to be shocked by teenage girls clothing lately

[fcek]

I have my DNiece age 14 on facebook. When she likes a friend's photo, it sometimes appears on my newsfeed (and DH's newsfeed)

DNiece is a sensible girl but like most kids she has everyone at school on her facebook.

So this photo she liked appeared on our facebook newsfeeds today and my DH is shocked and disgusted.

The friend of DNiece is 14. We've met her a few times. She looks older than she is, part due to her height and her development (she's very womanly already) and part due to her clothing being adult woman rather than a 14 year old.

But in this picture, its just awful what she is wearing. She's doing pretty much a kim kardashian bathroom selfie, with a kim kardashian style swimsuit. The ones that cover only half the boob and pushes up your tits. The kind you would see on a lads mag. It's just awful awful.

I thought to myself how can her parents let her dress like that, maybe they aren't on facebook, but low and behold her mother is and has liked and commented on that photo plus others.

Looking through DNiece's other friends (none of whom seem to have private facebook pages) there are quite a few others with very revealing photos.

There's guys with joints, alcohol, knives etc.

DNiece dresses appropriately when I see her, her pictures are all normal 14 year old pictures, but I am a bit concerned about who she is friends with but I won't say...not really my place.

Is this what teenage years are like now? I'm worried about my DD's next few year now.

I know I may get flamed for commenting on what someone wears though. Name changed so no one in RL recognises us

I have made a lot of points about the issue over the 14 pages and don't really want to have to copy them out again here as I think the arguments are just being taken ad absurdum and it's all getting a bit baity and weird for what should be an interesting discussion.

I am very happy to discuss any points you might like to raise in a pleasant manner but I cba with arguing. I'm not clear on what you mean by 'misinterpret sexual and sexualise'- to me, a child wearing clothes that are designed to deliberately emphasis breasts, show belly, legs and cleavage etc. are made that way because that is a 'sexy' way of dressing. Boobs and bums are sexual, as are a lot of the poses they take in photos- there's no shame in admitting that. As I have said, my primary concern is that young girls are so concerned about portraying themselves in a sexy way.

Okay, the starting point for me would be that most 14 year olds are sexual people. They're learning about their sexuality and about those they are attracted to. It's fine for them to dress in a way that makes them look attractive to other young people.

The girls who dress in a very figure hugging way as you describe are likely to grow up to be the kind of adults who dress in that way also. I assume they know adults that also dress that way. I don't wear that style of dress, but I know some women like that style. I assumed they first started to learn about how to put together that style as teenagers. I don't see a way around that learning process for that.

Within the social group who wear that kind of thing, they're used to seeing each other dressing like that all the time, so it is not as sexy to them as it is to people who don't dress like that. So I don't think boys within that social group see it as that provocative. It's just what girls in that social circle wear.

perper

Breasts are not sexual, they are designed to feed a child and otherwise sit on the chest as what they are, lumps of fat. Someone's stomach is sexual to you? Their legs? What do you find sexually appealing about legs?

I'm fascinated that you think girls of 14 don't dress to try and look good, for themselves not inherently for males. Teenagers follow fashion trends, they try and look like mini adults, they always have and always will.

The shape of their butt can be seen through jeans same as skirts, if they have large breasts they can't exactly hide them even in a long sleeved tshirt.

Do you also find children in bikinis sexual? Are 14 year olds allowed to show ankles or is that two much skin?

Hm maybe we should become like the middle east and start wearing burqas. Maybe that would eliminate the 10 percent of rapists who are strangers. Oh wait... muslim countries have the highest rape rate in the world.

Back to the drawing board!

You are missing the point between connotative meaning and denotative meaning. Not all clothes are the same, not all clothes are just fabric. Which is why different cultures, societies and even religions have also different ideas of what's appropriate regarding clothing and even the colour of that clothing. The issue here was whether the outfit was appropriate for a 14yo who had the pic on Facebook on public profile. No, I don't think it was and yes, I do think there are many other safety issues that derive from today's society's view that it's only fabric.
Night.

We actually don't know that it was on public profile. The OP and her DH would have been able to see it if it were set to friend of friends.

It is pretty normal to find chests and stomachs sexually attractive, Scones.

Jedimum1

"Not all clothes are just fabric" um?

Since you are interest in culture and societies and since the whole point of you being uncomfortable with revealing dress because you think that it causes sexual assault, read over the statistics I posted above about how rape actually happens and then consider societies like Saudi Arabia where modest dress does literally nothing for the rates of rape.

And then tell me how telling a fourteen year old not to dress in a certain way will prevent assault in any way.

SylviaPoe

Each to their own, some people find feet sexually attractive. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Which is why it is weird when older women are sexualising childrens stomachs and developing chests.

SylviaPoe I agree with pretty much everything you say there. My concern is more fundamental- I find it disappointing that at what is still a young age they have already picked up ideas about how they should dress to get the most attention/become most popular/fit in with a circle that they want to join.

I'm not saying we should wrap them up in cotton wool and keep them in pinafores forever (god forbid!), but I am really uncomfortable with the idea that a young girl feels the best way of going about her life is by dressing in that manner. It's not her fault- it is a product of so many variables all tying together, and I don't have a magic solution, but I know it is not something I would condone or encourage if it were my daughter.

britainteascones sorry- I don't have the energy to engage with such a ridiculous response, and I don't believe you believe it yourself.

Jedimum Good night!

