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

Here is the thing it is a problem to us because we see a 14 year old girl in a swimsuit as sexual. It is a problem to us because pedophiles and porn sites like to look at young or young-ish girls in swimsuits. It is our problem because we worry about rape and assault on our children........

However it is not their fault girls should be allowed to wear the swimsuit post the pictures and do what ever the hell they like without fear of ridicule, without fear of rape, without fear of peodophiles or pornographers what they are doing is not encouraging this it is not leading anyone in or doing any harm. Saying otherwise is apologising for the abuse and rape and general sexualising of our children and women in general. Stop the slut shaming, stop the victim blaming and help boys and men understand that this is not how it should be. I say this as the mother of a young DS who I will try to bring up with proper values and who I hope will never judge or hurt any woman or treat them as different.

YABU

Ah, I see. I think this is what most people are getting at but won't actually say - that girls who dress this way provoke men to behave like sexual predators.

That exactly. Yes people/teens should be able to wear what they like without being drooled over, touched or sexually abused but sadly we live in a world where men can't alway control themselves. It's all good and well saying 'let her wear what she likes' but when your daughter returns home to tell you some one has sexually abused them, what are you going to do? No man has a right to touch any girl or woman but sadly it happens .

Mountainviewloo that's exactly how I feel about my 8yo - that she's dressing in crop tops utterly unaware that they sexualise.

At 8, I could put my foot down - though I've chosen not to. Partly because it's hard to put your foot down at 14. I think that's realistic not defeatist, re 14.

So I'd rather let her wear them, and talk to her.

I don't want to say "cover yourself up, you're grounded".

I want to say "how do think people will respond to your clothes? Do you care? What danger could there be? How would you handle it? What do you think we should do as a society, and as individuals?"

Of course at 14 she might stomp out "it's just a top mum, does everything in this house have to trigger one of your DISCUSSIONS?"

'That exactly. Yes people/teens should be able to wear what they like without being drooled over, touched or sexually abused but sadly we live in a world where men can't alway control themselves. It's all good and well saying 'let her wear what she likes' but when your daughter returns home to tell you some one has sexually abused them, what are you going to do? No man has a right to touch any girl or woman but sadly it happens sad'

CHRIST. Are you serious??? Do you seriously think that men attack web because women are dressed a certain way and men can't control themselves??? Really??? Really????

'...men can't alway control themselves.'

Of course men can control themselves from sexually assaulting children.

lovemusic33 - are you suggesting that if my "daughter returns home to tell me someone has sexually abused them" that what I should do is suggest that "girls who dress this way provoke men to behave like sexual predators "?

Attack women

Men are 100% responsible for their own actions, whether a woman is naked or wearing a full length dress with headscarf.

It is possible to believe that but also believe that some of the clothes geared towards young girls are troubling.

I do not want any daughters of mine to grow up thinking being sexy is anything they should aspire to, like it means something.

That's what I don't like.

sadly we live in a world where men can't alway control themselves

Of course they can. They just choose not to.

There was a thread a few months ago about a company who made heels and stockings for babies and everyone was 'outraged'. Yet when teens and girls dress like this people are mellow about it.

Heels and stockings for babies are ridiculous and impractical.

We didn't have these fashions 30 years ago when I was 14.

Newsflash: we still got sexually abused, assaulted, raped.

A crop top wouldn't have made my much older cousin "not control himself" and finger me. I wore the dowdy unfashionable clothes - some hand me downs from my brother, for gods sake. What made him do it, was partly my emotional distance from my parents, my desperation for attention. But mostly the reason he got away with it was because I was 12 and flooded with hormones and excited at being fancied. By a 24 year old.

Having utterly unsexual clothes did not stop me being sexually abused. What might have done, is some open discussion about predatory older men. Maybe, who knows?

I want my 8yo to become a 14yo who if she wears a crop top and a man tells her she looks hot, will give it some and think he's a fucking pervert. And tell him to fuck off.

Ellisandra

Where I live, there, are very few girls of around 11 yrs old, who go about wearing crop tops. At 8, I don't think there is a problem wearing a crop top. The issue is more at 11/12 when a girl's body has developed or is developing and they become objects of attention with little understanding of how to ward men off. So I have chosen to not let my 9 yr old wear a crop top without something underneath unless it is long and in line with her leggings so only a small amount of flesh will show when she plays.

Are there significantly more men who are sexually interested in 11 year olds than 8 year olds?

