Do we live in a "paedophile" culture? I think so.

[BlytheSpiritsSpirit]

I came across this old article on Feminist Current:

You’ve heard of rape culture, but have you heard of pedophile culture?

It's really made me stop and think; children are hyper-sexualised in our culture, aren't they? A recent issue my own DD brought up was the way Millie Bobby Brown from Stranger Things has been sexualised as she's grown (example here) and her co-star Finn Wolfhard (example here)

Why do people feel it's ok to sexualise children like this? What about the beauty pagents for 3 year olds, the drag queen competitions for pre-teens, or remember the internet countdown for when the Olsen twins turned 18? (that was a while ago, so clearly this isn't a new phenomenon)

The more I think about it, the more disturbed I get. I think we do live in a paedophile culture, or at least a culture where the hyper-sexualisation of children is completely normalised. AIBU?

I don't understand however how it's a pedo culture with some people young girls wearing whatever without the actual perverted person leering at them?
Because people with the power to influence have no issue promoting particular agendas that say sexy clothing for pre teen and teen girls is "empowering" Vs letting them be children, the ideas of what it is to be a girl and a woman are being redrawn to mean sexy/cute/attractive to men/nice and coy and not too keen but still up for it. It's all a very narrow idea of femininity designed to socialise the girls of today into the women of tomorrow.

We have to ask ourselves what's gone wrong when mothers and grown ass women are complicit in this agenda that they attack and dismiss other women who dare to raise questions about the sexualisation of children.

There was a thread ages ago on here where someone expressed shock that one girl at their child's bowling birthday party came dressed as an adult on the pull in a nightclub. There was a substantial number of posters who decided the OP was out of order because they're just clothes and why shouldn't the little girl get to look pretty for a party.

I started off being annoyed at this post. Especially the quip about toddlers in bikinis. There is nothing sexual about a toddler in a bikini. And actually I think everyone should be able to wear a bikini. I did when I was 16 so I could get a tan but it covered everything, I wasn’t wearing it to be sexy I was wearing it because I was on holiday. The problem becomes when you try to buy a 13 year old a bikini and the only think available is a crocheted string bikini or something.

In general I agree we live in an over sexualised society especially when it comes to women and girls. I hate that it’s difficult to get shorts for tweens and that they want to wear makeup when they don’t need to. However I would also have been really P’d off in my teens and 20s if anyone said that to me and I loved my hot pants. I do sometimes think that making the point that girls in fashionable clothes are sexualised sometimes is a bit victim blamey and I don’t like that either. So I am torn sorry

In terms of pedophile society I actually disagree. I think pedophiles like the innocent and their would be pedophiles whatever. If it was just due to the over sexualisation of girls there would not be as many boys sexually abused and there are a lot of those too unfortunately.

It’s all very sad.

I'd just like to pull a quote from the "Teenage Girls Aren't Jailbait" article:

"Legally, underage girls are children, and cannot consent to sex.
But to the man looking for a younger partner who will tolerate his lack of maturity and poor behaviour, teenage girls have bodies that have developed the sexual characteristics of women. I don’t want to get into a paedophilia vs. ephebophilia debate: these are clinical terms that are used in everyday parlance with sometimes distorted meanings. No matter what condition or paraphilias an offender may have, the important fact is that they have had sex with a child, and that is illegal and wrong."

I think this is important to point out - either way, it's just wrong.

I do feel judgy when I see young 10, 11 12 year old in really short shorts however.

I assume you mean shorts with their bum hanging out. Don’t judge the children. They have no idea that what they are wearing is sexualised. They are playing at being adults and deffo not wanting to have a sexual encounter. They don’t link the two. Their caregivers aren’t protecting them in a way, which is definitely necessary in society.

mindproject
Thank you for sharing that information. Chilling.

There not their (oops my bad)

I think it’s always been like this - people have just started noticing how weird it is.

