How do you explain smutty pictures of your children's favourite characters?

[Guyliner]

Dd is 8 and into superheroes. When she googles her favourite female characters she's often confronted with fan art from men way way old enough to know better. How do you explain the hyper sexualisation to your children when you see it to children or do you ignore it?

I've started saying it's from men who think women should look a certain way all the time but hope I'm not making it worse by being honest. She's not stupid and that there is a marked difference between the female and male character representation is obvious.

I once took her to a comic book store when she was 5 and the only 2 posters of Wonder Woman and Super Girl were of them engaged in sex acts.

Oh wiki says you're absolutely right! Im guessing she wasnt topless and on her knees in that either.

@horsewithnogender

I read your response then your name

The oh well, of course it's going to be pornified, why would you think otherwise attitude is so depressing.

Creepy men perving on comic book characters should be the wierd thing here, not the expectation that a female comic book character should be suitable for a child to enjoy.

Creepy men perving on comic book characters should be the wierd thing here, not the expectation that a female comic book character should be suitable for a child to enjoy.

You'd like to think wouldn't you? Especially if this was originally in a children's show. Who then said lets put her in an abusive relationship with the Joker?

That happened to me once, when I wanted to play my 8 year old son an Italian song on youtube. From the 70‘s: Samarcanda - a song about a soldier who tries to flee (personified) death and finds it hundreds of miles away, where he fled to (as his death was prededtined).

What can go wrong with such a song, right? Yeah wrong. Some genius peppered the song I clicked on (it looked like a fun picture, didn‘t Look closely ok?) with These awful pictures of mythical half naked Fantasy women. And my son loved it. and wanted to see it again, repeatedly. I resorted to making fun of the pictures, together with dear husband. ‚Oh Look, the ‚Artist‘ didn‘t even give her panties! She is riding a wolf in the snow, how silly is this to paint her like that, half naked....‘
My son started making fun of the pictures, too (silly artist, no woman would ever do that, wear that...). And the pictures lost their fascination.

Not saying this was the ‚right‘ approach. Maybe i‘ve Messed up my son‘s ‚taste’ forever and he secretly Longs for wolf lady now. Or he‘ll now start mocking actual historic paintings in art class. But I really don‘t know, how else I could have saved the situation.

There it is.

crikey deepwatersolo, I started watching that video thinking 'well, OK, she's a little under dressed but fine', and very swiftly got to WTF. I can just imagine my DS2 fixating on it. I will now delete the link from youtube!

deepwatersolo are you always going to wondering if he brings home a girlfriend who's wearing a fake fur coat?

I'm really sorry for laughing deepsolo but when he starts lurking around cosplay conventions.

Gosh is this how furries are made?

crikey deepwatersolo, I started watching that video thinking 'well, OK, she's a little under dressed but fine', and very swiftly got to WTF.

Right? First you think 'ah, fantasy' and then it becomes some kind of creepy airbrush nudity.

deepwatersolo are you always going to wondering if he brings home a girlfriend who's wearing a fake fur coat?

Omg, I can already see that.

Gosh is this how furries are made?

I am afraid, yes, this is what furries were up to before furries actually existed.

This will haunt me. No matter what interests my son is going to develop, you bet I will always be paranoid that this vid had something to do with it, haha.

It's a shame those images come up during an innocent search.

Have you tried googling "for kids" after everything? Might filter out some of the more pornographic ones? Hopefully!!!!

You don't leave your DC all be in a crowded public space filled with strangers.

It doesn't matter if it's virtual or real, you just don't do it. If you fear that when with friends they will be exposed, don't let them go unsupervised to those friends.

When with you, you minimise unsuitable exposure by using proper filters and only clicking on links which seem OK (and immediately navigating away from any more sophisticated imitators). Explain anything glimpsed as 'some silly person scribbled on it - don't know why, some people are strange - let's look for a better one'

And of course you can like and link and generally support sites you find safe.

But wishing for a unicorn isn't going to bring one into existence. Nor protect your DC - that's your job, until they are old enough to go into a crowd of adult strangers

deepwatersolo

OP I don't understand why you would take your daughter into a comic store and then be surprised that there was adult sexualised content there. Those shops are for teenagers and adults, mainly male, not five year old girls, and the comics aren't for small children.

Maybe you could encourage your DD to find some new types of heroines who aren't designed for a teenage or adult readership. How about Pippi Longstocking, she's a nine year old girl with superpowers.

Harley was created for Batman the Animated Series - a kid’s show. She wore a jester costume.

True - did you ever see the cartoon? Harley's character was Joker's abused girlfriend, the show dealt with her attempt to escape domestic violence interlaced with her incredibly unhinged psychopathic emotional perspective. Her creator even said that it was a really weird thing to do in a kids' cartoon (of course he's glad he did it because she has become a cash cow).

Here's the thing that I think most people just don't get... comics and cartoons were not developed for children but were developed for adults. Regardless of their visual appeal to children the concepts tend to be very adult in content.

DC Super Hero Girls is a terrible cartoon full of vapid and incompetent characters - failing driving tests, fighting over the last piece of cake, and fashion. I had my friend's daughter over who is 7yrs old who fawned over Harley Quinn in this cartoon (her parents told me it is her favorite show). We watched it together, afterwards I asked her what she likes so much about the show and Harley Quinn. Her response was dismal... "because she always gets away with doing bad stuff, it's cool".

Comic book stores are not for children and never have been. Comic-Con is not for children - it is highly sexualized around characters in comics. And why? Because comics are written for adults.

The majority of comics and cartoons distributed internationally are for adults. Take a look at Manga or Hentai - sold in comic book stores.

You can't believe what a giant company like DC or a production company says is appropriate for your child - they only care about profit. They don't consult with child development specialists to ensure that appropriate content is available for the appropriate age.

All the best to you and DD OP, I wish you luck as you attempt to navigate safeguarding her from inappropriate content.

I remember taking dd into forbidden planet and the first comic we saw was the walking dead
I looked at it and it had a fantasy scene of two people fucking in the entrails of a dead person.

Comics aren't for kids.

@deepwatersolo some of the images in the video are made by an artist called Luis Royo.

You obviously needed to know this.

What really depresses me about Harley (DD is a very superficial fan as in she likes the colours of the outfit and her hair) is when teen girl or young women say/post they wish they had a "love" story like hers and the Joker. I mean most classical love stories from Disney to Romeo and Juliet are fucked up but this seems like a new low of glamourised abuse and toxic relationships.

Stop the planet - yes I am aware of that, I was pointing out she was a children’s character before she was an adults character, which had been stated upthread.

I agree it’s incorrect to have an abused girlfriend in that context and I don’t think it was necessary to have a female sidekick for the Joker but at the time she was at least much less sexualised.

Comics have been around a long time and have almost exclusively been written by men. Many comic books that originally were written for kids became adult only entertainment as the readers grew up and became the next generation of writers. And some of those writers are massive arseholes. Of course kids still want to read comics so you end up with publishers wanting all the revenue which creates kids versions and adult versions, which of course become dominated by adult male sexual interests.

I’m sorry if I’m rambling it’s late.