discourse of sexualisation of young girls (in a way we never see of young boys) and a following that understanding, there is a knowledge that girls will grow up to position themselves within that discourse - because once a discourse exists you can only position yourself in relation to it. You can't ignore it.

Which is why your earlier suggestion that we ignore sexualised ideas relating to young children and focus on the 8-12 pre-teen age group wouldn't work because by that age, the children have already grown up within that discourse. And it's not so much about how the girls' perceive themselves, but also how they are 'understood to be' by society. And the damage is already done.

Yy FolkGirl.

I agree that looking at this in terms of discourse analysis can be really useful, FolkGirl. Words do matter, they matter a lot. It's not just a bit of harmless fun.

I also agree with you regarding philosophers, but I think Extrospektiv wasn't saying she/he agrees with that perspective, just that it's what somebody else has argued.

Great post FolkGirl.

Children can be, and are, raped and abused from babyhood: there are recorded incidents of toddlers treated for STDs.

Why should you think the younger children matter less?

Thanks.

I know Golden I was addressing the ideas in Extro's post rather than challenging Extro personally. Hope s/he realises that

FolkGirl- I don't see why you needed to bring up someone seeing photographs of abused children to counter those ideas. I know they're wrong! The only reason I mentioned them is that people asked me if I knew anyone who was pro-paedo and not a paedo themselves. Did I believe their denial? I am unsure. I think people like Richard Farson prove that you can support sex between adults and pre-pubescent children and not desire it yourself. Peter Singer supports killing newborns and the disabled as part of a hardcore utilitarianism, but I don't think he necessarily wants to murder himself just because he supports an abhorrent and socially taboo idea.

Oh and about Derrida and Foucault. They did NOT just advocate hypothetically based on a utilitarian calculus, musing on alternate worlds and how change just might happen, sitting in an ivory tower, and then condemn actual concrete paedophilia in the real world. They were the two lead signatories on a letter to the French Government calling to release three of their middle aged friends who had sex with 11 and 12 year old girls and got locked up for child abuse. The letter mentioned abolishing the age of consent entirely. They actually petitioned to legalise paedophilia, and supported their actively abusing paedophile close friends, within the very real society they were part of. So nice try, but they were absolutely pro paedophilia, not just "hypothetically". In the same way I'm absolutely anti paedophilia, not "well hypothetically it might be better if adults didn't rape children, but this is reality, let it go".

And I don't think younger children matter less; I know children can be raped from babyhood.(There has been medical evidence of that for 40 years now- before then doctors claimed the likes of syphilis were picked up in other ways in babies and toddlers, because they thought it impossible to penetrate them.) I knew of one particular multiple-generational familial ring where the third generation of children were groomed for sexual abuse from a few months old, then forced to simulate sex with their siblings and cousins and raped by their adult family members from the age of two. I have heard, like most people of Vanessa George and what she did- to one and two year olds. I read a newspaper report on a case in Gloucester where a father was jailed for 16 years along with another man after they both raped his daughter repeatedly; the first videos police found showing abuse were when she was 14 months old. Would any of those abusers have been stopped from doing what they did to the smallest children just because they weren't able to get hold of a T-shirt with "porn star" on it?

If a real child abuser wanted to sexualise a tiny child they would have far worse tricks up their sick sleeve than a T-shirt. That's why I thought it was oversensitive. Not to complain about it, but when someone brought up social services. Which, to me, implies that they believe the person who buys the shirt is taking "in training" literally and they are actually grooming them to be used in indecent images, rather than just someone with bad taste.

I am concerned about protecting all children, young people and adults from sexual violence. Just saying that one group is more likely to be abused and also to be aware of sexual messaging, unlike pre-schoolers, as well as closer to being genuinely sexually developed and so more vulnerable to this particular form of sexualisation shouldn't get such a negative response.

I think the t-shirt belittles the young victims who have gone through horrible abuse.

I think it probably taps into and reinforces the same culture that allowed Rochdale social workers and police to classify in their minds young sexual abuse and rape victims as slags and prostitues, as 'consenting', and as being party to the most awful situations.

That's what I think.

I didn't know that about Derrida and Foucault.

I have looked at some of Peter Singer's stuff and the first thing that struck me was his ignorance of the historical record upon which he bases many of his main premises.

Oh, and I have had two anti-God fanatics this week come out with a line about religion being like a penis: it's fine to have one, don't stick it in people's faces in public, and don't shove it down children's throats. I told both of them (males, surprise surprise) that they were trivialising rape and child sexual abuse in the name of their hatred of religion, and neither would own up to it being inappropriate. One at least apologised for offending me.

So I am very much in favour of not belittling survivors, Line. TBH I should never have got involved in this thread, because it's only led to me having to defend myself against charges of not holding a strong enough line on child sex abuse.

Is suggesting social services investigate because of a bad taste t-shirt, when the poster knows nothing about who has bought those shirts and if there any concerns that justify an assessment or child protection procedure with those families, not belittling child protection and social services? Like when I've heard jokes on TV with preteenagers saying to their mum "if you don't buy me the new trainers I want, I'm calling Childline" or similar, I find to belittle those who really need ChildLine because they are being harmed.

I certainly don't like the shirt- I believe it to be misogynistic which is always a good enough reason to oppose something- but to say it actually encourages/supports child abuse in particular is going too far.