When Mandy Smith started going out with Bill Wyman, he paid her school fees (she’d gone to a comprehensive in north London but he moved her to a school near his flat). I can’t imagine this ever happening now - apart from anything else, the school would be funny about receiving fees from some random older guy for one of their pupils.

geekone
It's not victim blamey. It's stepping back and reflecting on how people (including everyone on this thread) is on the receiving end of socialisation and stereotypes.

There's always going to be paedophiles and you're right that boys and girls are both victims. Beyond that I think there is another group of (mainly men) who want young girls in a sexual way and who have a narrow idea of what women should be and they are all too happy to have our girls socialised into behaving and looking a particular way

But isn't that someone's idea of what pretty is?

My dd is 12. Her mates wear teeny shorts, crop tops, bikini etc, often have nails done, or slight makeup.

My dd is still in very much child's clothing, luckily she's not self ware really of how she looks so I get away with longer dresses, and certainly more classic clothes.

But her mates mums are also that way inclined to dress...

I'm not so my perception is different. Or am I missing the point 😂.

What I do know is, we are naive and stupid as a society and every bloody which way we turn we are failing our most vulnerable.

The girl I referred to earlier being abused in a care home. All these victims should be suing the government, the abusers hauled over coals. Its unbelievable we remove dc from unsafe environment to shove them in and even more un safe environment.

It's a crisis we need urgent measures to make sure care homes ate safe for children who have already had the worse start in life

Mummy of course it's the dp I judge!! But that's their taste

There is a definite agenda to normalise paedophilia and sexualise children, and the lastest way they have found to do it is to stick a rainbow flag all over it, HASHTAG it #LGBTQIA+ and call it 'being true to yourself'.

See 'drag kids' such as Desmond is Amazing (who at 11 years old had money thrown at him in an adult gay night club as he danced on stage in the middle of the night, and is also on video simulating snorting ketamine with an adult drag queen beside him or 'Lactatia' (who, at 9, has been photographed posing next to a naked adult male drag queen), or the 'Pups at Pride' from a few weeks ago.

Won't share the Lactatia photo but here is a photo of adult men indulging in their 'pup' fetish at a Pride festival whilst hanging out with kids.

Anyone who objects to anyone of this is a 'hater and a bigot'.

Clever really, innit.

But isn't that someone's idea of what pretty is?
It is in part. But isn't it interesting that the mums who support the more grown up styles, beautification approach, lots of skin etc are also women who sign up to the same narrow idea of what it is to pretty and attractive (conveniently the same image pushed by advertising, instgram, the media, all male dominated industries that make a lot of money off the back of an ideal woman).

From a young age are those girls not being taught that to be pretty and desirably means to look a certain way? Are they not likely to end up with hangups or feel bad about not living up to a particular standard? The whole machinery is designed to keep women in their place and have them moulding the next generation of compliant eye candy.

Of course women are complicit in the perpetuation of the patriarchy. It's an observable fact.

@LolaSmiles no I agree with you. I just find it difficult to separate “she was raped because she was wearing a short skirt” and saying that teens shouldn’t wear hot pants because it’s over sexualisation. I want neither of those things to be true but in all honesty the society that puts out your girls in these positions and outfits is the same society that blames womens clothes for rape. Gah’ it all irritates me.

I also think you are right there are two different types of pedophile the one that abuses the very young and “innocent” and the other which is almost socially acceptable in this patriarchal society where older men want 15-18 year olds as “partners” both are vial and both groom in almost the same way.

@BlytheSpiritsSpirit yes we have all been affected and tainted.

And let’s face it male or female the more attractive you are the easier it is for you to get on in life. If you are a beautiful, thin and intelligent woman then you have a better chance in life and that’s the patriarchy.

I just found a twitter thread that shows "MAPs" at Pride

twitter.com/hogotheforsaken/status/1158414196469579777

What the hell is puppy fetishism!

