What's appropriate?

Evidently, the overwhelming number of sexual images offered to children before they are even teenagers has severely impacted their ability to process what intimacy is really about. (Estimates Even Newsweek is in on this shocker as it reviews a book by Kevin Scott making the claim that pornography has successfully taken over the wider culture.

All it takes is one look at MySpace photos of teens to see examples—if they aren't imitating porn they've actually seen, they're imitating the porn-inspired images and poses they've absorbed elsewhere. Latex, corsets and stripper heels, once the fashion of porn stars, have made their way into middle and high school. An ad for Axe shower gel, marketed to teen boys, uses the slogan "How Dirty Boys Get Clean," while Burton, the snowboard company, partnered with Playboy earlier this year on a new line of "Love" boards—complete with voluptuous cheeks smack dab in the middle of each. The boards' online description reads: "I enjoy laps through the park; long, hard grinds on my meaty Park Edges followed by a good, hot waxing." One of the most popular kids' videogames, Guitar Hero, features animated rock stars that stand on a stage with a neon stripper gyrating on a pole behind them. Strippers have become cool—unremarkable even.               

In July, a Florida defense attorney argued in an obscenity trial that porn had become so commonplace—evidenced by the fact that a Google search for "orgy" is twice as common as one for "apple pie"—that his client, a porn-site operator charged with racketeering and prostitution, could not be considered as behaving outside the societal norm. (The obscenity charges were dropped, though the defendant was found guilty of money laundering.) "All you have to do is live here on a daily basis, and you pick this stuff up through every medium," says Sarracino, who teaches at Pennsylvania's Elizabethtown College. "But it's been so absorbed that it has almost ceased to exist as something separate from the culture."

Even Camille Paglia warned against this years ago in her defense of depravity. Roughly, she said that you will always have debauchery but it has to stay on the outskirts of mainstream culture. Once decadence becomes a centerpiece of society, all is lost. Funny, most of the feminists are stone silent about the objectification of women. Seems to be a perverse power trip for many of them.

NOTE: do not watch the accompanying film on Newsweek page with kids teenagers anyone looking over your shoulder. Not without screening it first.

Comments

[Charlotte]

I am so glad you posted this. I have been arguing this position for quite some time. My current "torch" concerns Hannah Montana -I believe with all my heart that she, too, represents pornography. I JUST saw an ad for a Hannah Montana product in either a Target or Kmart circular this past week...she is wearing 4 inch wedge heels! THIS is what we're telling 7 and 8 years olds is OK? In August, I wrote an essay on my blog about Hannah Montana that goes into more detail on how she is the beginning of pornographic consciousness for little girls. Sadly, as your entry points out, our society is too immersed in porn to even see this reality. As Kevin Scott said, it's all become "unremarkable."

[Kelly]

When will it end? My 10 year old daughter likes the Jonas Brothers. I read an article about them. The article stated that the brothers wear purity rings and are saving themselves for marriage. I was impressed. Yesterday as my daughter an I were walking through a store we caught a glimpse of a Jonas Brothers poster. One brother was pulling at his white tight t-shirt as if he was about to rip it off. My daughters words were, "That's a little creepy." So now the Jonas Brothers are off the appropriate list.

[Enbrethiliel]

+JMJ+

The only thing worse than Disney's fare is Nickelodeon's. =(

I was shocked when I watched a few minutes with my little brothers. The kids on screen were as young as seven or eight years old and were already talking about which of their classmates they'd like to kiss and which ones they wouldn't lock lips with for the world. Good grief! Whatever happened to solving mysteries, building club houses, and other innocent pursuits?