Of course men can control themselves, though many unfortunately don't. Always the moral responsibility lies on the perpetrator, but it's pragmatic to try to avoid that situation in the first instance... that's women's eternal dilemma since year dot... compromising between our freedoms to go out and do whatever we want to do in the world, and our safety.

My policy is not to dress either to attract the male gaze or to avoid the male gaze. The deeper issue here is why do young girls/women feel the pressure to look hypersexualised, that's what we need to be tackling, not slut shaming women at an individual level.

MummyofLittleDragon I don't disagree with your choice - and I know that my view with the experience of an 8yo only will change when I have 3 more years of parenting and experience of an 11yo

But in my opinion, the thing in your post that makes your daughter (all our children) vulnerable is your point about not knowing how to ward men off.

I don't think that long too is going to protect your daughter nearly as much as frank discussions about danger and how we can ward it off.

Like, if a man tells your 11yo that her top is pretty (long or cropped!) that this is not a good thing, and to talk to you.

I recently had a hard time from FIL because he told my daughter to keep a very innocuous secret. A silly swear word in a song. He thinks I'm crazy, but I was very insistent that he never tells her to keep a secret from me, and why. It made him uncomfortable. I don't give a fuck. My 8yo and I have role played being asked to keep a secret. We've talked about what if you're told you won't be believed, you'll be in trouble (the boy that asked to see your boobies asked you in the park, but I told you not to go to the park...)

I think a lack of knowledge and confidence makes a child far more vulnerable than an item of clothing.

In the case above with the likes on Insta, I'd be sitting the girl down and looking at who had liked, and explaining why it concerned me. I hope my daughter doesn't post photos that way at all. But if she does and an older man likes them, I want her alarm bells to sound.

Generally, the majority of women are raped in casual clothing. Perpetrator interviews show that they choose victims for vulnerablity rather than for their clothing.

But there's a distinction between actual sexual attacks and unwanted sexual attention and harassment. While I've been hassled in jeans and a t-shirt as much as anything, if I dress overtly sexily I'm more likely to get hassle from stupid men. Shouldn't be the case but it is ime.

The issue for me of 14 yr old dressed in a hypersexualised way is not that it will impact their likelihood of rape or sexual assault - I don't think makes any difference - but that ime it does incur sexual attention from men that is hard to handle.

Where does this nonsense that clothes cause sexual assault come from??? Clothes don't cause anything THEY'RE CLOTHES FFS!! The thing that caused sexual assault is the person carrying out the assault. The idea that women can prevent assault by covering up is so idiotic I can't believe functioning adults actually think it. Do you honestly believe a rapist will think 'oh her skirt's a bit longer than that other girl's skirt, I won't rape her' Come the fuck on!!!

If she's 'womanly' then they're not pedophiles.

Mountainviewloo said
I do not want any daughters of mine to grow up thinking being sexy is anything they should aspire to, like it means something

That's what I don't like
I agree with this.

It seems that we can't say that attractive young people dressed scantily are sexually arousing.

'Men often judge teens age on how sexualised they look and that's the problem. So if a girl with developed breasts, wearing a mini and makeup they may assume she's 16 and not realise she's 12.'

So what if he thinks she's 16? Does thinking she's 16 allow him to harass and assault her?

Interesting about leggings, too. Not meant to individually take a pop at you!

My crop top wearing 8yo wears shorts or jeans, but for dance I've seen her put the leggings and crop top together.

She has no bust, and still has a child's slightly sticky out tummy. Waist up - she's pre-pubescent, a child.

The leggings though? She's going to be all hips like her mum. She has slim legs and a perfect bottom (in that, it looks like a mini version of a bikini model). She's just developing a waist from behind (from the front, that little kids belly hides it!)

She looks far more "sexual" in the leggings half of her body than the crop top.

So we can throw leggings into the sexualisation pile I think - don't see boys clothes cut like a second skin.

This is why I don't think it's worth stopping the crop tops but allowing the leggings. It's why (sorry, broken record!) for me it's all about knowledge, confidence, street smarts, femininism.

MissBabbs, do you find 14 year old boys in swimming trunks sexually arousing?

Ellisandra, is a swimsuit also a problem?

My policy is not to dress either to attract the male gaze or to avoid the male gaze. The deeper issue here is why do young girls/women feel the pressure to look hypersexualised, that's what we need to be tackling, not slut shaming women at an individual level.

Massive pressure to look hypersexualised, I understand why girls do it. It's very very hard to counteract.