SylviaPoe OP said so at 6:06pm. The profile was public, she had over 100 likes and judging by them the picture had been shared outside Facebook

perper

You can't assume to know what every 14 year old is thinking when they choose to wear certain clothes so you cannot assume why they do it or if it's influenced by a "circle they want to join" or just their own self expression.

Clothes are not a persons whole life so it is not "going about that life" she doesn't put on a body suit and therefore becomes someone who sleeps around and is pregnant by 16. It really is just clothes and you are extremely micro analysing this.

I think you are trying to dodge all of my perfectly valid points because you feel all 14 year olds should follow a dress code and you have no evidence to back up why clothing effects anything whatsoever.

Jedi mum, thanks. I didn't realise that. I don't think any 14 year old should have a public Facebook account.

Perper, your daughter won't be like that though. She'll probably be like you, because kids usually turn out pretty much like their parents.

Actually, britainteascones despite my best efforts to not rise to your comment, I can't let it stand the way it is.

Please follow the links below for some global statistics on rape:
www.nationmaster.com/country-info/stats/Crime/Rape-rate
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rape_statistics

Whilst I'm sure you understand some of the difficulties with recording and analysing rape rates, you'll see that actually Saudi is not anywhere near the top, and that actually the countries with the highest recorded rapes are predominantly Christian.

Please let's not bring xenophobia into the mix.

Perper, your daughter won't be like that though. She'll probably be like you, because kids usually turn out pretty much like their parents.

Quite possibly not (no guarantees!), but I am still concerned for those that do feel like that. I'm a teacher and I see it too much to ignore.

Britain I've never said the clothing caused anything. I said the blame is in the perpetrator, but knowing how this perpetrator thinks and what he reacts to, I am aware of what I'm wearing when I go out and consider things like who I'm with, will I be alone, do I know these people, how I'm planning to go back home, etc. You obviously haven't read my posts fully, as I first explained that in my own experience my clothing as teenager did put me at harm because some guys understood my clothing as sexual availability and crossed the line. They were to blame but in context I was singled out as available or "looking for it" because of the outfits. Knowing how the think, if I think I might encounter people like this, I don't just wear those kind of clothes naively.

Your argument on Saudi Arabia is just ridiculous. And in fact the underlining issue is the same here as there: patriarchal society which objectifies women as sexual objects or possessions. There you also have to deal with the laws, the reporting procedure, the male handler, the concept of honor and family (and revenge rape), rape in the marriage,... I haven't got the energy and this is not the place.

Night perper!

Perper

" It does not specify whether recorded means reported, brought to trial, or convicted. " and also these statistics are based on what is considered rape in each country as well. If you knew how hard it is to testify for rape in Saudi Arabia (and how the victim is often also punished aswell) you would understand why these statistics are inaccurate. You also have to consider what is considered rape too, in the UK marital rape is considered rape, so that contributes to the statistics, in Saudia Arabia however... you get the point.

Here's another source for example

Perper, wow at the stats! Quite disturbing some of the data. They don't include unreported crime, however, which is largely what happens in some Middle Eastern countries: www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2010/jan/29/dubai-rape-women-middle-east
Nothing to do with dress code or xenophobia, more to do with the fact that crime is unreported and probably the same culprits continue to do it because they are never stopped.

Britain, you've changed your point, from clothes that covered the most, to difficulty to report crimes...

Jedimum1

Talking about objectifying women is rich coming from someone who compared locking your house to protect your items from theft and a woman wearing conservative clothes to prevent rape.

Jedimum1

I haven't changed my point at all, someone questioned the example I used and I gave the appropriate response. It's not about "difficulty to report crimes" it's about difficulty to report rape based on victim blaming, I used Saudi Arabia as an example because they blame the victim for sex outside of marriage and you are also an example, because you somehow still think there is a correllation between how you dress and sexual assault.

Oh my... Not the same concept, objectifying as making her a product for consumption of the male gaze.
The comment was related to what you said about changing clothes was changing lifestyle and we shouldn't do that. My point was that we are doing that in many other aspects of our life, the list includes also included (not) taking pictures of children in school events. It was just another example of how we are changing lifestyles for own safety. This is pointless, I get the impression you skim-read and just highlight disconnected ideas from my posts to claim I am saying something else that serves your argument.

britainteascones That's sort of my point re: the difficultly of recording and analysing rape statistics (as I said as a proviso to those statistics). It's very difficult to obtain reliable stats, but I find it ridiculous to make an outright claim that 'saudi/muslim countries' have the highest rape rate in the world (as you have twice said). It has nothing to do with religion. A huge amount of rape goes on behind closed doors- we don't know how much, so we don't know which country has the highest actual rape. You are guessing when you state that it is Saudi Arabia, and I think it is dangerous to make claims like that based on guesswork.

(I fully accept that Saudi Arabia likely has an enormous problem with unreported/unrecorded rape- that is not quite my point here)

I'd also appreciate it if you don't dismiss my own experience as "I think there's a correlation". Whether you agree with it or not, is your own thing, but the fact is that I know there was a correlation in my own experiences. I wasn't to blame but my clothing was interpreted wrongly. Understanding this would have made my life better during secondary school. Understanding that clothing does have meaning. If you go to an interim pyjamas you will be judged because the clothing has meaning to the panel.

*interview

britainteascones If you'd used it as an example of somewhere with a strict dress code that also has a problem with recording rape statistics, fine. That's not what you said though... you made up an unsubstantiated fact which I couldn't let slide twice. Sorry