True lola but then again some things do look more pretty. And there are reasons for it linked to attraction that is in nature.

I'm personally thankful my dd is not self aware yet and whilst mum occasionally has hair done and I've got nothing agaisnt nail varnish I just don't bother with it, I wear makeup.. But plain clothes.

I don't find Katie price, posh spice attractive at all in the the least.

But Vivien leigh is stunning she is attractive, how is male dominated society telling me that?

geekone
I see them totally differently.

1. "She was raped because she was wearing a short skirt" places the responsibility for a horrible violent crime on the woman and not the perpetrator.

1. It's not that teens should never wear short shorts. There's a massive difference between denim hot pants with converse and a band t shirt and arse showing short shorts as part of a wider fake tan, low cut top sexy style outft. It's about promoting more criticality about the agendas that are out there. E.g."Perhaps we should think twice about promoting a narrow view of female attractiveness on girls who aren't old enough to critically engage with the power structures that are socialising them". The onus there is on the adults making appropriate choices and giving appropriate gudiance because they should know better (even if some right on types will claim bralet tops with pads in are empowering for 13 year olds)

I'm on the fence about the whole 'MAP' thing.

I don't think it should be associated with Pride in any way. I don't think it should be something to be 'proud' of.

However, I do believe (based on research) that genuine pedophiles can't help who they are attracted to. Research also shows that one of the biggest risk factors for them going on to be abusers is not having a stable life/network so they feel that children are the only ones they can be themselves with.

I would have to dig the numbers out but from memory the majority of child sexual abuse is actually not carried out by people who would be classified as pedophiles in that often they're attracted to adult women and it's more of a case of power/feeling entitled to have sex with anyone.

I'm not saying any of this is palatable - but it's what the research shows.

I don't think wearing a bikini is sexual. As a child I had a bikini and it wasn't in the least bit sexy. And I'm 52 now so it's not a new thing.

Dd just turned 16. In the last month she's had a 30 year old man say out of order stuff to her in front of another adult escorting her out of a venue and had two blokes yell and gesture to her when she was sat outside. She has shorts which show a small amount of bottom and her dad has told me she's not to wear them out anymore. I tell her to pull them down and she gets snappy and says it's fine. She's not wearing them to be sexy. She's wearing them as they are comfy. She feels she should be able to wear what she wants and it's their problem if they look and see her bum . I'm bringing my sons up to respect woman. Who isn't?

Yeah, I wore a bikini when I was 5yo in 1970s. It was just something to wear at the beach.

AquaLung comes up on my play list a lot. I like the fact the song has compassion for someone who is a total creep.

What's changed is now there is no acknowledgement that such people are still human beings who could merit compassion. The fashion now is to purely villify. Folk love to find tangent topics (like this thread) to revel in villifying them.

I can remember the count down for page 3 girls to come of age 🤢. I’m not sure we’ve got worse, I would say that kind of thing isn’t acceptable now.

Padded bras for little girls doesn't help either.

No-one wears shorts that show their bum cheeks just because they are comfy! sunshine I see girls wearing them and they are all usually young girls with lovely figures, who know they have a nice bottom and are showing it off! It's a fashion! But it's a fashion based on a sexual part of the body- like wearing crop tops, mini skirts, low cut tops, backless dresses etc. It's a fashion designed to titilate the opposite sex- even if the wearer is is in denial- it is! We all like to look attractive- and often that's entwined with being sexually attractive- and that's fashionable too-otherwise we'd wear victorian style bathing suits and shorts to the knee and high necked tops!

The problem with little girls clothes is they ultimately emulate what adult women are wearing- so an 11 year old who wants to wear skimpy clothes does so because she wants be grown up- not because she wants to be sexually attractive to men. This has always happened- whatever is fashionable for women is what young girls want to wear- so until adults stop dressing as if they work in the sex industry then there is no hope for kids fashion!

I've never worn shorts that show my bum cheeks. I doubt any if my kids will either.