I’m probably being a prude but…

[Username73638]

…what is the deal with teenage girls running around basically naked these days?

Last week, I was driving down the road near a secondary school at letting out time and I must have seen about 5 girls’ actual bum cheeks as they were leaving school. Like, we all rolled our skirts up fairly short at school, but this was actually full knickers and bums on display… one girl was wearing a thong so it was just her whole bum on show.

Then, I was on the beach today (we live near the sea) with my two primary school aged sons and there were a group of maybe 13-14 year old girls, they were very young, more than half of whom were in thong bikinis. They spent most of the time on the beach doing a photoshoot, predominantly photos of them from behind looking out to sea, presumably for social media?!

I know teenagers have always been teenagers, but I’m pretty sure underage girls weren’t wearing thong bikinis on the beach when I was that age 😳

I could see other families on the beach felt uncomfortable with it too.

Do their parents know? Is this just how teenagers dress these days?

Funnily enough, no. 🙄🙄. I can read what the OP wrote.

They're bum cheeks, so what?

I think some re actually experimenting with their sexual powers. They may not have thought through how they feel about men who they don't find attractive looking at them that way however.

But for a lot, it's about following trends, and competing with other girls, and being attractive in an abstract way.

The problem is many really don't understand how these kinds of clothes are essentially designed to highlight their most sexually interesting parts to the male gaze. They don't have the experience, they have been protected as children and having the bodies that have secondary sexual characteristics is new to them, and for some their own sexual feelings are still in an immature stage - the crushes on androgynous teen boys you will never meet stage, for example. They really do not understand how teen boys sexuality is very in the moment and insistent and sometimes overwhelming for them. And they have zero understanding of adult male sexuality and somehow think that because they are teens, adult men won't notice them as women.

The people who should be protecting them from their naive youth are telling them their clothes have nothing to do with sex and that it's empowering to wear what they want and anyone who says otherwise is a pervert.

What do you think the purpose of wearing a thong is?

🙄🙄

They're only doing what teenagers have done since the beginning of time. Doing things they think make them look older & more attractive & pushing boundaries. Doing what your mum did isn't going ever be where the next era of teenagers stops is it! That's not pushing boundaries.

So you're saying how the girls dress should be determined by hormonal boys...

Yeah, not really my point 🙄😂

Well, thank god for small mercies.

Just because a fashion/trend/whatever isn't unisex doesn't mean anything. One piece swimming costumes with skirts aren't worn by boys/men either...

I've never really got why women wearing as little as possible is supposed to be empowering.

Sounds like a man's idea.

But... it's so weird, isn't it, that no boys are walking around with a string up their arse and their bumcheeks on display.
I can't think why that is.
Really, really odd.

Yeah!

I couldn't care less what people wear, but why's it not both sexes that are dressing like this?

I wore a thong at the beach age 15 in the early 00s. Sorry to offend. Teenage girls have always done this shit.

I wish I still had such a "firmness" so I could wear a thong again.

It bothers me too. Not so much the very short skirts, but the really tight short shorts made of thin fabric. You can see the outline of everything. I must be getting old because they’re basically knickers to my mind. My Mum used to get angry at me if I wore a top that didn’t cover my bum when wearing leggings.

Edited to clarify that I do think they should be able to wear whatever they want, but I also think it’s ok to not want to see almost naked people everywhere.

This is so illogical. You should have the confidence to show your own arse if it's just an arse. But you'd show it if it was a "pert, young" arse, ie aesthetically pleasing? Ie sexualisable? So you think these kids of thirteen, fourteen, should be showing their sexy arses? Okay.

Morally of course it is not a problem. In fact, in the world we live in, I think it could get them attention from men that they don't want and it isn't great parenting to allow it.

You can. Do what you want.

I never wore a bra before kids. My boobs were on the smaller side, I didn't need to, why would I? It was probably surprising to no-one that I had nipples? The shape of a nipple through clothing is hardly exposing yourself.

I used to wear very short mini dresses. So did hundreds of thousands of other girls and women.
I saw a TikTok the other day of a dad who walked into his daughter’s bedroom wearing the shortest or short jean shorts - it was absolutely hilarious and ridiculous.
He promised his daughter that if she wore her short-short jean shorts, he’d be right there beside her - wearing his.
I tend to think these girls are cute and that it’s a phase - they’ll be on to long dresses in 15 minutes without anyone badgering them into it.
And as far as the “sexualizing” of it - I’m intelligent enough to understand that it isn’t the clothing, it’s the messed up mental issues with the sexual assaulter..
I was 16 and bundled up in snow clothes when I was raped by the 55 yr perv who waa “a friend” of my parents.
It’s the perv not the style of dress. And that’s why pervs have flourished throughout history - regardless of what women happened to be wearing.
—a rape survivor

Probably because it draws the eye to the nipple? It's like putting neon lights saying "look at me!" 😆 You can actually buy fake nipples for this purpose, there's a SATC episode about this

YANBU. People are missing the point. at least for me - I worry about them.
having been a victim myself at age 15, I worry about them. Men are trash, and girls that age don’t know it yet.

I hope so, otherwise her comment is 🤢

That’s very odd behaviour to feel uncomfortable when the children are in a sport’s uniform. Adults who do gymnastics also wear leotards. Are you uncomfortable around people in bathing suits and shorts?

I'm a early 2000 baby, I remember wearing pants so low my ass crack would show. Drove my mom nuts but I say pictures of her in skirts so short she wouldn't be able to reach up. This isn't new

I agree it's sad, and it hasn't happened before. It was what the girl was going and the tiny part of the uniform, I thought something was going to be exposed. It's a pity the parent wasn't paying attention to notice

I agree with you completely. Lots of straight women seem to have no comprehension of this, and of how incredibly uncomfortable it is being around the unclothed/minimally clothed sexually attractive body parts of minors. Decent people don’t want to be feeling sexual feelings upon seeing, say, a fourteen-year-old girl in a thong bikini. But if the fourteen-year-old girl has a body that’s indistinguishable from that of an adult woman’s, there’s no “off switch” that flips and makes her body suddenly sexually repugnant.

Dressing like that for school is unacceptable, but the bikinis wouldn’t bother me. It’s just a swimming costume.

Fashion changes. But if you’re going to moan about girls now then also moan about the teenagers who were walking round half naked in the generations before this. Very common in the 60s to wear hot pants with your arse out and miniskirts aswell as the boys only wearing nothing but short shorts. You’re not a prude just old. People forget what they wore when they were young.

Maybe what's different is the disparity between the sexes in the West. I was delighted when I went to Brazil and saw women with thongs (and many with very hairy legs!) and the men with equally short and tight swimming trucks. Wouldn't happen here. The men aren't anywhere as attractive so that could have something to do with it too, but I'd say it was more because they're more open minded. The women in things were in all shapes and sizes too. It was a very interesting experience, and there is felt like it was just people enjoying the beach not trying to parade themselves

It’s same thing as a child wearing a bikini or swimsuit on the beach playing around and the boys wearing shorts. I would be questioning why this makes some people feel uncomfortable, especially the dads.

Well maybe because they're not doing the splits (not really the splits, but pulling their thighs apart) and their vulva is coming out? Sorry to be crude, but that was the situation and you seem quite clueless. The child was about 10 or 11.