The Horror of Katseye

[FanOfGailDines]

If you haven't come across Katseye and this post means you see one of their videos I apologise. The songs are ear worms the videos are sex shows.

They are young girls themselves that have been groomed into this industry. They are then, in turn, grooming vast numbers of children. It is a trail of bread crumbs to Only Fans and the like.

Their videos also present drug taking as sexy and cool and have trans content that is kind of an extension of all the dressing up as sex objects.

They are wildly commercial and have many partnerships with companies that sell children's products: TicTac, Mattel, Lush, Gap.

I'll stop now but I could write a book on all the wrongness of Katseye. My daughter's friend went to the concert in Dublin and was thinking that she would be surrounded by teenagers but found that actually there were loads of children in the 3Arena, some as young as six.

You can watch Hootie Fruttie or Pinky Up or Animal or Gnarly YouTube.

This is the music and dance that is forming the idea of what it means to be girl today.

I know! I took my girl out of a dance class when she was six because their show to the parents (which was being videoed by many) was to several sexy songs such as the Backstreet Boys song Everybody with the line "Am I sexual?" and all the kids were shaking their booties and doing getting down on the dance floor moves which was all kinds of wrongness for six year olds. But what I find funny/strange is that is seems so obviously wrong and yet this opinion is seen as conservative and old-fashioned.

I have a 7 year old. She wouldn't have a faintest idea who Katseye are.

Not a band problem, a parenting problem.

Take it up with the parents.

Look, I hear you. I have a daughter too although she's an adult now so I can relate to being concerned about media sexualisation. But I suspect a lot of their imitation is like playing dress ups in mums shoes clothes & make up particularly if they are too young to have a full understanding of sexuality. Teenagers are renowned for experimenting with identities as a natural exploration to find out 'what fits' hence all the 'phases' they go thru. Ultimately all you can do is nurture their confidence in their own authenticity as a bulwark to potentially coercively harmful circumstances. If anything its insecurity that is the devil here so if anything I would be mindful of overly modelling fear & caution because it signals that we don't have the innate tools of negotiate thru challenging circumstances.

Yup, same. My 8 year old son had no idea about porn till a fellow student passed his porn riddled phone around at lunch.

You can run but you can't hide….

If only.

I have politely mentioned to the school that I don't think it is great that Katseye and the like have been played in the playground and that the children are dressing up as them for World Book Day, I have tried a bit of hinting here and there with the parents but really it is their choice.

I don't want to bad mouth the members of the Katseye group. I would just like to live in a world where parents and schools and family radio stations and kids magazines and toy companies were not all letting this pornography world into children's lives.

I am taking it up with parents -- I'm writing on Mumsnet!

Totally agree. It is pretty hard to get the balance right but I am trying!

Okay. The problem is not Katseye or whomever dressing or acting a certain way. The problem is marketing this product directly to and at children, young girls.

Only Fans creators, that's their affair - I only care if they're being coerced

An argument is that in a porn-saturated rape culture, girls and women are coerced and groomed by the culture. It isn't just one thing that pushes a girl into thinking its a good way to make money; its a long slow drip-drip-drip from birth, the relentless focus on how she looks, her physical features, her dress, how pretty she is, through to the music videos she is shown on Tiktok, youtube, insta, sex simulations onstage, including grown women wearing schoolgirl outfits, removing all bodyhair to look more childlike, etc.

Girls and women are raised to believe they are sex objects, and that their worth is in their sexual capital.

I would be mindful of overly modelling fear & caution because it signals that we don't have the innate tools of negotiate thru challenging circumstances.

Who says anything about fear? Caution is not the same thing. Caution is a fucking sensible thing to model, and any parent that doesn't model caution to a child is teaching them risky behaviour. That's neglectful.

A child needs to learn sensible risk assessment.

Always worth asking who is casting a mother's natural and sensible concern for her child's wellbeing as 'old fashioned'.

Who benefits from parents with lack of awareness, boundaries? Why would anyone feel the need to attack a parent for asking questions or making a decision on their child's safeguarding?

Ad hom attacks are always, always instructive.

a lot of their imitation is like playing dress ups in mums shoes clothes & make up particularly if they are too young to have a full understanding of sexuality

To a child it's all imitation.

The issue isn't children. The issue is the people encouraging children to copy sexualised dress/behaviour.

And not only parents. Women in general. 'Prudes', ' uptight', 'vanilla'.

Well what they were doing in the name of 'art' has now been accelerated and is being actively pitched towards ever younger children.

No, but it normalises hyper-sexualisation and shapes the background music to perceptions of young women and girls, and to their own perceptions of themselves.

It's a very old game. Trying to twist women's freedom to men's advantage.

Remember the vintage sex pest's response to the woman who says No:
"Huh! And you call yourself a liberated woman?"

The proper answer is "Yes- liberated from having to go to bed with every Tom, Dick and Harry to prove it!"

The lie is that letting it all hang out is "liberated" (or "bodily autonomy", or whatever the fashionable term is now) and that not doing that is fear, prudery, submitting to the patriarchy etc.

It's not. The liberation is being free to make the choice. Which includes being free to say no when saying yes is obviously a mug's game.

It's a bit of a dance to get these things right. Between being 'street wise' for example which is a great thing to teach kids and making them nervous with too much knowledge of the risks so that they never want to leave the house alone or have any independence and thinking that everyone is threatening. It is a bit of a dance and not that easy to get right.

Also worth noting that concern is cast as 'panic'.

And the instruction is 'chill'.

Always the same lines. 'calm down dear'.

It is, it's always hard. Children don't have good grasp or concept of risk, so we have to manage those for them, but we also have to teach them how to navigate the risks themselves.

To posters with the 'I turned out alright' comments - children with good boundaries, stable backgrounds, a good amount of luck, safety nets, absence of trauma, etc, may well 'turn out alright'. Whatever music videos, sexualised lyrics, etc, they are exposed to.

What the societal grooming does, apart from anything else, is prime those children (girls, let's face it) who are more vulnerable, who lack good back-up, etc etc. Setting them up for future abuses.

Predators and abusers groom indiscriminately, on a certain level. They see it as a mission to promulgate grooming narratives, to undermine women and girls as a way to control them, objectify them, to reduce them to their sexual assets, all day, every day, and all their lives.

This isn't even necessarily all that conscious, it's a direct result of a deep belief that women and girls are subservient and worthless outwith their value in gratifying men. That is what 'rape culture' is and that is the water we swim in.

All this sexualised content is pumped out, produced, disseminated, for the gratification of men, and also as a way to conveniently educate girls in how to continue that gratification and as a message to all women - this is what you are, this is your worth, this is how you must move through the world.

At least porn is understood to be for adults only.

The title of the thread - "The horror of katseye" - is overdramatic. Saying that they are forming the idea of what it means to be a girl today is overdramatic. This is as nonsensical as it was when it was any other female singer of the past - Don't dare to show your midriff or "shake your booty" or you'll be described as a hooker. I thought we'd moved on from telling women what to wear and how to move their bodies.

As I've already said, I don't think 6 year olds should be watching them or listening to them. My children couldn't tell you what Katseye is. I believe the core of this is a parenting issue. I don't think we can blame it on Katseye or Britney Spears or whoever else.

So yes, chill.

As we've said, the issue isnt the women dressing or acting in a certain way.

The issue is sexualised material being aimed at children. Yes some of it is parental responsibility, but some of it is also marketing.

Free to make the choice as long as it aligns with your opinion.

Don't worry. The majority agree with you so you can keep the porn-inspired raunchy dance moves for kids to absorb by osmosis.

My kids will be fine, as will yours but 'the horror' is millions of under 10s, many who won't be, who don't live in homes where they are well-minded who are learning how to move and fix their gaze and walk and talk in a way that is mimicking Katseye who are mimicking the pornography industry.

Katseye and products like theirs are a catalyst for a dissolution of childhood for many, many vulnerable children. It would be wonderful if we could remove the evidence of the sculpting of the porn industry in young peoples lives just by changing the 'overdramatic' language in my post but the evidence of the reports on porn that I have posted and the numbers of girls who are being exploited tell a different story.

It is a horror.

I didn't know about this so thanks to the op for the heads up.

The conversation about women having sexual freedom v women being put in the closet is eternal. My initial feeling is that this particular one isn't great for kids.

Interesting to see how many are likening to Brittany, given how that turned out... 😬

No. Just free to make the choice. But I'm entitled to think you're a mug if it looks like that to me.